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The Saga of the Volsungs

The Saga of the Volsungs Paperback / softback - 2013

by Jesse L. Byock

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  • Paperback

Description

Paperback / softback. New. Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating and teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves and magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature and, even if he had never written The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
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Details

  • Title The Saga of the Volsungs
  • Author Jesse L. Byock
  • Binding Paperback / softback
  • Edition Reissue
  • Condition New
  • Pages 160
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group
  • Date 2013-10-29
  • Bookseller's Inventory # A9780141393681
  • ISBN 9780141393681 / 0141393688
  • Weight 0.27 lbs (0.12 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.8 x 5.08 x 0.34 in (19.81 x 12.90 x 0.86 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Sagas - Translations into English, Siegfried (Legendary character)
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Summary

Legends from the Ancient North: Five classics of Norse literature that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien's epic vision in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Legendary fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating, and teaching the ancient tales of northern Europe at Oxford and drew on them for his own writing. These epic stories, with their wizards and knights, dragons and trolls, cursed rings and magic swords, are as fascinating today as they were thousands of year ago. Reading them brings us as close as we will ever get to the magical worlds of the Vikings and the origins of their twentieth-century counterpart: Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

Based on Viking Age poems and composed in thirteenth-century Iceland, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend, and sheer human drama in telling of the heroic deeds of Sigurd the dragon slayer, who acquires runic knowledge from one of Odin's Valkyries. Yet the saga is set in a very human world, incorporating oral memories of the fourth and fifth centuries, when Attila the Hun and other warriors fought on the northern frontiers of the Roman empire. In his illuminating introduction Jesse L. Byock links the historical Huns, Burgundians, and Goths with the extraordinary events of this Icelandic saga. With its ill-fated Rhinegold, the sword reforged, and the magic ring of power, the saga resembles the Nibelungenlied and has been a primary source for such fantasy writers as J. R. R. Tolkien and for Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.

From the publisher

Jesse L. Byock (translator) is Professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also a member of the Institute of Archaeology.

About the author

Jesse L. Byock (translator) is Professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also a member of the Institute of Archaeology.

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