 | |
| The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise | |
|---|---|
| Publication Information | |
| Editor | Christopher Tolkien |
| Translator | Christopher Tolkien |
| Publisher | London: Thomas Nelson & Sons |
| Released | 30 June 1960 |
| Format | Hardcover (1960) paperback (2025) |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | none |
The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise is an English translation of an Icelandic Saga from the 13th century. It was translated by Christopher Tolkien and published in 1960, when he was a lecturer in Old English at Oxford. The book was part of Nelson's Icelandic Texts series.
The book includes both the translated English text and the Icelandic original, together with Christopher's introduction, notes, and appendices.
In 2010 the book was reprinted in the original format by HarperCollins. And in 2025, to celebrate Christopher's centenary it has been reissued in paperback, this time including Christopher's essay "The Battle of the Goths and the Huns" from 1955.
From the publisher
Christopher Tolkien’s masterly translation of the Icelandic Heidrek’s Saga, including the dramatic Battle of the Goths and the Huns, the lyrical Waking of Angantyr, and the unique riddle-contest between King Heidrek and the god Odin.
Heidrek’s Saga is a medieval entertainment – a ‘romance’, but a romance that derives little of its matter from the literature of France or Germany. It is an example of a kind of story-telling that was flourishing in Iceland by the beginning of the twelfth century, and which (in contrast to the more celebrated ‘Sagas of the Icelanders’) told of legendary figures whose origins lie far back in time beyond the settlement of the country.
The elements of the story, diverse in age and atmosphere, are unified in the theme of a possession bearing an ancestral curse, as it passes down the generations; but the saga’s peculiar value lies in the older poems which the unknown author set into the framework of his narrative, including The Battle of the Goths and the Huns, perhaps the oldest of all the Northern heroic lays, The Waking of Angantyr, source of many eighteenth-century ‘Gothic Odes’, and the unique riddle-contest between King Heidrek and the god Odin in disguise.
Translated from the Icelandic with Introduction, Notes and Appendices by Christopher Tolkien, then Lecturer in Old English at New College, Oxford, The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise was first published in 1960 in Nelson’s Icelandic Texts series. Marking Christopher Tolkien's centenary, this first ever paperback edition also includes his original essay 'The Battle of the Goths and the Huns' as a bonus chapter.
Publication history and gallery
-
1960 hardcover & 2010 reprint
-
2025 paperback
- London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, hardcover (1960)
- HarperCollins hardcover (2010), pp. 208. ISBN 978-0007416967
- HarperCollins paperback (2025), pp. 240. ISBN 978-0008767631
External links
- The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise on Amazon UK