The Saga of the Volsungs (Penguin Classics) by Jesse L. Byock
By Jesse L. Byock
One of many nice books of global literature--an unforgettable story of jealousy, unrequited love, greed, and vengeance. in accordance with Viking Age poems and composed in thirteenth-century Iceland, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend, and sheer human drama in telling of the heroic deeds of Sigurd the dragon slayer, who acquires runic wisdom from one among Odin's Valkyries. but the saga is determined in a really human international, incorporating oral thoughts of the fourth and 5th centuries, while Attila the Hun and different warriors fought at the northern frontiers of the Roman empire. In his illuminating creation Jesse L. Byock hyperlinks the old Huns, Burgundians, and Goths with the extreme occasions of this Icelandic saga. With its ill-fated Rhinegold, the sword reforged, and the magic ring of strength, the saga resembles the Nibelungenlied and has been a prime resource for such fable writers as J. R. R. Tolkien and for Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.
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Additional info for The Saga of the Volsungs (Penguin Classics)
Example text
At approximately the same time or within seven decades, The Saga of the Volsungs was compiled in Iceland with far fewer chivalric elements than its German counterpart. It is not by chance that in Scandinavia so much of the narrative material about the Volsungs was preserved in Iceland. This immigrant society on the fringe of European civilization, like frontier societies in other times and places, preserved old lore as a treasured link with distant homelands. Fortunately for posterity, writing became popular among the Icelanders in the thirteenth century, when interest in old tales was still strong.
He fixed the border protecting Gaul and the already conquered south German provinces a short distance east of the Rhine. With small adjustments, the frontier between the Romans and the northern barbarians remained fixed for the next four centuries. The border posts finally fell before the migrating tribes in the early fifth century, or about the time of the clash between the Huns and the Burgundians. For the Romans, the Varus episode, although grievous, was ultimately of less importance than the much larger conflict on the Danube border and the twin-frontier problem (Rhine-Danube) thereafter.
Yet villainy often arose from within that social unit, especially in the weak link of the in-law relationship. In the saga, the Volsungs seldom have dependable blood relations. Sigurd grows up without a father, an element of his upbringing for which the dragon mocks him. The absence of the support that blood relations might supply exacerbates Sigurd’s problems with in-laws, who are often untrustworthy. Germanic societies tended to be patrilocal: that is, a man married a woman outside his group and brought her to live with his family instead of their living with hers.