Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen of the British Isles

This four-volume set of Icelandic sagas with English translations was prepared between 1887 and 1894 by the celebrated Icelandic scholar Gudbrand Vigfusson (1827-89) and the foremost translator of the day, Sir George Webbe Dasent (1817-96). It includes Orkneyinga saga, a history of the jarls of Orkney from the late ninth century to about 1200, composed in Iceland around 1230 but preserved complete only in the fourteenth-century Flateyjarbok; and Hakonar saga Hakonarsonar, the life of the king of Norway from 1217 to 1263 and the principal source for Norwegian history over this period, in which Hakon’s reign put an end to a long civil war. It was written soon after his death by the Icelandic chieftain and historian Sturla THordarson at the instigation of the king’s son. Volume 3 contains Dasent’s translation, The Orkneyingers’ Saga, with appended extracts from relevant texts and the life of St Magnus of Orkney.