Bringing alive the dramatic poems of Old Norse heroic legend, this new collection offers accessible, ground-breaking and inspiring essays which introduce and analyse the exciting legends of the two doomed Helgis and their valkyrie lovers; the dragon-slayer Siguror; Brynhildr the implacable shield-maiden; tragic Guorun and her children; Attila the Hun (from a Norse perspective ); and greedy King Frooi, whose name lives on in Tolkien's Frodo. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the poems for students, taking a number of fresh, theoretically-sophisticated and productive...

'She sees, coming up a second time,
Earth from the ocean, eternally green;
the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them,
over the mountain hunting fish.'
After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean, and life is renewed. The Poetic Edda begins with The Seeress's Prophecy which recounts the creation of the world, and looks forward to its destruction and rebirth. In this great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry, the exploits of gods and humans are related. The one-eyed...

King Arthur summons visions of courtly chivalry, towering castles, windswept battlefields, heroic quests, and above all of the monarch who dies but who one day shall return. The Arthurian legend lives on as powerfully and enduringly as ever. Yet central to these stories are the mysterious, sexually alluring enchantresses - spellcasters, mistresses of magic who wield extraordinary influence over Arthur's life and destiny. Carolyne Larrington takes her readers on a quest to discover why these dangerous women continue to bewitch us. She explores them as they appear in poetry and painting, on the...

Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the psyches of those who inhabit them? In this sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of fantastical beings has moulded...

This is the first comprehensive and accessible survey in English of Old Norse eddic poetry: a remarkable body of literature rooted in the Viking Age, which is a critical source for the study of early Scandinavian myths, poetics, culture and society. Dramatically recreating the voices of the legendary past, eddic poems distil moments of high emotion as human heroes and supernatural beings alike grapple with betrayal, loyalty, mortality and love. These poems relate the most famous deeds of gods such as Odinn and THorr with their adversaries the giants; they bring to life the often fraught...

This book explores the connections between history and fantasy in George RR Martin’s immensely popular book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ and the international TV sensation HBO TV’s Game of Thrones. Acknowledging the final season’s foregrounding of the cultural centrality of history, truth and memory in the confrontation between Bran and the Night King, the volume takes full account of the TV show’s conclusion in its multiple readings across from medieval history, its institutions and practices, as depicted in the books to the show’s own particular medievalism. The topics...