Video: Reading Icelandic Sagas for Irish Medieval Historians

It's been a while since I posted here! All is well, I am just staying focused on my doctoral thesis and thus don't have much time to spare to put things online that aren't part of it. I ended up making a casual contribution to my department's lecture series which extended into the summer due to lock-down. We were meant to record it but ended up not, so I made another presentation for wider release. Enjoy!

'The Lore' and You: Bibliography

“The Lore” and You: Bibliography

ECT 2019

Ann ‘Gróa’ Sheffield generously agreed to team up with me to co-teach a workshop on accessing and reading medieval source material at East Coast Thing, a large heathen gathering in its 21st year. After a career in chemistry, during which she published both Frey, God of the World and Long Branches: Runes of the Younger Futhark, Gróa earned an MA in Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies from Durham University and is now preparing for further postgraduate study in the UK. This workshop became a lively and comprehensive how-to in engaging with historical scholarship for a lay audience. We decided to publish the bibliography online in order to save paper, make it more accessible and dynamic, and also to maintain it as a living document. Please contact me via the blog if you have any suggestions, concerns, or further questions for me or Gróa on this bibliography.

Annie Cúglas

The Viking Age in Scandinavia: sources and resources 

A. Runic inscriptions

• Scandinavian Runic-Text Database (SRDB) or ‘Rundata’: http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm

B. Skaldic Poetry: Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

• Project website: https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php
• Published volumes available in print (Turnhout: Brepols) and  online (https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php)
• Volume I. Poetry from the Kings' Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Ed. by Diana Whaley. 2012. Two volumes (in print form). https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php?id=1&if=default&table=database
• Volume II. Poetry from the Kings' Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Ed. by Kari Ellen Gade. 2009. Two volumes (in print form). https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php?id=2&if=default&table=database
• Volume VII. Poetry on Christian Subjects. Ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross. 2007. Two volumes (in print form). https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php?id=7&if=default&table=database
• Published volumes available in print only (Turnhout: Brepols)
• Volume III. Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Ed. by Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold. 2017. Two volumes.
• Volume VIII. Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Edited by Margaret Clunies Ross. 2017. Two volumes.

C. The poetic Edda

• Context:
• A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia. Ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn, and Brittany Schorn. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2016.
• Gunnell, Terry. The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia. Woodbridge: Brewer, 1995
• Translations (listed by translator; the composers/compilers of the poems are unknown):
• Bellows, Henry Adams. The Poetic Edda. Available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm. Originally published 1923.
• Crawford, Jackson. The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes. Indianapolis; Cambridge: Hackett, 2015.
• Dronke, Ursula. The Poetic Edda
• Volume I. Heroic Poems. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969.
• Volume II. Mythological Poems. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
• Volume III. Mythological Poems II. Oxford: Oxford University, 2011.
• Larrington, Carolyne. The Poetic Edda. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University, 2014.

  D. The prose Edda

• Context:
• Wanner, Kevin J.. Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2008.
• Translations (listed by translator; the author is Snorri Sturluson):
• Byock, Jesse. The Prose Edda. London: Penguin, 2005.
• Faulkes, Anthony. Edda. The entire text of the 1987 “Everyman” edition published by J.M. Dent (London) is available as a free download from the Viking Society for Northern Research: http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/EDDArestr.pdf

E. Sagas

• Literary context:
• Clunies-Ross, Margaret. The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2010.
• Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson, eds. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas. London: Routledge, 2017.
• Any of the collected proceedings of the International Saga Conference.
• Icelandic Saga Database: https://sagadb.org
• Heimskringla (English): https://heimskringla.no/wiki/Main_Page 
• Íslenszk fornrit (Icelandic): https://hib.is 
• Their 2018 catalogue and contact information in English: https://hib.is/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ensk_HIB_fornritabaeklingur_2018.pdf
• Cook, Robert, ed. and trans. Njal’s Saga. Penguin Classics, rev. ed. 2002.
• Edwards, Paul, and Hermann Palsson, eds. and trans. Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney. Penguin Classics, repr. ed. 1981.
• Various resources available from the Viking Society for Northern Research, including their scholarly journal (Saga-Book), literary criticism, and editions of texts in English and in Old Norse

F. External sources 

Muslim Texts: 

• Lunde, Paul and Caroline Stone, eds. Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North. London: Penguin, 2012.

Irish, Welsh, Frankish Annals:

• Annals of Ulster, from the earliest times to the year 1541, vol. I. 2nd ed. Caislean Búrc le Éamonn de Búrca, 1998.
• Mac Airt, Seán, ed. and trans. The Annals of Inisfallen (MS Rawlinson B 503). Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988.
• Mac Niocaill, Gearóid, ed. and trans. The medieval Irish annals. Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies: 1975.
• Brut y Tywysogion, or, the Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version, ed. and trans. by T. Jones, History and Law Series, 16, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1955.

