Monday, July 6, 2026

The Vinland Sagas by Anonymous, Keneva Kunz (Translator) , Gísli Sigurðsson (Introduction and Notes)

 genre: history and myth, non-fiction

This slim volume contains not only translations of the two sagas The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red's Saga, it also has an extensive introduction to the context of the sagas themselves as well as an index with maps and illustrations.  

Did I try to keep all the names straight?  Not even a little. But having read them both, one right after the other, finding the similarities is interesting. From the introduction we learn that there is a crazy high probability that these oral stories that were written down hundreds of years after the fact really do tell about the exploration of North America by Greenlanders and Icelanders.  And this happened WAY before Columbus.  Also, the women in these stories are brutal and tough as nails.  

I definitely was educated but not crazy entertained.  

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