In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Heimskringla Volume 1: The Beginnings to Óláfr Tryggvason by Snorri Sturluson
  • Kate Heslop
Heimskringla Volume 1: The Beginnings to Óláfr Tryggvason. By Snorri Sturluson. Translated by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes. Viking Society for Northern Research. London: University College London, 2011. Pp. xxv + 262; 4 illustrations. £12.

Heimskringla is a compendium of sagas attributed to the thirteenth-century Icelander Snorri Sturluson, tracing the history of the kings of Norway from their legendary beginnings to the late twelfth century. A classic of both Old Norse literature and historiography, it last appeared in English translation over forty years ago, in a version by Lee M. Hollander (1964, reprinted several times, most recently in 2002). The book under review breaks this drought and is the first of three volumes; the next is expected imminently. Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes translate the verse and prose, respectively, of the standard Old Norse text, also in three volumes, edited by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson for the Íslenzk fornrit series in 1941–51. Both are eminent Old Norse scholars and highly experienced translators, Faulkes of Snorri’s Edda, among other things, and Finlay of saga literature, especially the kings’ sagas and skaldic verse—a dream team for Snorri’s kings’ saga. While the book’s small, sturdy format and affordable price will please students, Faulkes’s and Finlay’s expert work ensures that it will also be the new standard translation of Heimskringla for anyone interested in this text. Its cover is adorned with a reproduction of an Isidorean mappa mundi whose shape echoes the first words of the text, kringla heimsins ‘the circle of the world’, used since the seventeenth century as the work’s title.

The authorship of Heimskringla, the importance of oral testimony, poetry and pre-existing texts as sources, and the question of the work’s target audience (Norwegian or Icelandic?) are canvassed in the brief introduction. The authors present Snorri as the highpoint of Icelandic historiography, more “skilful” and “discriminating” (p. xi) in his treatment of the material than are his sources, whose fantastical matter he prunes out only for it to be reintroduced in the big kings’ saga compilations of the fourteenth century. A few ripples perturb this classicizing account of Heimskringla, for example the fact that the only poems its Prologue mentions by name, Ynglingatal and Háleygjatal, are not the contemporary eyewitness accounts invoked in the Prologue’s skaldic source criticism, but rather retrospective imaginings of the semimythical origins of the Norwegian royal house. Are Snorri’s comments on skaldic poetry in the Prologue perhaps not the straightforward espousal of its documentary value that they are often taken to be?

Aids for the reader comprise a chronological table giving dates of battles, deaths, and other relevant historical events; a family tree of the kings of Norway from Óláfr trételgja to Hákon herðibreiðr; maps of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; and a list of further reading and a bibliography, concise but thorough and up to date. A very useful index, keyed to the page numbers of the Íslenzk fornrit edition given in square brackets in the text, translates and explains Old Norse name forms. These are used in the translation unless an exact English equivalent exists—a rational policy that leads to the juxtaposition, rather jarring at first glance, of “Norway” and “Iceland” with “Danmork” and “Svíþjóð.” The maps stick to Old Norse place-names, which necessitates flipping between text, index, and maps to identify the translation’s “Selund (Sjælland)” as the map’s “Sjáland” (the matching marks of Gefjun’s plow in Lake Mälaren [Ynglinga saga, ch. 5] cannot be traced, as the latter is not shown on the map on p. xix), and sometimes leaves the Norseless reader adrift, as when neither the text’s “Agðir” nor the index’s “Agder” appear on the map on pp. xx–xxi, but rather the opaque “Egðafylki.” [End Page 372]

The selling point of the book is, however, not its ancillary material (where the reader is best served by the Icelandic edition of Bergljót Kristjánsdóttir et al., published in 1991...

pdf

Share