Irish Texts: 

• Bugge, Alexander, ed. and trans. Caithreim Cellachain Caisil: The Victorious Career of Cellachan of Cashel, or, The Wars Between the Irishmen and the Norsemen in the Middle of the 10th Century. Det Norske Historiske Kildeskriftfond, J. Chr. Gundersens Bogtrykkeri, Christiana, 1905.
• O’Donovan, John, ed. and trans., The circuit of Ireland, by Muircheartach mac Neill, prince of Aileach; a poem written in the year DCCCCXLII by Cormacan Eigeas, chief poet of the north of Ireland. Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1841.
• Radner, Joan N., ed. and trans. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978.
• Todd, James Henthorn, ed. and trans. Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, or, The Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and Other Norsemen. Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1867.

G. General cultural information about the Viking Age

• Brink, Stefan and Neil Price, eds.. The Viking World. London: Routledge, 2008.
• Jesch, Judith. Women in the Viking Age. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991.
• McTurk, Rory, ed. A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture. Malden: Blackwell, 2007.
• Price, Neil. The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Oxford: Oxbow, 2019.
• Short, William R. Icelanders in the Viking Age: The People of the Sagas
• Any of the collected proceedings of the Viking Congress

Anglo-Saxon sources and resources

1. Cultural context 

• Higham, Nicholas J., and Martin J. Ryan. The Anglo-Saxon World. New le University, 2013.

2. Literary context

• Haven: YaAmodio, Mark C.. The Anglo-Saxon Literature Handbook. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.

• Magennis, Hugh. The Cambridge Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2011.

3. Texts in translation

• Beowulf
• Chickering, Howell D. Jr. Beowulf. New York: Anchor, 2006.
• Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. London: Folio Society, 2010.
• Bradley, S.A.J.. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London; Toronto: Dent, 1995. Literal, prose translations.
• Crossley-Holland, Kevin. The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University, 2009. 
• Swanton, Michael. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. London: Phoenix, 2003.
• Swanton, Michael Anglo-Saxon Prose. Gloucester: Choir, 2017.
• Williamson, Craig. The Complete Old English Poems. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2017.

Language learning 

A. Old Norse/Old Icelandic

• Haukur Þorgeirsson and Óskar Guðlaugsson’s Old Norse for Beginners: a cutesy and very basic introduction for anybody: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/ 
• Self-administered course books
• A New Introduction to Old Norse parts I-III, Viking Society for Northern Research
• Byock, Jesse L. Viking Language 1&2; for information and supplemental materials, see Dr. Byock’s Viking Language site
• Dictionaries/online resources
• Geir T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. First printed in 1910, can be found online as a PDF and in numerous cheap physical editions (little changed in revisions so age doesn’t matter), most recently UToronto’s reprint: https://utorontopress.com/us/a-concise-dictionary-of-old-icelandic-2 
•  Cleasby & Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Published 1874, a monumental albeit cumbersome keystone.. https://archive.org/details/icelandicenglish00cleauoft/page/n8 
• Old Norse Online (UT Austin) Norse base form dictionary: https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol_base_form_dictionary/norol/18
• Heimskringla (English): https://heimskringla.no/wiki/Main_Page Hosts all major Old Norse texts in various translations, including Old Norse editions

B. Old English

• Grammar: 
• Baker, Peter S.. Introduction to Old English. 3rd ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
• Magic Sheet for Old English http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/resources/magic_letter.pdf
• Old English Aerobics http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/index.html
• Dictionaries:
• Bosworth-Toller http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/
• Hall, John R Clark. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2008.
• Toronto Dictionary of Old English: https://www.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/index.html
• Poetic texts in Old English:
• Beowulf:
• Both recommended translations of Beowulf above have facing-page Old English text.
• Klaeber’s Beowulf. 4th ed. Ed. by R.D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D Niles. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2008. This is the standard critical edition of Beowulf.
• Slade, Benjamin. http://www.heorot.dk/beo-intro-rede.html. Includes  the Old English text plus a parallel translation into modern English, with links to extensive and helpful notes.
• Other poems:
• The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records series. These were originally published 1931-1942 but have been reprinted (not not revised) since. They are the standard critical editions for most Old English poetry.
• 1. The Junius Manuscript. Ed. by George Philip Krapp. New York: Columbia University, 1931.  
• 2. The Vercelli Book. Ed. by George Philip Krapp. New York: Columbia University, 1932. 
• 3. The Exeter Book. Ed. by George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie. New York: Columbia University, 1936.
• 4. Beowulf, and Judith. Ed. by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie. New York: Columbia University, 1953. 
• 5. The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius. Ed. by George Philip Krapp. New York: Columbia University, 1932. 
• 6. The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. Ed. by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie. New York: Columbia University, 1942.
• Hill, Joyce. Old English Minor Heroic Poems. Durham: Durham University, 2009.
• Jolly, Karen Louise. http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly/unc.htm. Translations of some of the Anglo-Saxon medical charms.
• Marsden, Richard (ed.). The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2017. Designed for students, this book has a wide selection of prose and poetic texts.
• Slade, Benjamin. http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-on-steorarume_front-page.html. Includes texts of several poems along with translations under “Supplemental Texts,” where links to additional texts on other sites are also provided.