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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ian Myles Slater on: Excellent Translation (of the Prose), March 5, 2005
The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a king whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress. The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic. The Penguin Classics translation by Palsson and Edwards has been a readily-available, highly-readable, version, for a quarter of a century, and, although it has some stiff competition (including the Fell and Lucas version in Everyman's Library, published a year or so earlier), is an excellent introduction to the saga.
The first English translator of "Egil's Saga" was the Reverend W. C. Green, whose version of 1893 is available in several digital editions, and as a paperback from Kessinger. I have reviewed the Digireads edition, and commented there on its stylistic and other failings. Green attributed it to the famous Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson, mainly because he was alive at about the time it was written, was descended from Egil, and was a brilliant writer -- not unique characteristics among members of leading Icelandic families. More distinguished scholars have offered some better, but still inconclusive, arguments for the attribution.
Green's version was followed in 1930 by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," had been published in the 1920s. Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, and reprinted by Greenwood in 1968, is occasionally available, and has many merits. Eddison was able to use an advance copy of Sigurdur Nordal's 1933 critical text, which was the scholarly standard into the 1980s. However, Eddison attempted to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, regardless of whether they were colloquial, or even current English. Since the sagas are notable for an unadorned prose, the concept of the translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than the theory. (So do I.) Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems are extremely impressive, and carefully annotated -- and need the explanations. Since the language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric and convoluted in its own time, Eddison's choice of language is unquestionably appropriate for the verse, if not the prose. Given the prices usually asked for it, my advice to the curious would be to try a library. (I count myself fortunate to have acquired a copy in the 1970s.)
A much more colloquial translation by Gwyn Jones, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation, was published in 1960, and reprinted in 1970. Jones' standard English version is less "full-bodied" than Eddison's, and much easier to follow, but still an impressive rendering of the saga's lean prose. (Although I can't agree with Christine Fell's view that his was "the first readable English version.") His treatment of Egil's poems is lucid, but hardly even attempts to emulate Eddison's feat of producing verses in something like the original meters. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, but it is often available at quite reasonable prices.
So is the translation of "Egils Saga" by Christine Fell, with the poems translated in verse by John Lucas (a sensible division of labor; prose versions of the poems are included in the notes). It was published in Everyman's University Library, an imprint of the old Everyman's Library, in 1975, and included in Everyman Paperbacks in 1985, with some revisions, and reprinted in 1993 with additional bibliography. It may be picked up in the current Everyman Paperback Classics series. I certainly hope so, since it is very readable, although I at first found the prose a little flat after long familiarity with Eddison. The notes and indexes are the closest approximation to Eddison's available until quite recently, and the scholarship is obviously much more up-to-date than 1930. For the truly serious, the Viking Society for Northern Research has announced a new (2003) edition of the Icelandic text, as "Egils Saga," edited by Bjarni Einarsson, with annotations in English, available through Cornell University Press (not seen).
The Fell / Lucas translation was followed immediately by this Penguin Classics version by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (1976), long readily available, and quite enjoyable. The Glossary of Proper Names is a fairly good index of the characters, and the maps are usable. Footnotes provide translations of some place-names, and a few other details, but the legal issues at stake in various parts of the saga, and the major historical problems when Egil brushes up with documented events, cry out for annotation; at least if, like me, you are used to that provided by Eddison and Fell.
The five-volume translation series of "The Complete Saga of the Icelanders," published in 1997, includes Bernard Scudder's version of "Egil's Saga." It is the first since Eddison's to be based on a new edition. His translation takes the lead place in a recent (2000) Penguin Classics volume, "The Sagas of the Icelanders," a massive trade paperback based on "The Complete Sagas." It is there one of ten sagas, and seven shorter tales. Scudder's version has now been released in a separate volume from Penguin Classics, also as "Egil's Saga" -- it is not clear if this is in addition to, or in place of, the Palsson and Edwards translation. (Penguin has from time to time had more than one translation of a work available.)
Scudder's version is similar in style to the Jones, Fell, and Palsson and Edwards translations, and his rendering of the poems aims at the meaning more than the style, following Jones and Palsson and Edwards, rather than Eddison or (the less extreme) Lucas in trying to give an impression of the artistry of the verse. For the majority of readers, this may be the best solution. Those deeply interested in the art of the skalds will in any case look elsewhere.
In practical terms, for most people this comes down to the outdated and bowdlerized Green, in one or another digital version, and the two modern translations from Penguin. "The Sagas of the Icelanders" is an attractive package, and the new separate edition of Scudder will make sense for some readers. But Palsson and Edwards did an excellent job, and a quarter-century later it is still worth attention; I hope Penguin keeps it in print.
