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De saga van Grettir * Marcel Otten (translator) (Ambo 2003 * isbn 9026317905)

Another Icelandic saga translated in Dutch by Marcel Otten. Just as the earlier released translations of Njal, Volsüngen and Edda a wonderfull translation with a foreword of professor M.C. van den Toorn and geneologies and an index at the end. This more storytelling (historical?) saga speaks about Grettir who is an utter and complete bastard. After banishments and other punishments, he receives the ultimate punishment: outlawel. A nice book again and there is plenty left to translate, so more will follow hopefully.
Also available in English of course, just check Amazon.

De Saga van Njal * Marcel Otten (translator) (Ambo 2000 * isbn 9026316038)

Third translation of an old-Icelandic text into Dutch by Marcel Otten (also see “Edda” and “De Saga van Völsungen”) became a gigantic book. A 447 pages hardcover with a very nice translation of the “Brennu Njálsaga”. This is a family-epic about Njal, Gunnar and their family. A long and complex story with elements of Icelandic and Norse traditions and mythology doesn’t make this book an easy read.

Like we get used to there is helpfull information in the back, genealogy, notes, bibliograpy, maps and an index.

Verhalen Uit De Vikingtijd * Marcel Otten (2006 ambo * isbn 9026319096)

Stories From The Time Of The Vikings is the Dutch counterpart of The Sagas Of The Icelanders that you can find reviewed elsewhere. Marcel Otten has earlier translated other sagas (all reviewed) and the poetic Edda. This time he compiled mostly Icelandic sagas, translated them into Dutch and of course wrote an introduction and added extra information and maps. Unfortunately there are four texts in this book that are also among the English translations (marked with an * furtheron). I must say, I did like the English translations, but got a bit bored after reading too much of these longs sagas, but I enjoyed the Dutch translations a lot better. Maybe it is the free style of Otten that works a lot better with these sagas than with the Edda, is it the language or just my mood? Anyway, in this book you will find the following sagas: Í–rvar-Odds Saga (the saga of Od with the arrows), Króka-Refs Saga (the saga of Fox the Sly)*, EirÍ­ks saga rauða (the saga of Eirik the Red)*, Gunnlaugssaga ormstungu (the saga of Gunnlaug Serpenttongue)*, Ížorsteins Ížáttr bæjarmagns (the story of Thorstein Househigh (“staff-struck” in the other book))*, Bósa saga og Herrauðs (the saga of Bosi and Herraud), Egils saga einhenda ok ́smundar berserkjabana (the sage of Egil Onehand and Asmund the Berserkrkiller), Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (the saga of Hervör and Heidrek). Very funny is that many storylines seem somehow familiar and towards the ends I found out why. The first saga is that of “Od with the arrows” and in one of Od’s adventures he goes out to kill twelve Berserkr brothers. At the end of the book there is the saga of Hervör and Heidrik which is partly about twelve Berserkr brothers who suddenly run into some “Od with the arrows”!! Such things give a nice idea of how these stories were transmitted and how many stories there must have been. The style of the stories is very funny too, especially the very explicit sex-scenes in Bosi’s story. The texts are full of jokes and amusing events, but also give a good idea of Viking life and ethics. Strangely enough (or not) almost all characters are very much against the prechristian faith and devout Christians. Certainly a sign of the time they were written down in. All in all a very enjoyable collection of old stories in a very nice translation.

The Sagas Of The Icelanders (Viking 1997 * isbn 0965477703)

Almost exactly a year ago I was in the USA where I bought too many books. I also had this book in my hand. Almost 800 pages for a mere $ 20,-. I paged though it and paged through it again and eventually decided not to buy it. I knew hardly any of the sagas, I already spent way too much money on books and my suitcase was starting to become pretty damn heavy. Back home for many months with much reading about our pre-Christian ancestors and their religion and mythology I wished that I could read some of their sagas, so I remembered the book in that small occult bookshop in Seattle. Amazon now has it for only $ 14,28, but to have it shipped here would cost me too, so I used antiqbook.com to locate a copy nearer-by. To my surprise I found a copy of a different printing (when you go to Amazon, you will see another cover) in a second hand bookshop in the Netherlands, so I immediately ordered it and received it within a week.

