Books like Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas

This collection is best reviewed as individual stories, which is after all what they are. Some of the characters and places are in common between the individual sagas but from a reader point I feel they are discrete.Having read a few sagas I can say that the editors and translators are what make or break a collection and this editor does am amazing job. The introduction is almost as interesting as the sagas themselves and one can get so much out of it! Gwyn Jones brings the translation to life eloquently and vividly, the beautiful turns of phrase make these sagas clear and almost contemporary in feeling. While I do not have the bloodthirst code of honour of the Icelanders in the stories, the fact that they have a code and that it is deeply important to them, even when problematic to live by, is clear in every saga.I won’t review all the stories, but I will say that the one I had most looked forward to, The Vapnfjord Men, was the one I found most problematic. It is quite long with too many people and circumstances and places to easily keep straight in my head. There was a lot or re-reading as I tried to create a linear picture of something that quite clearly should have been a spoken word experience. I hope one day I get to hear it told, rather than reading it. Also, has this ever been a movie or Teeve series? If not why on earth not? It would be spectacularly brilliant in that medium.I adored the fun storytelling of Authun and the Bear, Eirik The Red (so different from the children’s book I loved as a child, but even better) and Thorstein Staff-Struck.