Saga of the Jomsvikings - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0292776233 ISBN 13: 9780292776234

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 1989

Synopsis

In A.D. 986, Earl Hákon, ruler of most of Norway, won a triumphant victory over an invading fleet of Danes in the great naval battle of Hjórunga Bay. Sailing under his banner were no fewer than five Icelandic skalds, the poet-historians of the Old Norse world. Two centuries later their accounts of the battle became the basis for one of the liveliest of the Icelandic sagas, with special emphasis on the doings of the Jómsvikings, the famed members of a warrior community that feared no one and dared all. In Lee M. Hollander's faithful translation, all of the unknown twelfth-century author's narrative genius and flair for dramatic situation and pungent characterization is preserved.

About this title

About the Author

Lee M. Hollander was professor emeritus of Germanic languages at the University of Texas at Austin and an authority in Nordic language and literature. His translations of the best prose and poetry of the Old North—among them Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway and The Poetic Edda—have also appeared under the imprint of the University of Texas Press.

From the Back Cover

In the year A.D. 986, Earl Hakon, ruler of most of Norway, won a triumphant victory over an invading fleet of Danes in the great naval battle of Hjorunga Bay. Sailing under his banner were were were no fewer than five Icelandic skalds, the poet-historians of the Old Norse world. Like good war correspondence of the present, they went home after the battle to relate what they had seen and heard; and, being poets as well as reporters, no doubt they seasoned their versions well with imagination.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0292776233
• ISBN 13: 9780292776234
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 116