SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISCOVERIES
AND THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE
NORSEMEN
By BJORN J:>ORSTEINSSON
IN the last volume of the Saga-Book mention was made
of Professor Gwyn Jones's translation of nine sagas of
the Icelanders, Eirik the Red and other Icelandic Sagas.
Now he publishes a book about man's conquest and failure
on the North Atlantic in the Viking Age.! It deals with
the Norsemen's "voyages of discovery and exploration to
Iceland, Greenland, and the coast of North America, and
their attempt to colonize all three".
The book falls into two main sections: the history
itself, and the sources, but at the end there are a number
of appendixes: a short essay on Njdls saga - "greatest of
the Sagas" - and another about Straumfjoror in Vinland;
a translation of the story of :P6rarinn Nefj6lfsson from
Oldfs saga helga, and of a Greenland tale concerning
Ungortok, the last Norse Greenlander. Also at the end
is some account of the texts from which the translations
are made, a bibliography and an index.
The sources take up about half of the book. This is
a collection of translations of the most important early
Icelandic writings which relate to Viking discoveries.
The whole of Ari's Libellus I slandorum is there, the basic
text for Icelandic history before IIOO; there are those
chapters from the Landndmab6k which record the
discovery of Iceland and the first settlements there; then
come the Greenland sagas which tell of the coming of the
settlers, the foundation of the bishopric at Garoar, and
the finding of North America, Vinland the good.
Various other written sources exist concerning the
1 The Norse Atlantic Saga. London: Oxford University Press. 1964. 246 pp.
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