Heimskringla - Snorre Sturlason

The Olaf Sagas

Translated by Samuel Laing
Introduction by John Beveridge

432 Pages, ISBN unknown     
Everyman's Library 717 - 1915, reprinted 1930     


Dr. Fredrik Winkel Horn asserts with truth that "The crown of Icelandic historiography is Snorre Sturlason's Heimskringla, which towers above all other Icelandic histories like a splendid tree above low brushwood."
The first translation of the book into Enlish, by Dr. Samuel Laing, seventy years ago, has never been superseded. Scholars have rendered into English one or other of the Sagas of the Kings of Norway, but no one has attempted a translation of the complete book, probably because Laing, on the whole, did the work so well. It is quite true that William Morris and Professor Magnusson have issued a joint translation in four volumes, but that translation is for a special class. Laing's Heimskringla, for the ordinary reader, holds the field, and it is the source from which our knowledge of the early Norse kings is mainly drawn.
John Beveridge


(The text above comes from the foreword in the book)     

Contents

  • King Olaf Trygvesson
  • King Olaf the Saint





Heimskringla - Snorre Sturlason

The Norse King Sagas

Translated by Samuel Laing
Introduction and notes by John Beveridge

452 Pages, ISBN 978 0404 1460 78     
Everyman's Library 847 - 1930, Revised and reprinted 1951     


This is a companion volume to the Olaf Sagas already published in Everyman's Library (No.717). Here, among others, we have the sagas of Magnus the Good and his sons and of the great Harold Hardrada, that stern and redoubtable spectre who, in days gone by, used to appear to bad children as the ogre seven feet high that ground the bones of Englishmen for his bread. These tales, with their high heroic spirit, the battles and legendary mystery, can be read conjointly with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which, at many points, they illustrate and amplify.


(The text above comes from the inside flap of the book)     

Contents:

  • The Ynglinga Saga
  • Halfdan the Black
  • Harald the Fairhaired
  • Hakon the Good
  • The Sons of Eric
  • Earl Hakon
  • Magnus the Good
  • Harald the Stern
  • Olaf the Quiet
  • Magnus Barefoot
  • The Sons of Magnus
  • Magnus the Blind and Harald Gille
  • The Sons of Harald
  • Hakon the Broad-shouldered
  • Magnus Erlingson


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