Alexander - The wanderer: elegies, epics, riddles

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Translation first published 1966; revised and expanded 1991
This edition first published in Penguin Classics 2008
Reissued in Penguin Classics 2013

Copyright Michael Alexander, 1966, 1977, 1991, 2008

Cover illustration by Petra Brner
Cover design by Isabelle De Cat

All rights reserved

Some of the Riddles originally appeared in Old English Riddles from the Exeter Book (translated by Michael Alexander), published by the Anvil Press, 1980

The moral right of the translator has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-141-39375-9

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Michael Alexanders verse translations from Old English include The Earliest English Poems (1966) and Beowulf (1973), both in Penguin Classics, and Old English Riddles from the Exeter Book (Anvil Press, 1980, 2007, 2013). Other publications are Penguin editions of Beowulf and of Chaucer, a study of Ezra Pound, and a well-liked History of English Literature (Palgrave, 2000, 2007). He has retired from the Chair of English Literature at the University of St Andrews and now lives in Oxford. His most recent publications are Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England (Yale University Press, 2007), The First Poems in English (Penguin, 2008) and Reading Shakespeare (Palgrave, 2012).

EGILS SAGA

The sea-goddess has ruffled me,

stripped me bare of my loved ones

Egils Saga tells the story of the long and brutal life of the tenth-century warrior-poet and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson: a psychologically ambiguous character who was at once the composer of intricately beautiful poetry and a physical grotesque capable of staggering brutality. This Icelandic saga recounts Egils progression from youthful savagery to mature wisdom as he struggles to defend his honour in a running feud against the Norwegian King Erik Blood-axe, fights for the English King Athelstan in his battles against Scotland and embarks on colourful Viking raids across Europe. Exploring issues as diverse as the question of loyalty, the power of poetry and the relationship between two brothers who love the same woman, Egils Saga is a fascinating depiction of a deeply human character, and one of the true masterpieces of medieval literature.

This new translation by Bernard Scudder fully conveys the poetic style of the original. It also contains a new introduction by Svanhildur skarsdttir, placing the saga in historical context, a detailed chronology, a chart of Egils ancestors and family, maps and notes.

Translated by Bernard Scudder

Edited by Ornulfur Thorsson

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GISLE SURSSONS SAGA AND
THE SAGA OF THE PEOPLE OF EYRI

Based on oral tales that originated from historical events in tenth-century Iceland, these two sagas follow the fate of a powerful Viking family across two generations, from its Norwegian ancestry through fierce battles to defend its honour. Gisli Surssons Saga is a story of forbidden love and divided loyalties, in which the heroic Gisli vows to avenge the murder of his sworn brother and sets in motion a chain of bloody events that culminate in tragedy. The Saga of the People of Eyri continues the story with Snorri, a cunning leader of the next generation, who uses his intellect to restore social order. Blending gripping narrative, humour, the supernatural and shrewd observation, these tales reveal the richness of the saga tradition and present a vivid record of a society moving from individualism to a Christian ethic of reconciliation and order.

These clear, contemporary translations are accompanied by an introduction giving historical and literary background to the sagas. This edition also includes appendices, maps, notes on the texts, a glossary and an index of characters.

Translated by Martin S. Regal and Judy Quinn

Edited with an introduction by Vsteinn lason

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JUST SO STORIES
RUDYARD KIPLING

The rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe

The Camel gets his Hump, the Whale his Throat and the leopard his Spots in these bewitching stories which conjure up distant lands, the beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, the sea, the deserts, the jungle and its creatures. Inspired by kiplings delight in human eccentricities and the animal world, and based on bedtime stories he told to his daughter, these strikingly imaginative fables explore the myths of creation, the nature of beasts and the origins of language and writing. They are linked by poems and scattered with kiplings illustrations, which contain hidden jokes, symbols and puzzles. among kiplings most loved works, the Just So Stories have been continually in print since 1902.

Part of a series of new editions of Kiplings works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains a General Preface by Jan Montefiore and an introduction by Judith Plotz exploring the origins of the stories in kiplings own life and in folklore, their place in classic childrens literature and their extraordinary language.