Rating: 
Summary: Makes me want to hop into a longship and go raiding.
Review: A collection of the Icelandic Sagas as translated by various scholars on the subject. A range of years are covered starting with pre-Christian paganism and finishing in Christian era morality. I have to say that the pagan parts were a bit more interesting, but I guess that's the heathen in me speaking.All in all, very worth reading. Read this after you read the Song of Roland, Beowulf maybe, and while listening to Wagner, maybe some Gotterdammerung. Get that Teutonic angst going and you're good to go. P.S. Skallagrim rocks.
Rating:
Summary: After reading the first saga, I was hooked
Review: Admittedly, the first is Egil's, which is perhaps second only to Njal's saga (not included in this selection), but I just devoured all the other sagas in the book in no time and have been collecting more and more ever since. What a great introduction to the fascinating world of the Vikings! The sagas represent different styles and geographical locations, giving a good idea of the breadth and depth of the genre. The introductions, annexes and maps are extremely clear and helpful in understanding the context of the time in which the sagas are set. If you read this review, you are probably already somehow interested in the subject: BUY THIS BOOK, YOU WON'T REGRET IT!
Rating:
Summary: An EXCELLENT book of Sagas, but Njal's Saga isn't included
Review: All but one of my favorite Sagas are in this collection, with good notes and maps to accompany them. The only thing missing is Njal's Saga, which is arguably the best of the lot.
Rating:
Summary: An EXCELLENT book of Sagas, but Njal's Saga isn't included
Review: All but one of my favorite Sagas are in this collection, with good notes and maps to accompany them. The only thing missing is Njal's Saga, which is arguably the best of the lot.
Rating:
Summary: The Sagas of the Icelanders
Review: Amazing! This book is amazing. I have always been interested in history, and when my dad brought me this book, I was very surprised. Icelandic history? We never seem to cover that kind of thing in history classes. So I started reading. I was hooked immediately. The stories were interesting and well translated, and I liked how the book was organized. It was well priced for the information inside it and the preface and introduction were nice. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes history, or even those who don't, because I was fascinated and I was pressed by my fascination to learn more about Icelandic history.
Rating: 
Summary: A bargain by any means
Review: For the price offered ($16) this is an amazing bargain. For the cost of two Penguin translations (2 Sagas) you get 9 sagas and multiple tales. Speaking as a person that bought the hardback the paperback is not missing anything as far as I can tell by comparing tables of contents. However, earlier criticisms that it is missing some very classic sagas such as, _Njal's Saga_ though valid should not deter you from getting this book. I will conjecture that the length of those definitive sagas were too much to put into a one volume collection. Get the book - no shelf should be without the sagas and it is a thrifty choice. The collection that both the hardback and softback are taken from is a large collection called _Sagas of the Icelanders_ which is about ~$600 so you might also keep that in mind when buying. By no means is this all the sagas from that massive collection but it is a good survey and there is a good further sources section. For those who are saga junkies be aware that the Sagas of the Icelanders (Islendasogur) is only the Icelandic family sagas and not any of the Bishop Sagas nor Heroic/Mythic Sagas e.g., Saga of Hralf Kraki. So if you are hoping to score the Saga of Harold or any saga whose action is outside of Iceland or not related to one of the great families look elsewhere. Also, for saga junkies these translations do not footnote the geneaology of the characters which the Penguin translations usually did. So you get more of the original feel with "son of...daughter of.." Overall, if you have become enthralled with the sagas or just taking the plunge for the first time this is a very good and economical choice. Be aware that it is a very thick paperback and not as sturdy as it could be. But by all means get it. Highly recommended. If you like this set then get Njal's Saga.
Rating:
Summary: A Thorough Look at the Vikings
Review: I loved this book, because it lets you get in touch with the vikings psychologically. One can understand their ways after reading this book. Aside from this, it is an enjoyable read! Adventurous, intriguing, and inspiring!
Rating:
Summary: Delightful and fascinating
Review: I've been seriously consuming Medeival literature for about a year now after my interest was re-awakened (I found out the Mythology & Folklore shelf at Barnes & Noble is a veritable treasure trove!) I'd never read a saga before, but the Poetic Edda had convinced me that I would enjoy anything Norse or Icelandic. Sagas of Icelanders is a huge, bulky book. To get a book that size at such a reasonable price was a bargain I could not pass up. The introductory material helps put a historical perspective on the sagas and prepares you for what to expect ... then the fun starts with Egil's Saga, which is the longest and possibly best in this collection. Other reviewers have lamented the absence of Njal's Saga here - it is published seperately and was probably too long to include in this collection. (Based on what folks have said though, I'm going to have to get Njal's Saga.)
