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The Icelandic Saga Database

152 points by ughitsaaron 3y ago

mjul 3y ago
Around year 1000 the vikings' went to Vinland, which was their name for North America. You can read about it in two sagas: The Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauða) has a description of Erik's son Leif leading an expedition to Vinland: https://www.sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en https://www.sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en The Greenland Saga (Grænlendinga saga) has more information on the journey if you can read Icelandic, but there is no English translation in this database at the moment. The actual discovery was not by Erik but by an earlier voyage around 985 by Bjarni, who navigated the coast but decided not to enter the unknown land. The later voyage was inspired by his information. The vikings considered the journey from Greenland to Vinland the most dangerous journey in their trading network, navigating storms and icebergs in their open boats. However, Vinland provided a source of valuable wood, a scarce resource around their homes in Greenland. There is archeological evidence of their visits on Newfoundland. You can visit their site in L'Anse aux Meadows with distinct viking houses and metal artefacts: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-aux-meadows https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-...
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  I didn't knew that, til I went there as Eivor (Assassins Creed Valhalla) (: It actually was a vivid introduction also into the Viking sagas.
  - bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
    eivor is a female name and rather strange use in that game, even tho they hired experts such as Jackson Crawford.
privacythrow23 3y ago
Takk fyrir þessar rafbækur.
- unhammer 3y ago
  … amberbeeches … Neat, Icelandic uses raf as in "amber" just like ēlektron "amber".
  - teddyh 3y ago
    Uncleftish Beholding
- sgt 3y ago
  Any icelanders on HN? I wonder if there is a startup community there.
  - halldorel 3y ago
    me! and yes we do have a very nice community around icelandic startups (=^_^=)
  - eysi 3y ago
    Me too. In fact Garden (dev tooling for the Kubernetes)[0] is a Berlin start-up with three Icelandic founders. And if I'm not mistaken, two of us worked briefly with @halldorel (commented below) at an earlier Icelandic start-up. It's a small world (if you're Icelandic). Edit: Scratch that, three Gardeners worked with @halldorel. [0] https://garden.io https://garden.io
    - SolonIslandus 3y ago
      At Admittor if I am not mistaken :) (I h crashed your office a few times)
      - eysi 3y ago
        Correct!
  - svth 3y ago
    I'd say we have quite a vibrant startup ecosystem given the size of the country.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
This is a useful resource, but it is a pity that the Icelandic originals are in a spelling based on Modern Icelandic, not the standard used in Old Norse scholarship. For example, writing the nominative singular ending -r as -ur, and the letter ö for a certain low vowel instead of ǫ. Consequently, anyone learning Old Norse from a textbook published in the last century will have some mental conversion to deal with when using this site.
- saevarom 3y ago
  Some of them are available in Old Norse. Just click on the flag that says "ON". Or see a list of them by language here: https://www.sagadb.org/index_az https://www.sagadb.org/index_az
- 0xEF 3y ago
  The spelling is welcomed from my perspective. I am in the process of learning to read Icelandic for an upcoming trip (also speaking at a basic level, but I love reading other languages) and was looking for something to practice with. Since the sagas are a big part of cultural history, maybe I should use this database? Any thoughts on this resource from fellow learners or native speakers are welcome.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    The sagas abound in obsolete vocabulary, things that are never said in spoken language today and unrecognizable to Icelanders without a commentary. Icelandic is conservative in some vocabulary, due to a decision since the 19th century to revive some old words and coin new native terms instead of borrowing from other languages. However, plenty of other old words fell by the wayside. It makes no more sense to read the sagas in preparation for a trip to the modern country, than for a foreigner to read Shakespeare or Chaucer in preparation for being a tourist in the UK. Also, don’t expect to speak Icelandic as a tourist in Iceland. The local people are well known for keeping aloof from tourists (tourists most often interact with a foreign workforce brought in from Poland etc. to serve them), and unless you have already gone through a course of the language that has prepared you to handle a full conversation, they will simply immediately switch to English; otherwise they would feel you are just wasting their time.
troyvit 3y ago
Man there are a lot here. I got to read a few of these sagas (in English) years ago and many of them are fun. Think crazy soap opera but with swords, boats and bows and all before 1000AD. Somebody else recommended the Saga of Erik the Red and the Greenland Saga. Those are great. For an early look at democracy vs mob rule the The Story of Burnt Njal is great. For great poetry[1], adventurism and, well, funny-shaped heads, Egil's Saga is also great. If I remember, a lot of the Sagas will reference other ones, and the style definitely gives you the sense that they were spoken for centuries before they were written down. It's also worth noting that many (most?) were written down by Christians based on the tellings. Some people think the outlook of the Christians writing down these mostly-pagan tales comes through a little more than the original telling. Sorry I don't have a source for that. If I remember correctly many Icelanders can trace their ancestry back to the subjects of some of these Sagas. If you decide to read some, what I found was that I was mostly lost in the first saga, but by the third or fourth in a row the style started making more sense. It gets immersive. [1] Old Norse poetry doesn't easily translate into English but a lot of the style still comes through. They relied heavily on kennings. There's a good description on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning
- krapp 3y ago
  > Sorry I don't have a source for that. History is the only source you need. It would have been considered heresy to to otherwise, and it was common at the time for Christian scholars to reframe pagan gods as wicked sorcerers or demons and the like. In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson states the gods are human descendants of Trojan heroes. It's also likely the descriptions of "light elves" and "dark elves" (basically angels and demons) along with Ragnarok (Apocalypse) and Baldr's death and resurrection (Christ motif) were retooled if not fabricated entirely to turn these 'dangerous pagan lies' into useful Christian metaphors. Unfortunately we'll never know how much was changed, but we can be absolutely certain things were changed.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Christian translators did that quite far into the modern era. An uncensored, fully unabridged translation of The Count of Monte Cristo didn't appear in English until 1996, over 150 years after the book was written.
RugnirViking 3y ago
I took my name "rugnir" from a compination of two names from a of names mentioned in the icelandic saga. I love these kinds of old mythological epics. I recommend the epic of gilgamesh, beowulf too
- goto11 3y ago
  The Icelandic Sagas are not really mythological though. They generally describe realistic historic events. The characters are probably all historical, although the events likely have been dramatized.
djbusby 3y ago
Anyone know something like this but for Indian ancient stories? Would love to find even more sites with the tales before writing.
hugi 3y ago
Random fact; this website is created and maintained by Sveinbjörn Þórðarson who also made Platypus (https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus) and Sloth (https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Sloth https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Sloth) — software that Mac nerds might be familiar with. Sveinbjörn is a ball of energy that just radiates positives for human society.
goto11 3y ago
These are the Icelandic Sagas, which means stories taking place on Iceland. In addition there exist a number of sagas written in Icelandic which takes place before the settlement of Iceland. These are often more fantastic and with more supernatural elements and sometimes guest appearances by the Norse Gods (although the authors are always quick to point out that they are not actually Gods, but just Turks.)
- dbtc 3y ago
  Can you recommend me anything?

