Download Free Gisli The Outlaw Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Gisli The Outlaw and write the review.

"The Saga of Gisli" was written in the early thirteenth century, and offers an imaginative reconstruction of a story of a man and his family who came to Iceland from Norway about 950 A.D. Gisli is outlawed for killing his brother-in-law, spends a decade hiding in remote northwest Iceland, and is caught and killed. The heart of the saga, however, is the examination of the intricate emotional bonds and the laws that attempt to regulate them, as existing in a world governed finally by inevitable fate. This ancient example of a type of literature sprung from a type of community readers can barely imagine, is one of the most memorable of all the Icelandic sagas.
These sagas recount fierce feuds in which honour is fought for, sacrifice is demanded, and blood is shed. The fate of the characters at the centre of each saga, however, is very different. Gisli is a traditional Viking-age hero who is determined to exact revenge at any cost and whose death is tragic when it comes. In contrast his nephew, Snorri, represents a new generation and acts to strengthen the new social order. Taken together these sagas reveal the richness and variety of the saga tradition.
Here are three epic stories of exile and adventure: the heroes condemned to wander their lands in expiation of crimes committed in honour's name. The book includes an introduction, notes, a text summary and a chronology of early Icelandic literature.
The Saga of Gisli was written early in the thirteenth century. It offers an imaginative reconstruction of the story of a man and his family who came to Iceland from Norway about AD 960. Soon after 960 Gisli, the central figure, was outlawed for killing his brother-in-law, and then, for thirteen years or more, he lived in hiding in remote parts of the northwest of Iceland until he was finally caught and killed by his enemies. Around this imaginative core the author has spun a web of conflicting passions - love, hare and jealousy between man and wife, brother and sister, brother-in-law - intricate emotional bonds which are here seen ironically patterned against a background of inevitable fate. Gisli, the hero, is portrayed not only as a man of strength and courage, but also a poet and dreamer, tormented in his outlawry by nightmarish visions which seem gradualy to sap his will to resist. The author's probing into the emotional depths of his characters, the superbly effective architecture of his narrative leading to the central climax, his sense of the dramatic, and his cool, compelling style all combine to make this one of the most memorable of all the Icelandic sagas.
Gift of Joan Wall. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index. * glr 20090610.
This compelling Icelandic history describes the life of King Harald Hardradi, from his battles across Europe and Russia to his final assault on England in 1066, less than three weeks before the invasion of William the Conqueror. It was a battle that led to his death and marked the end of an era in which Europe had been dominated by the threat of Scandinavian forces. Despite England's triumph, it also played a crucial part in fatally weakening the English army immediately prior to the Norman Conquest, changing the course of history. Taken from the Heimskringla - Snorri Sturluson's complete account of Norway from prehistoric times to 1177 - this is a brilliantly human depiction of the turbulent life and savage death of the last great Norse warrior-king.
Written around 1245 by an unknown author, the Laxdaela Saga is an extraordinary tale of conflicting kinships and passionate love, and one of the most compelling works of Icelandic literature. Covering 150 years in the lives of the inhabitants of the community of Laxriverdale, the saga focuses primarily upon the story of Gudrun Osvif's-daughter: a proud, beautiful, vain and desirable figure, who is forced into an unhappy marriage and destroys the only man she has truly loved – her husband's best friend. A moving tale of murder and sacrifice, romance and regret, the Laxdaela Saga is also a fascinating insight into an era of radical change – a time when the Age of Chivalry was at its fullest flower in continental Europe, and the Christian faith was making its impact felt upon the Viking world.
This book is the first comprehensive overview and evaluation of the origins, history and current size and condition of all of Iceland's major glaciers (including Vatnajökull, the largest in Europe) at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is not only illustrated with many beautiful photographs and graphs of recent statistics and scientific data, but is also a collection of historical writings and drawings from annals, sagas, folk tales, diaries, reports, stories and poems, as it presents a unique approach to the study of glaciers on an island in the North Atlantic. Balancing and comparing the world of man with the world of nature, the perceptions of art and culture with the systematic and pragmatic analyses of science, The Glaciers of Iceland present a wide spectrum of readers with a new and stimulating view of the origins, development and possible future of these massive natural phenomena, as well as the study and role of glaciology, within specific time lines and geographical locations. Icelandic glaciers the author argues could prove essential for understanding the current unsettling progress of global warming. The glaciers of Iceland, therefore, aims at presenting to a wide readership an original, historical, cultural and scientific overview of these geophysical features in Iceland while also suggesting increasingly important lessons and models for man's future interaction with the world's glaciers as a whole.