Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue : Icelandic Texts : Norse Mythology 1957

Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

Nelson's Icelandic Texts

Edited by P G Foote

Published by Nelson, London, 1957. First Edition. Hardback book in dust jacket. pp, xxviii, 47.

CONDITION
A very good clean copy in a very smart clean and but price-clipped dust jacket. Overall very good.

Gunnlaugs saga or the Saga of Gunnlaugur Serpent-Tongue is one of the Icelanders' sagas. Composed at the end of the 13th century, it is preserved complete in a slightly younger manuscript. It contains 25 verses of skaldic poetry attributed to the main characters.

It is an important work in both Norwegian and Icelandic literary history. Gunnlaugur is sometimes Anglicized as Gunnlaug. The cognomen can also be translated as Worm-Tongue or Snake-Tongue.

The saga has similarities to earlier sagas of poets, such as Kormáks saga and Bjarnar saga, but it is more refined and elegant with strong characterization and emotional impact. Long considered a masterpiece, the saga is often read by beginning students of Old Norse literature. Printed with a Latin translation and commentary in 1775, it was the first of the Icelanders' sagas to be published in a scholarly edition.

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