WILLIAM MORRIS.




PREFACE.


We do not feel able to take in hand the wide subject of the Sagas of
Iceland within the limits of a Preface; therefore we have only to say
that we put forward this volume as the translation of an old story
founded on facts, full of dramatic interest, and setting before
people's eyes pictures of the life and manners of an interesting race
of men near akin to ourselves.

Those to whom the subject is new, we must refer to the translations
already made of some other of these works,[1] and to the notes which
accompany them: a few notes at the end of this volume may be of use to
students of Saga literature.

[Footnote 1: Such as 'Burnt Njal,' Edinburgh, 1861, 8vo, and 'Gisli
the Outlaw,' Edinburgh, 1866, 4to, by Dasent; the 'Saga of Viga-Glum,'
London, 1866, 8vo, by Sir E. Head; the 'Heimskringla,' London, 1844,
8vo, by S. Laing; the 'Eddas,' Prose by Dasent, Stockholm, 1842;
Poetic by A.S. Cottle, Bristol, 1797, and Thorpe, London and Halle,
1866; the 'Three Northern Love Stories,' translated by Magnússon and
Morris, London, 1875, and 'The Volsunga Saga,' translated by the same,
London, 1870.]