The Orkneyinga Saga

The Orkneyinga Saga opens a doorway into the Norse world of the Northern Scottish Isles, where earls, bishops, poets, and warriors shaped a turbulent history of conquest and inheritance. This translation presents the great saga of Orkney with scholarly notes, maps, and an introduction that makes its vivid prose accessible while preserving its value as a major historical source for Northern Scotland. The book traces Orkney from its obscure pre-Norse past, when Celtic and Pictish peoples left behind burial mounds, stone weapons, and scattered traces of rule, through the arrival of Irish missionaries and early Christian settlers whose bells, saints, crosses, and Ogham inscriptions suggest a sacred landscape already in place before the Northmen came. It then follows the rise of Norse power under figures such as Sigurd, Torf-Einar, Thorfinn, Harald, John, Rögnvald, and Paul, recounting feuds, alliances, marriages, betrayals, and clashes with Scottish kings and bishops as Christianity and old pagan customs collided. Rich in archaeology, genealogy, place-names, and legend, the saga reveals a culture preserved in monuments, runes, ballads, and memory. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.