Includes bibliographical references (pages 399-430) and indexes.
Contents:
Index. Introduction : the transmission and reception of the fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda / by T. A. Shippey -- The fornaldarsögur in modern fantasy writing / by Ađalheiđur Guđmundsdóttir -- Starkaður across the centuries : strategies of rewriting and manuscript variation in starkaðar saga gamla / by Massimiliano Bampi -- Vicious cycle of violence : the afterlife of Hervör / by Vidar Hreinsson -- The truth of tales : fornaldarsögur as sources of contemporary history / by Hans Jacob Orning -- Putrid fables and true histories : perceptions of authenticity and the management of scepticism in northern humanist fornaldarsaga scholarship / by Ralph O'Connor -- Árni Magnússon's rearrangement of fornaldarsaga manuscripts / by Beeke Stegmann -- Illuga saga as fornaldarsaga, riddarasaga and Íslendingasaga : generic fluidity in the late development of sagas and rímur / by Philip Lavender -- Family, friends and fornaldarsögur : manuscript transmission in western Iceland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries / by Silvia Hufnagel -- Jason bjarti in rímur and saga / by Andrew Wawn -- The fortunes of a fornaldarsaga manuscript / by Shaun Hughes -- The fornaldarsögur in Danish translation : from Carl Christian Rafn to the present / by Annette Lassen -- Fornaldarsögur and financial crisis : Bjarni Bjarnason's Mannorð / by Alaric Hall -- The fornaldarsögur in modern fantasy writing / by T. A. Shippey -- Bibliography -- Notes on contributors -- Index of manuscripts -- Index.
Summary:
The Fornaldarsögur Norourlanda (literally 'ancient sagas of the northern lands', but often referred to in English as 'mythical-heroic' or 'legendary' sagas) are a group of some 35 Icelandic prose narratives relating the exploits of kings and heroes of late iron-age and early Viking-age Scandinavia -- before the unification of Norway under Haraldr Hárfagri and the settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century, and hence before the dawn of 'reliable' historical writing. In their present form, the Fornaldarsögur are generally presumed to date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and thus represent one of the younger, 'post-classical' genres of saga literature, but most have at least some basis in significantly older tradition. Although many, with their stock characters and fondness for the fabulous, have been dismissed as historically unreliable and of scant artistic merit, their great and lasting popularity is attested by the very large number of manuscripts in which they are preserved -- over a thousand in all, the earliest from the beginning of the fourteenth century, the latest from the beginning of the twentieth. The essays presented here deal with various aspects of the transmission and reception of the Fornaldarsögur, from their earliest manifestations until the present day.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.