Primary Sources Recommended for Study

The following reading list has been compiled to offer current students on the Tripos with the primary sources for the Part I study of:

Part I Paper 2 - Scandinavian history in the Viking Age

Paper co-ordinator: Professor Elizabeth Rowe

E. Christiansen (transl.), Saxo Grammaticus: Danorum regum heroumque historia, books X-XVI, BAR International series 84 and 118 (Oxford 1980-81)
E. Christiansen (transl.), The works of Sven Aggesen, twelfth-century Danish historian, Viking Society for Northern Research text series 9 (London 1992)
M. Driscoll (ed. and transl.), Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum: a twelfth-century synoptic history of the kings of Norway, Viking Society for Northern Research text series 10 (London 1995)
P. Fisher and H. R. Ellis Davidson (transl.), Saxo Grammaticus, The history of the Danes, I: English text (Cambridge 1979)
L. M. Hollander (transl.), Heimskringla: history of the kings of Norway (Austin, TX 1964)
L. M. Hollander (transl.), The saga of the Jómsvíkings (Austin, TX 1955)
G. Johnston (transl.), The Faroe Islanders' saga (Ottawa 1975)
H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (transl.), Orkneyinga saga: the history of the earls of Orkney (London 1978)
H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (transl.), Knytlinga saga: the history of the kings of Denmark (Odense 1986)
H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (transl.), Magnus' saga: the life of St Magnus earl of Orkney, 1075-1116 (Oxford 1987)
C. Tolkien (transl.), The saga of king Heidrek the wise (Edinburgh 1960): for the Swedish kings' list (pp. 59-63)

V. Hreinsson (ed.), The complete sagas of Icelanders, 5 vols (Reykjavík 1997): all the Icelandic family sagas in English

A. Faulkes (transl.), Snorri Sturluson: Edda, Everyman Classics 499 (London 1987)
L.M. Hollander (transl.), Old Norse poems: the most important non-skaldic verse not included in the Poetic Edda (New York 1936)
L.M. Hollander (transl.), The skalds: a selection of their poems (Princeton, NJ 1945)
C. Larrington (transl.), The Poetic Edda, Oxford World's Classics (Oxford 1996)
R.G. Poole, Viking poems on war and peace: a study in skaldic narrative (Toronto, 1991)
R. North (ed. and transl.), The Haustlöng of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (Enfield Lock 1997)
D. Whaley, The poetry of Arnórr jarlaskáld: an edition and study, Westfield publications in medieval studies 8 (Turnhout 1998)
D. Whaley, ed., Poetry from the kings’ sagas. 1, From mythical times to c. 1035 (Turnhout, 2012)
K. E. Gade, ed., Poetry from the kings’ sagas. 2 (Turnhout, 2009)

A. Dennis et al. (transl.), The laws of early Iceland. Grágás: the Codex Regius of Grágás with material from other manuscripts, vol. I, University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies 3 (Winnipeg 1980)
L. M. Larson (transl.), The earliest Norwegian laws, being the Gulathing law and the Frostathing law, Records of civilization, sources and studies 20 (New York 1935)
S. Grønlie (transl.), Íslendingabók (The book of the Icelanders), Kristni Saga (The story of the conversion) (London, 2006)
H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (transl.), The book of settlements: Landnámabók, University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies 1 (Winnipeg 1972)

S. B. F. Jansson, Runes in Sweden (2nd edn, Stockholm 1987)
E. Moltke, Runes and their origin: Denmark and elsewhere (Copenhagen 1985)
T. Spurkland, Norwegian runes and runic inscriptions, trans. B. van der Hoek (Woodbridge, 2005
M. Olsen, Farms and fanes of ancient Norway: the place-names of a country discussed in their bearings on social and religious history, Institutt for sammenlignende kulturforskning, serie A: Forelesninger 9 (Oslo 1928)

A. Campbell (ed. and transl.), Encomium Emmae reginae, Camden third series 72 (London 1949), 2nd edn by S. Keynes (Cambridge 1998)
S. H. Cross and O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (transl.), The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian text, The Mediaeval Academy of America publication 60 (Cambridge, MA 1953)
J. Bately and A. Englert, edd., Ohthere’s voyages: a late 9th-century account of voyages along the coasts of Norway and Denmark and its cultural context (Roskilde, 2007
G. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins (edd. and transl.), Constantine Porphyrogenitus: de administrando imperio, vol. I (Budapest 1949)
Rimbert, Vita Anskarii; C. H. Robinson, transl., in Carolingian Civilization: A Reader, ed. P. E. Dutton (Peterborough, Ont., 1993)
B. W. Scholz and B. Rogers (transl.), Carolingian chronicles: Royal Frankish annals and Nithard's histories (Ann Arbor, MI 1970)
P. Lunde and C. Stone (transl.), Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab travellers in the far north (Harmondsworth, 2012)
F. J. Tschan (transl.), History of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Records of civilization: sources and studies 53 (New York 1959): Adam's essential if tendentious history