Since they were published before 1993, none of the older translations were able to make reference to Jesse Byock's theory that Egil suffered from Paget's Disease, a claim based on correlating random-looking details about his grotesque appearance and odd behavior in the prose of the saga, the aging Egil's complaints about his health in some of the poetry, and a very strange story near the end of the saga about a tough, thick skull supposed to have been found where he was buried. And Scudder doesn't mention it either (at least in the Penguin "Sagas of the Icelanders" -- I'm hoping to check the new release soon). Paget's Disease was not recognized until modern times, so the saga-writer could hardly have gleaned information about it from medieval books, and planted it in the text. If Byock is correct, there must have been very accurate transmission of some family stories about the fierce old man, whatever else got garbled over time.
"Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga." For those interested in a modern fiction writer's view of Egil and his associates, the late Poul Anderson's "Mother of Kings" is an interesting quasi-historical novel in which Egil is a major character. (I call it quasi-historical because, as Anderson warns, the story adopts attractive medieval legends on some key points, instead of following the historical evidence; and a fantasy interpretation, although not required, is not ruled out.)
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
better than you might think, August 30, 2000
I picked up this book in preparation for a trip to Iceland as a way to get a feel for the country's history, so I expected to appreciate it in an educational sense. In that respect, the book did its job. However, I was also surprised to find both the plot and the writing style engaging, so though I started the book out of a sense of duty, I finished the book wrapped up in the story.The saga follows the life of Egil Skallagrimmson, one of Iceland's early settlers, beginning with a relatively lengthy section about several generations of ancestors preceding any mention of Egil's birth. Egil himself is a morally ambiguous figure, committing his first murder at six, but displaying moments of generosity and leadership as well, and of course he's also a poet. The action revolves primarily around Egil's movements back and forth between Norway and Iceland, though there is also a section that takes place in England, with Egil acting as a mercenary in a war against Scotland. Sagas do not read like modern novels--this is more of a biography that follows Egil birth to death--but part of the saga's purpose is to entertain, and it does that well. Two things are involved in making this saga readable: first, the skill of the translators, whose sole fault seems to be an utter inability to translate Egil's poetry in any way that conveys why people thought he was such a great poet (maybe it just sounds better in Icelandic). Fortunately, the poetry takes up a pretty small fraction of the book. More significant is the author's skill together with the distinctive features of the saga genre--namely this: the sagas are primarily concerned with people and their actions. Thus every detail serves to carry the plot forward. You won't get landscape descriptions unless landscapes are relevant to the plot. Use of dialogue is frequent and relatively natural, but the conversations are brief and always move things forward. This might sound like the book reads like an action movie (and to a degree it does), but the fact that the saga includes Egil's genealogy and stories about others in his generation in his family that result in a story that evolves from a web of motivations. You don't get much in the way of examination of Egil's psyche, but the stripped-down style of the saga and its convincing portrayal of Egil as a complete human personality makes me wonder how necessary the tendencies of much modern literature to pay so much attention to inner life as a true representation of the human experience really are.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Body of a Troll, Heart of a Lion, Soul of a Poet, June 13, 2001
This saga examines four generations of a redoubtable Icelandic family of warrior poets thought to be descended from trolls, beginning with Kveldulf in the first generation; Skallagrim, in the second; Egil, in the third; and finally petering out with Thorstein, who is content to be a mere farmer. They are (frequently) outlawed by the powerful kings of Norway, whom they help but whose jealousy clouds their judgment. They let no man stand in their way, and are formidable even in fights at long odds. Egil Skallagrimsson, in particular, comes across as a force of nature. We see him in action across Scandinavia, in England where he fights with King Athelstan, and as far afield as the Baltic countries. His poetry, of which there are numerous examples in the saga, are interesting -- yet come from a tradition that is alien to ours, probably much closer to BEOWULF than any other English equivalent. Unlike so many other saga heroes, Egil dies a natural death, living long enough to lose his strength and be bossed about by servant women. Yet his poetic vision remains to the end: Life fades, I must fall
And face my own end
Not in misery and mourning
But with a man's heart. This is one of the five major Icelandic "family" sagas, along with NJALS SAGA, LAXDAELA SAGA, GRETTIR'S SAGA, and EYRBYGGJA SAGA. It may be the best of them all (though I have yet to read GRETTIR'S SAGA at this time). In that distant island so far from the harshness of Dark Ages Europe, a major literature was born that is dramatically different from anything else I have encountered, and that has the ability to move me as few things have.
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