William R. Short, Icelanders in the Viking Age: The People of the Sagas (McFarland, 2010)
First, a warning to readers. You may find you need to hide your copy of this book. When this book arrived in my house, I left it on a table. My husband took one look and kidnapped it, and I didn't get it back till he was good and finished with it.
Now let us define the "saga." As Short says in his "Introduction," "The Icelanders invented a new form of literature and created engrossing stories about the people who settled Iceland and who formed and lived in the new state under the new government. These stories are called Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders)." In other words, these are some of the first historical novels in European literature. Like many modern historical novels, they contain a mixture of historical and fictional characters. In general, they were written in the 12th century about people living during the period when Iceland was first being settled, basically the 9th and 10th centuries. Think Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour, if you want a comparison -- books about the hypothetical good old days when the nation was being built by real, tough men and women.
Icelanders in the Viking Age is not a retelling of the sagas. Short mentions episodes from different sagas to illustrate a point, but you really don't get the full story of any of them. This is popular anthropology, with chapters on pretty much all aspects of daily life in Iceland during the 9th and 10th centuries. You don't need to be a specialist in anthropology or history to understand him. This is a work of scholarship, but not a scholarly work, if you get my drift.
Short includes a glossary, pages and pages of endnotes (largely in Icelandic, which is one reason they are better as endnotes than as footnotes) and an index. The book is illustrated with numerous black and white photographs of Iceland and Icelandic artifacts, drawings and maps. In the appendix, "Sagas for Outlanders," Short recommends his favorite translations and discusses which sagas in particular a new reader should start with. He also recommends various secondary and tertiary sources.
When I was a child I devoured the Everyday Life In. . . books. Icelanders in the Viking Age: The People of the Sagas is the same sort of thing for grown-ups, and I (and my husband) enjoyed it very much.
You've got to hand it to McFarland as they publish some fascinating books.