I am now a saga addict! I devoured this book with amazing eagerness; each story is an engrossing page-turner. I just couldn't stop reading them. The style is intentionally simple with an economy of words and an emotional starkness that reminds me of Dashiell Hammett. There's no chivalric nonsense or courtly fanciness to be found here. The storytellers do not attempt to flatter their audience or paint their characters in a more positive light. Characters are tragically stubborn, stupid, violent, irrational, sometimes even psychotic. They can also be strong, noble, just, independent, faithful, practical, and hardy. The sagas have a "just the facts" attitude that is unique in Medeival literature. They are also unique in being epic-length prose instead of poetry, and having secular subject matter. I have to wonder - these monumental works, produced in the Christian era but portraying semi-historical pagan characters in a sympathetic light - how did they get written? Who wrote them and why? Who was the intended audience? This is the mystery of the sagas when the indroduction refers to them as a "literary Stonehenge."
The world of the sagas is violent. There's plenty of killing - sometimes for no apparent reason, but usually it's an act of revenge for a wrong, real or perceived. One reviewer with an axe to grind has condemned this book as a "distorted view" of Icelandic history, but I think he misses the point of the collection. It's not meant to be an accurate history; it's a sampler of Medeival sagas. Consider how "accurate" a collection of two-fisted detective novels would be as history of early 20th-century America. Literature is supposed to entertain. Who wants to read about Grimwald the Meek who just stays on his farm and lives peacefully for 50 years? That's not interesting. The sagas are about interesting people who did remarkable things.
But - again, strange for Medeival literature - most of the saga characters are NOT of noble blood. They are often members of wealthy and influential families, but seldom are they royalty. People in the sagas are not afraid to get their hands dirty. They make their fortunes by working, trading (and going on Viking raids.) You won't find Romance cliche's of idle kings and queens and knights here. King Harald of Norway shows up often, but he's certainly not presented as much more than a successful warlord, and usually a tyrant.
I was surprised but not especially disappointed to find a lack of "mythology" in the sagas. There's a little bit of magic here and there, and a ghost or two, but little is said of the gods and even less of nature spirits, dragons, fairies, etc. Compared to Celtic tales (like the ones in the Mabinogion, for instance) the sagas are firmly grounded in reality.
One other caution: I found myself sometimes bewildered by the Icelandic names and I had difficulty keeping track of who was who. Most sagas tell a story of several generations of a family, and sons are named after grandfathers, and neighbors have the same names, and after a while you're floundering in a sea of Thorvalds and Thorgrims and Thorsteins and Snorris, etc etc ... and each one of them is a son of another Thorvald, Thorgrim, Thorstein, or Snorri and you lose track of who is who. I had to do some page-flipping sometimes to look back and re-establish who a character was and what he had done earlier. But other than that this was a quick and enjoyable read.
It's interesting, it's huge, it's affordable: If you don't buy it there's something wrong with you!
Rating: 
Summary: distorted biased view of Ancient Iceland
Review: Icelanders and others reading these Sagas should be aware that vital and even more amazing parts of Iceland's history from 930-1262AD were left out. The sagas of Njal, a famous Icelandic lawyer, were left out. The simple fact of the matter is that Ancient Iceland was one of the most civilized society's ever to exist. There was no State as we know it, and the people were essentially free for the first 80 years of the civilization's existence. Then religious tyranny was imposed by the Norwegians, who forced the Icelanders to institute Christianity as the "official religion". This started the downfall of a society that had previously been almost Stateless, though with law, peaceful, educated, and productive. If you want to understand the real Ancient Iceland, a condensed dramaticized listing of all the feuds that took place over it's 300-year existence is not sufficient. During the collapse of the system into Civil War with violence that the Icelander's found so intolerable as to be unacceptable, there was approximately the same number of murders per capita in Iceland as occur now in the US (which means they had a low tolerance for violence, suggesting that before the collapse, there was much less violence per capita than in the US now). I suggest the following articles or books: * Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune?
* The Decline and Fall of Private Law in Iceland
* PRIVATE CREATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF LAW: A HISTORICAL CASE
* ORDERED ANARCHY, STATE, AND RENT-SEEKING:
THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH 930-1262
* Viking Age Iceland The Sagas in this Kellogg's book may very well be interesting. Violence has always made for good entertainment. However, they paint a very distorted picture of Ancient Ireland. I posit that the there are sinister reasons for the author leaving out Njal, one of the greatest heros, who was not a warrior but a lawyer. Icelander's should be proud to be the descendant's of perhaps the most civilized people ever to live on Earth, along with the Ancient Irish (see Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law).
Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic collection of Sagas!
Review: Just finished reading this magnificiant book! It's a great literary source if your looking for information on Nordic society etc. Ideal for any Asatruar. Waes þu hael!
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