152 points by ughitsaaron 3y ago

mjul 3y ago

Around year 1000 the vikings' went to Vinland, which was their name for North America. You can read about it in two sagas: The Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauða) has a description of Erik's son Leif leading an expedition to Vinland: https://www.sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en https://www.sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en The Greenland Saga (Grænlendinga saga) has more information on the journey if you can read Icelandic, but there is no English translation in this database at the moment. The actual discovery was not by Erik but by an earlier voyage around 985 by Bjarni, who navigated the coast but decided not to enter the unknown land. The later voyage was inspired by his information. The vikings considered the journey from Greenland to Vinland the most dangerous journey in their trading network, navigating storms and icebergs in their open boats. However, Vinland provided a source of valuable wood, a scarce resource around their homes in Greenland. There is archeological evidence of their visits on Newfoundland. You can visit their site in L'Anse aux Meadows with distinct viking houses and metal artefacts: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-aux-meadows https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-...

throwbadubadu 3y ago
I didn't knew that, til I went there as Eivor (Assassins Creed Valhalla) (: It actually was a vivid introduction also into the Viking sagas.
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  eivor is a female name and rather strange use in that game, even tho they hired experts such as Jackson Crawford.

privacythrow23 3y ago

Takk fyrir þessar rafbækur.

unhammer 3y ago
… amberbeeches … Neat, Icelandic uses raf as in "amber" just like ēlektron "amber".
- teddyh 3y ago
  Uncleftish Beholding
sgt 3y ago
Any icelanders on HN? I wonder if there is a startup community there.
- halldorel 3y ago
  me! and yes we do have a very nice community around icelandic startups (=^_^=)
- eysi 3y ago
  Me too. In fact Garden (dev tooling for the Kubernetes)[0] is a Berlin start-up with three Icelandic founders. And if I'm not mistaken, two of us worked briefly with @halldorel (commented below) at an earlier Icelandic start-up. It's a small world (if you're Icelandic). Edit: Scratch that, three Gardeners worked with @halldorel. [0] https://garden.io https://garden.io
  - SolonIslandus 3y ago
    At Admittor if I am not mistaken :) (I h crashed your office a few times)
    - eysi 3y ago
      Correct!
- svth 3y ago
  I'd say we have quite a vibrant startup ecosystem given the size of the country.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

