Comic Sagas and Tales from Iceland

Icelandic literary culture was one of the richest and most important in the medieval world. Texts that were written in Iceland during this period include Njal's Saga Egil's Saga The Vinland Sagas as well as the Comic Sagas and Tales collected in this volume. Comic Sagas and Tales brings together the finest comic stories from medieval Iceland. With feuding families and moments of grotesque violence the sagas see such classic mythological figures as murdered fathers disguised beggars corrupt chieftains and avenging sons do battle with axes words and cunning. The tales meanwhile follow heroes and comical fools through dreams voyages and religious conversions in Iceland and beyond. Shaped by Iceland's oral culture and their conversion to Christianity these stories are works of ironic humour and stylistic innovation. In the introduction to these new translations Viðar Hreinsson examines how the stories satirised old-style sagas while exploiting their classic themes of quests and revenge. This edition also includes a map glossary index of characters suggested further reading and notes. Review This collection of strange and difficult-to-categorize pieces is comic not in the usual sense but rather as Viðar explains in his excellent introduction in the sense of reading counter to the Icelandic family sagas whose narratives he terms tragic. The stories here are edgy subversive and often grim little narratives in striking contrast to the humane wise and sometimes uplifting family sagas ―The Times Literary Supplement About the Author Viðar Hreinsson grew up on a farm in Northern Iceland and studied Icelandic and literary theory in Iceland and Copenhagen. He is an independent literary scholar at the Reykjavik Academy and has taught and lectured on various aspects of Icelandic literary and cultural history both in Iceland and abroad in Canada USA and Scandinavia. General Editor ofThe Complete Sagas of Icelanders I-V (1997) he has also authored an award-winning two-volume biography of Icelandic Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson (2002-3). More recently he has been an environmental activist written two additional biographies and served as director of the Reykjavík Academy. <p>Icelandic literary culture was one of the richest and most important in the medieval world. Texts that were written in Iceland during this period include<i> Njal's Saga</i>, <i>Egil's Saga</i>, <i>The Vinland Sagas</i>, as well as the <i>Comic Sagas and Tales</i> collected in this volume. <br><br><i>Comic Sagas and Tales</i> brings together the finest comic stories from medieval Iceland. With feuding families and moments of grotesque violence, the sagas see such classic mythological figures as murdered fathers, disguised beggars, corrupt chieftains and avenging sons do battle with axes, words and cunning. The tales, meanwhile, follow heroes and comical fools through dreams, voyages and religious conversions in Iceland and beyond. Shaped by Iceland's oral culture and their conversion to Christianity, these stories are works of ironic humour and stylistic innovation. <br><br>In the introduction to these new translations, Vi<b>ð</b>ar Hreinsson examines how the stories satirised old-style sagas while exploiting their classic themes of quests and revenge. This edition also includes a map, glossary, index of characters, suggested further reading and notes.</p>