When starting to read it, I soon noticed that this is not my kind of literature. I can’t read fiction or novels and the same goes for 700-year-old stories it seems. A collection was made out of the 49 “complete sagas of the Icelanders” (also for sale) resulting in nine sagas and six tales. Each story is introduced at length with maps, drawing and a summery. At the end there is a very interesting part with extra information.

The sages are long stories (sometimes a few hundred pages), the tales are the same kinds of stories but shorter. The texts are mostly about a man, who was the son of… who was the son of… who was the son of… The man is married to …, a daughter of… a son of… You will get the idea. After such an introduction you will often read about Viking settlers, their raids, but very often social/family-affairs and there and there some warfare. This is told in narritive form with every now and then a poem, because all the great heroes were also poems. Reading the stories you will learn a lot of how the Viking stood in life, the moralilty, etc. There are a few parts with mythological references and here and there you can read about someone performing magic or some information about a ‘Thing’. Quite often you can also read about Vikings going Christian and/or the clash between the old faith and the new one. All this is quite docile, but I found myself having a hard time reading the actual stories which are mostly stuffed with uninteresting details and conversations. Still I am happy that I read the whole book and have a nice thick book on the shelf for referential purposes. Also I am sure there are many people who really like to read old texts like these. They come in very good translations by a number of people, but still in the same style. There is plenty of extra information so I can only highly recommand this book to anyone interested in old literature and/or the Vikings (and meanwhile learning about our own ancestors). Tip: you can see the contents-pages at Amazon.com so you will know which sagas and tales are in the book.

Edda * Snorri Sturluson (transl. Anthony Faulkes) (Everyman 1995 * ISBN: 0460876163)

The name of the writer should already tell you that this Edda is the so called ‘prose’ or ‘younger’ Edda (which was in fact written earlier than the poetic Edda!). I already had two translations from the internet, but this translation is 100 years younger (1987). All three translations have something good and something bad. Andersson messes up the numbering of the verses and made chapters himself, but at least isn’t too fanatic in transating names, while Brodeur has the correct numbering, but translates almost everything. And then we come to Faulkes. His translation is readable, but even while he tried to keep the original names, he rewrote them (usually leaving the final “r” for example). Also his numbering is very irritating. However he surely knows how this numbering goes, he only names them in the heads of the pages. You have an enitre page with texts, while the head says: “[8-10]” for example, but there is no mark in the text where the next chapter begins! Hard to use for quotations!

Just as the other translations, Faulkes did not only translate the famous Gylfaginning, but also the more theoretical parts of the book, the Skaldskaparmal and the Hattatal. A nice index and a summery of the most important parts. Sadly enough, also Faulkes translates names a bit too much. “High”, “Just-as-high” and “Third” for example, without giving the original names “Har”, “Jafnhar” and “Thridi” for example. I suppose the three translations will have to complete eachother for me, but fortunately the one that I got in book-form is the best in general.

The Poetic Edda * Carolyne Larrington (transl.) (Oxford World Classics 1999 * ISBN 0192839462)

“A new translation” says the cover of this book. Indeed, this is the newest translation of the Poetic or Elder Edda that I have (1996). I have two Dutch translations of the poetic Edda (which are reviewed above) and I wanted another translation to be able to compare them. As you can read in my review of the De Vries translation, neither of the two Dutch translations is perfect, not by far I am afraid I have to say, but of course both have their value. A point of comment on the Dutch translation of Marcel Otten is that he translates everything, including names, while De Vries leaves all the names as they are. Larrington remains somewhere in between Otten and De Vries. Larrington leaves many names untranslated, but other names are given in English. Otten at least is consistent! The Larrington translation sometimes comes to strange texts, such as:
“New Moon and Dark-of-Moon, North and South | East and West, Master-Thief, Delayer, | Bivor, Bavor, Bombur, and Nori, | An and Anar, Great-grandfather and Mead-wolf.” (Völuspa 11). Otten makes of this (his Dutch to my English):
“Waxing and Sleeping Moon, North and South, | East and West, Master-thief and Tarryer, | Shiver and Glitter, Barrel and Shrivel, | Friend and Enemy, Primal-grandpa and Mead-wolf.”

