Icelandic Sagas and Manuscripts

Jonas Kristjansson

Published by: Saga Publishing Reykjavik Iceland, hardcover with box, illustrated.
minor corner endpaper missing

The history of the Scandinavian North begins in the twilight of pre-history. Archeological evidence shows these lands to have been inhabited for thousands of years, since the stone and bronze ages, with fluctuating prosperity and a slow advance. The aboriginal inhabitants of Scandinavia were of unknown racial stock, but it was later invaded by a Germanic people, a branch of the great Indoeuropean stem that spread across Europe and Asia in the last centuries before Christ.
The ancient Romans came into contact with the Germanic tribes of the south on the borders of the Empire, beyond the rivers Rhine and Danube. These southern tribes had certain customs in common and spoke various dialects of the same language. They had long since emerged from the herdsman stage to form a number of kingdoms with some kind of organisation and social structure, but their participation in the classical Mediterranean culture had been small. They had no written literature; the characteristic Germanic runes were used al most exclusively for inscriptions on objects, and later on gravestones.
In the eyes of the Romans with their richer culture and more developed social system these tribes were no better than semi-savage barbarians. Roman historical works made frequent reference to these people, while Tacitus devoted to them a special book ……………………………