This is a useful resource, but it is a pity that the Icelandic originals are in a spelling based on Modern Icelandic, not the standard used in Old Norse scholarship. For example, writing the nominative singular ending -r as -ur, and the letter ö for a certain low vowel instead of ǫ. Consequently, anyone learning Old Norse from a textbook published in the last century will have some mental conversion to deal with when using this site.

saevarom 3y ago
Some of them are available in Old Norse. Just click on the flag that says "ON". Or see a list of them by language here: https://www.sagadb.org/index_az https://www.sagadb.org/index_az
0xEF 3y ago
The spelling is welcomed from my perspective. I am in the process of learning to read Icelandic for an upcoming trip (also speaking at a basic level, but I love reading other languages) and was looking for something to practice with. Since the sagas are a big part of cultural history, maybe I should use this database? Any thoughts on this resource from fellow learners or native speakers are welcome.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  The sagas abound in obsolete vocabulary, things that are never said in spoken language today and unrecognizable to Icelanders without a commentary. Icelandic is conservative in some vocabulary, due to a decision since the 19th century to revive some old words and coin new native terms instead of borrowing from other languages. However, plenty of other old words fell by the wayside. It makes no more sense to read the sagas in preparation for a trip to the modern country, than for a foreigner to read Shakespeare or Chaucer in preparation for being a tourist in the UK. Also, don’t expect to speak Icelandic as a tourist in Iceland. The local people are well known for keeping aloof from tourists (tourists most often interact with a foreign workforce brought in from Poland etc. to serve them), and unless you have already gone through a course of the language that has prepared you to handle a full conversation, they will simply immediately switch to English; otherwise they would feel you are just wasting their time.

troyvit 3y ago

Man there are a lot here. I got to read a few of these sagas (in English) years ago and many of them are fun. Think crazy soap opera but with swords, boats and bows and all before 1000AD. Somebody else recommended the Saga of Erik the Red and the Greenland Saga. Those are great. For an early look at democracy vs mob rule the The Story of Burnt Njal is great. For great poetry[1], adventurism and, well, funny-shaped heads, Egil's Saga is also great. If I remember, a lot of the Sagas will reference other ones, and the style definitely gives you the sense that they were spoken for centuries before they were written down. It's also worth noting that many (most?) were written down by Christians based on the tellings. Some people think the outlook of the Christians writing down these mostly-pagan tales comes through a little more than the original telling. Sorry I don't have a source for that. If I remember correctly many Icelanders can trace their ancestry back to the subjects of some of these Sagas. If you decide to read some, what I found was that I was mostly lost in the first saga, but by the third or fourth in a row the style started making more sense. It gets immersive. [1] Old Norse poetry doesn't easily translate into English but a lot of the style still comes through. They relied heavily on kennings. There's a good description on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning

krapp 3y ago
> Sorry I don't have a source for that. History is the only source you need. It would have been considered heresy to to otherwise, and it was common at the time for Christian scholars to reframe pagan gods as wicked sorcerers or demons and the like. In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson states the gods are human descendants of Trojan heroes. It's also likely the descriptions of "light elves" and "dark elves" (basically angels and demons) along with Ragnarok (Apocalypse) and Baldr's death and resurrection (Christ motif) were retooled if not fabricated entirely to turn these 'dangerous pagan lies' into useful Christian metaphors. Unfortunately we'll never know how much was changed, but we can be absolutely certain things were changed.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Christian translators did that quite far into the modern era. An uncensored, fully unabridged translation of The Count of Monte Cristo didn't appear in English until 1996, over 150 years after the book was written.

RugnirViking 3y ago

I took my name "rugnir" from a compination of two names from a of names mentioned in the icelandic saga. I love these kinds of old mythological epics. I recommend the epic of gilgamesh, beowulf too

goto11 3y ago
The Icelandic Sagas are not really mythological though. They generally describe realistic historic events. The characters are probably all historical, although the events likely have been dramatized.

djbusby 3y ago

Anyone know something like this but for Indian ancient stories? Would love to find even more sites with the tales before writing.

hugi 3y ago

Random fact; this website is created and maintained by Sveinbjörn Þórðarson who also made Platypus (https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus) and Sloth (https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Sloth https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Sloth) — software that Mac nerds might be familiar with. Sveinbjörn is a ball of energy that just radiates positives for human society.

goto11 3y ago

These are the Icelandic Sagas, which means stories taking place on Iceland. In addition there exist a number of sagas written in Icelandic which takes place before the settlement of Iceland. These are often more fantastic and with more supernatural elements and sometimes guest appearances by the Norse Gods (although the authors are always quick to point out that they are not actually Gods, but just Turks.)

dbtc 3y ago
Can you recommend me anything?