In general the Larrington translation is a nice one though. For some reason her division of the verses differs slightly from that of Otten and also the order of the poems is different (Otten added a few from other codices). In general this little (and cheap) booklet is a nice one for reference. Also the introduction is scholarly and informative and there is an index. Like I said, I use this translation to compare it with my Dutch translations and of the three English translations that I have, it is by about a 100 years the most recent and (therefor?) also the best. Larrington regards the Faulkes translation of the Snorre-Edda or Prose Edda as the best there is and this one is also available in a cheap paperback and I happen to have it as well (see review below).

Edda * Marcel Otten (Ambo 1994 * isbn 9026316259)

This is the second pressing of Otten’s successfull translation of the Edda into Dutch. It was the first translation into my language in almost 60 years at the time. The book is enormous, 454 pages, making it much thicker than any other translation of the Edda that I know.
The Edda is of course a compilation of old-Icelandic texts. The word “Edda” usually refers to the “Codex Regius” that was given to the king of Denmark in 1662, but because there are more texts in the Codex than the Edda, Otten didn’t entirely limit himself to the Edda. The texts were written down in the 11/12th century, but are much older than that.
Otten comes with a 15-page introduction telling about the history of Iceland (how it became inhabited by Vikings) and how the texts came into being. After this comes a very well-readable translation of 37 texts, some a bit longer, most of them pretty short. The titles are translated, but also given in the original language. A strange thing is that Otten translates half of the names while others he keeps in the original language. The texts themselves are translated very well, both the more continuing stories as the more poetic ones.
In the back you get a very handy genealogy and maps, notes per text, a large bibliography and a gigantic index. Unfortunately the index refers to texts and not to pages.
After this succesfull book, Otten continued to translate more old-Icelandic texts. There are plenty of them, so he had enough to do for the rest of his life. Also see my reviews of “De Sage van de Völsungen” (“Völsungenssaga”) and “De Saga van Njal” (“Brennu Njálsaga”).

Edda * Jan de Vries (translator) (Ankh-Hermes 2000 * ISBN 9020248782)

For ten years we have a second Dutch translation of the “poetic” or “elder Edda”, that is only recently receiving acknowledgement. That other translation of Marcel Otten is reviewed below. The De Vries translation is the classical translation from 1938 from the hand of the writer of Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (also reviewed), the major source of information about the Nordic tradition. In forewords of the later pressings of his own translation, Otten has serious commentary about the translation of De Vries. De Vries would have played with the order of the verses and he even left out many of them that he didn’t find fitting, or didn’t understand. Indeed, comparing my different translations, it immediately proves that there is no consistancy in the separation of the verses or the order of the poems. I suppose that different translators use different source-texts. De Vries -however- indeed skips a great many verses in some of the poems!
There are other differences between the two Dutch translations that we have now. De Vries tried to keep the poetic characters of the poems, while Otten tried to stay to the original texts as close as possible. Both approaches have their pros and cons.
I think it is a shame what De Vries did with the texts, just leaving verses out without saying why, yet, there is also a major point of comment on the translation of Otten: he completely overlooked the esoteric (religious) nature of the texts. This is proven by a verse from the Völuspa (“Seers’ Prophecy”) where Otten didn’t notice the reference to the four eras in creation (speartime, swordtime, windtime, wolftime). This is verse 44 with Otten, 45 with Larrington and 38 with De Vries (…).
Another thing is that Otten translates èverything, including names. With this he proves that many names have a very significant meaning, or at least that names are merely words, but he also translated the most famous of names, which doesn’t make the text clearer and caused me to make many many notes in the texts. This isn’t necessary with the De Vries translation, who leaves all names as they are. More even, the De Vries pressing has commentary on the verses on the same page as the translation, which may make a compromise for Otten, giving the original names in notes.
In short, when you are a serious Dutch-reading investigator, I suggest that you have both translations to compare. This will not only show you the flaws of both translations, but seeing different interpretations of the same text will also improve your own understanding of the texts. Therefor I hope that the Ankh-Hermes, the publisher of the De Vries translation since 1978, will not have their version go out of print.

