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Title: The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America (Penguin Classics)
ISBN: 0140441549
Author:
Anonymous
Publicate Date: 1965-05-30
Publish: 1965-05-30
List Price: $13.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.88
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.14
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.05
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1: Very good but needs to be updated
The Vinland Sagas
The Norse Discovery of America
By Magnusson & Palsson
The Vinland Sagas, like all the Edda's & Sagas, are very difficult to review. The Sagas are what they are, collections of original tales, Myths, family histories & genealogies of Icelandic & Scandinavian origin. They ARE history, good, bad or indifferently, after a thousand years or so, they are history.
Magnusson and Palsson have given us two of the more understandable modern translations with more than adequate footnotes and explanations. The Authors introduction gives you an excellent and informative background on the exploration and colonization of both Greenland & Vinland. At the end of the book the Authors have included a useful glossary like chapter titled, "List of Proper Names". I found it very useful in clarifying individuals with the same or similar names. All in all a must for anyone interested in Norse Lore or early North American exploration.
On a side note, my copy is over 40 years old. I hope that Penguin, (or any other publisher for that matter), will revise the books format and maps. Additionally they need to add some notes or even a chapter on the archaeological finds on this subject that have taken place in the last 40 years.
In Frith,
Spence the Elder
"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc"
M. Addams
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2: Well done work
The Vinland Sagas are important in that they provide textual background for the Norse discovery of North America in the 10th-11th centuries. However, they present a number of problems from a historical perspective (inconsistency being one of them). This work does not shrink from these issues and addresses them head-on.
The work provides the Greenlanders' Saga first and most scholars today accept this as the older one. This is followed by the Saga of Erik the Red. This is combined with a good introduction.
I would recommend this work, and suggest pairing it with Edgar Polome (ed), "Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Symposium" (1969) which includes a useful paper comparing the sagas and looking at historical vs non-historical aspects of the sagas.
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3: Very good but needs up dated
The Vinland Sagas
The Norse Discovery of America
By Magnusson & Palsson
The Vinland Sagas, like all the Edda's & Sagas, are very difficult to review. The Sagas are what they are, collections of original tales, Myths, family histories & genealogies of Icelandic & Scandinavian origin. They ARE history, good, bad or indifferently, after a thousand years or so, they are history.
Magnusson and Palsson have given us two of the more understandable modern translations with more than adequate footnotes and explanations. The Authors introduction gives you an excellent and informative background on the exploration and colonization of both Greenland & Vinland. At the end of the book the Authors have included a useful glossary like chapter titled, "List of Proper Names". I found it very useful in clarifying individuals with the same or similar names. All in all a must for anyone interested in Norse Lore or early North American exploration.
On a side note, my copy is over 40 years old. I hope that Penguin, (or any other publisher for that matter), will revise the books format and maps. Additionally they need to add some notes or even a chapter on the archaeological finds on this subject that have taken place in the last 40 years.
In Frith,
Spence
"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc"
M. Addams
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4: Excellent Intro, Readable Text
This small book is a delightful combination of an excellent introduction that provides tons of background to the sagas themselves with saga text that's very easy to read and follow.
When reading texts that have their origins so very long ago, I find it quite helpful to get a thorough and easy to understand background on what I'm about to read. The LONG introduction to these texts does just that and I thank the authors for their efforts in putting these texts in perspective for us.
And unlike some saga texts I've read, these are very easy to follow in their English form. Some English versions of Viking sagas are a real struggle to read, but these were both easy and enjoyable.
I bought this book in particular to gain some insight into the Viking exploration of North America (Vinland) and I'm totally satisfied with it. I now would like to know if these authors have published their renditions of other Viking sagas ... theirs are so much better than others I've read, I'd look forward to reading more.
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5: finally, the real deal
Are you also tired of supermarket magazines where just about everyone in the known universe discovers America before poor Columbus? No? You should be. Forget about the Nephites, the Mandingos, the Knights Templar or space aliens from Wherever. Instead, read this: the Vinland Sagas. This is the real deal. As far as we know today, only one Old World people reached America before Columbus: the ancient Scandinavians, also known as the Norsemen, more colloqially known as Vikings.
How do we know? First, archeological excavations prove it. Second, we have the Vinland Sagas! There are two main characters in these stories: Erik the Red, who is forced to leave Iceland in a hurry after a blood feud and inadvertently discovers Greenland, and Leif Eriksson, who leads the expedition that eventually reaches North America, called "Vinland" by the Norsemen. Yepp, this actually happened, folks.
Since the word "Viking" conjures up pictures of heathens sacrificing humans, many will be surprised to learn, that Leif Eriksson was a Christian. Thus, the first European to reach America, was a Roman Catholic.
The Vinland Sagas also describe the Norsemen's encounters with American Indians. The portrait of the Indians is highly insensitive: they are called skraelings (wretches), and are described as dirty, primitive and irrational. It's chilling to contemplate that the contacts between Whites and Indians got off to such a bad start already 500 years before Columbus!
The Norsemen established several settlements in the New World, but all of them were abandoned relatively quickly. During the Middle Ages, people forgot about the Norse voyages to America, and the Vinland Sagas were regarded as fairytales. Until, one day, Columbus made that fateful journey to what he thought was Asia...
The world would never be the same again.
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