This is the first in a set of three volumes making available for the first time critical editions and translations of important medieval Arthurian texts from Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Devoted to the Tristan legend. It contains Geitarlauf and Janual, Old Norse translations of the French lais Lanval and Chevrefeuil; Tristrams saga ok Isondar, Brother Thomas's Old Norse translation of Thomas's Tristan, dated 1226 and commissioned by King Hakon Hakonarson the Old of Norway; -Tristrams kvaedi-, a fourteenth-century Icelandic -Tristan- ballad; and the Saga af Tristram ok Isodd, a...

13-14c Norse versions of French narratives of Arthur's knights, with modern prose translations.

This book details the foundation and evolution of the romance genre in Iceland, tracing it from the introduction of French narratives and showing how they were acculturated into indigenous literary traditions. Marianne E. Kalinke focuses in particular on the oldest Icelandic copies of three chansons de geste and four of the earliest indigenous literary traditions, all found in an Icelandic codex from around 1300. She breaks considerable new ground in tracing the impact of the translated epic poems, which have largely been neglected by scholars in favor of the courtly romances.