Handbuch Der Gemanischen Mythologie * Wolfgang Golther (1895 Marix Verlag 2004 * isbn 393771538X)

It was quite a read, almost 800 pages in 19th century German. Not that there is anything wrong with the language or the writing style, but this book is one in the line of books that I have been reading more, such as the two Altermanische Religionsgeschichtes that I reviewed. This book by Golther is one of the first of his kind. It came after the Deutsche Mythologie of Jacob Grimm which is also available for a low price, but comes in two books of about the size of this one. I haven’t decided yet if I want to have it. These books tend to be more of the same. Both the structure and the content are similar. The books are way too big (and of course not in my native tongue) for me to be able to find out if the ideas of the writers correspond or if and where they differ. Golther seems to think (in a way justly in my opinion) that the Germanic mythology in the way it came to us, was influenced by the Greek mythology, Roman religions and Christianity. This is not strange when you think about it that most texts where only written in the 12/13th centuries.
Like the other books of this kind, Golther begins to with giving the history of the investigation of mythology and comperative religion studies. Then follow the sources, etc., etc. Golther continues first with folk beliefs before going to the actual mythology/religion of the Germans. The information is of the kind like in the other books. What I do like in Golther is that he puts Sturluson and Gramaticus next to eachother a few times, but these two prime-sources sometimes have different versions of the same stories. The most interesting part (to me) is around the end where Golther gives a nice view of the (daily) religious lives and practices, the temples, priests and (quite extensive) magic.

A nice book for only E 10, but I wish I knew which of the other cheap similar titles that are worthwile so/or I could tell you about this.

Noord-Europese Mysteriën en hun sporen tot heden * F.E. Farwerck (Ankh-Hermes 1970 (1978 2nd print))

A while ago my eye fell on the back of this book when I visited a second-hand bookshop and passed a section that I normally don’t check out. I don’t believe I knew this book, but paging through it I already found it interesting enough to pay a relatively high price for it. “Northern-European Mysteries and their sources to the present” is a massive book of 650 pages in a very small fonttype, but with quite a lot of images. As the title suggests, it speaks about mystery-cults of Northern Europe. Of course we know about mystery religions from ancient Greece, the Middle East and northern Africa, but northern Europe? Naturally the writer speaks about Scandinavian, German and some Celtic mythology and religion and gives the little information that we have that point towards mystery-practises in these traditions. Doing this you will read a lot about folklore in the countries of the European north, Northern mythology and the like. When focussing on the religious and mystery-practises, Farwerck shows how reminiscenes of these can be found in more recent times upto the present day. This is interesting enough, but more interesting it becomes when Farwerck treats Freemasonry as the natural descendant of mysteries of Northern Europe and follows the known Masonic practises back into the past. Very interesting and this book is truely a standard-work with tons of notes for even more (detailed) information.

When I was already reading the book, I read that Farwerck had ‘spoiled past’ and some further investigation proved that he was one of the big cheeses of the NSB, the Dutch nazi-party in WWII. Farwerck was the person who wanted to replace Christianity by the ancient religion of the North. Not that you will notice much of this past in this book, but just so you know.

This review must have been written in 2002 or 2003. The date below is from when I changed from an html website to WordPress.