Jesse L. Byock

'If you travel a road where evil creatures dwell, be wary. ' Legends from the Ancient North Beowulf The Elder Edda The Saga of the Volsungs Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Wanderer: Elegies, Epics, Riddles These are the great epic stories that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Conjuring up a twilight world of quests, treachery, magic, evil and fellowship, they are the most ancient narratives from Northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Translated by Jesse L. Byock

The Saga of the Volsungs

An introduction to Old Norse, runes, Icelandic sagas, and the culture of the Vikings. The 15 graded lessons include vocabulary and grammar exercises, 35 readings, pronunciation, 15 maps, 45 illustrations, and 180 exercises. Journey through Viking Age Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Britain, Russia, and Byzantium with original Old Norse readings of Vikings, Norse mythology, heroes, sacred kingship, blood feuds, and daily life.

Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

Viking Language 1

Feud stands at the core of the Old Icelandic sagas. Jesse Byock shows how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society—the channeling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict—is reflected in the narrative of the family sagas and the Sturlunga saga compilation. This comprehensive study of narrative structure demonstrates that the sagas are complex expressions of medieval social thought.

Feud in the Icelandic Saga

Viking Language 2 immerses the learner in Old Norse and Icelandic. Readings include a wealth of Old Norse myths, legends, complete Icelandic sagas, poems of the Scandinavian gods, runic inscriptions. There is a large vocabulary and a full reference grammar.

Viking Language: Old Norse reader

The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer

2nd upgraded edition of Viking Language 1 in new smaller book size. Everything necessary to learn Old Norse, the language of the Iceland and Old Scandinavia. For beginner to advanced, graded lessons, saga readings, runes, myths, old Icelandic, grammar exercises, pronunciation, vocabulary and study guides. www.oldnorse.org and vikinglanguage.com

Gift of Joan Wall. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index. * glr 20090610.

Society, Sagas, and Power

Medieval Iceland

Byock sees the crucial element in the origin of the Icelandic sagas not as the introduction of writing or the impact of literary borrowings from the continent but the subject of the tales themselves - feud. This simple thesis is developed into a thorough examination of Icelandic society and feud, and of the narrative technique of recounting it.

Jesse L. Byock

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