beserk – a man who worked himself into an animal-like frenzy to increase his strength and make himself immune to blows from weapons.
drapa – a heroic poem in a complicated metre, usually composed in honour of kings, earls and other prominent people, or in memory of a loved one.
fetch – a personal spirit that often symbolized a person’s fate or signalled impending doom. It could take various forms, sometimes appearing in the shape of an animal.
flokk – a short poem.
hersir – a local leader in western and northern Norway.
knorr – an ocean-going cargo vessel.
shieling – a hut in the highland grazing pastures away from the farm, where shepherds and cowherds lived in summer.
Winter Nights – the period of two days when winter began, around the middle of October. It was a particularly holy time of year, when sacrifices and social activities such as weddings took place.
BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As kingfishers catch fire
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
SUETONIUS · Caligula
APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The Tinder Box
RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
DANTE · Circles of Hell
HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
CHARLES DICKENS · The Great Winglebury Duel
HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
C.P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART · My Dearest Father
PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
Sindbad the Sailor
SOPHOCLES · Antigone
RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
OVID · The Fall of Icarus
SAPPHO · Come Close
IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
H. G. WELLS · A Slip under the Microscope
HERODOTUS · The Madness of Cambyses
Speaking of Siva
The Dhammapada
LITTLEBLACKCLASSICS.COM
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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This edition published in Penguin Classics 2015
Translation copyright © Leifur Eiríksson Publishing Ltd, 1997
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-141-39787-0
* The copyist has presumably skipped a section in his exemplar, where the names of Thorfinn’s four remaining sons were recorded.
* The Borg is a high rocky outcrop immediately behind the site of Borg farm from which the farm takes its name.
* Earl Hakon Sigurdsson was murdered by his servant Kark, while hiding from his enemy Olaf Tryggvason in a pigsty.
lodgings-lord: man
silver-grey wire: piece of silver
flame: blood
sea-serpent’s couch: gold
god: warrior
sword-spell: battle; its
sword-point’s reddener: warrior, who reddens the sword’s point with blood
shapers of war: kings
point-goddess: valkyrie; her
son: Ethelred
serpent’s bed: gold
sorceress’s steed: wolf
flinger: generous man (Sigtrygg)
Frodi’s (sea-king’s)
flame: gold; its
spear-sister: valkyrie; her
staves:
warriors
billow-steed: ship
battle-bush: warrior
shore-ski: ship
gold-breaker: man
god
sword-storm: battle;
its spark: sword;
of the sword: warrior(Hrafn)
played on the fingers: was her favourite (or caressed her)
headlands: fingers;
forearm’s fire: ring; its
land-fishes: snakes; their
beds: gold; gold-land: woman
yew (twig): sword
serpent’s dew: blood; its
beer-bowl’s goddess: woman (Helga)
drubbing-thorn: sword
linden (tree) of herbs: woman
mountains’ hall: sky
wine-goddess: woman (Helga)
land: woman
flood-flame: gold; its
band-goddess: woman wearing garments of woven bands (Helga)
glorifier: warrior;
battle-goddess: valkyrie; her
tunic-goddess: woman
Slaughter-tree. warrior
wave-steed: ship
goddess: woman
serpent’s day (i.e. brightness): gold; its
pounding of steel: battle
jewel-foe: generous man (Gunnlaug)
hair-seat: head
Helga’s kiss-gulper: her lover, Hrafn
wound-sickles: swords
thorns: brooch-pins, its
tray: woman
tree of the valkyrie: warrior (perhaps Hrafn, but more probably Thorstein)
log of silver: woman
ring-land: hand; its
light: ring;
goddess of the ring: woman
moon: eye
server: woman
herb-surf: ale; its
brow’s sky: forehead
beam: gaze
goddess of the golden
torque: woman
ring-goddess: woman
valkyrie’s warm wind: battle
god: seafarer, man
wave-charger: ship; its
sword-meeting: battle; its
tree: warrior
spears’ storm: battle
stingers: spears;
metal-flights: thrown weapons
ring-birch: man
protector of ranks: leader of an army, warrior
fish: sword (with a hilt for fins)
corpse-scorer: eagle, which carves up corpses with its beak
mead of wounds: blood
war-twig: sword
valkyrie’s thorns: warriors; their
Odin (god) of swords: warrior (Gunnlaug)
shield-giants: enemies of shields, i.e. swords
blood-goslings: ravens
wound-river: blood
arm-serpent: gold bracelet; its
staff: woman
linen-Lofn (goddess): woman
river-flash: gold; its craver: man