Archæology and Early History
*Orkneyinga Saga. Translated by Hjaltalin and Goudie. Edited, with Notes, by Anderson. (Edinburgh, 1873.) The historical introduction by Dr. Joseph Anderson is of special value.
The Orkneyingers’ Saga. Translated by Sir G. W. Dasent. (London, 1894; Rolls Edition.) A very fine spirited rendering into English, as may be seen from the extracts given in the first part of this book.
The Saga of Hacon, and a fragment of the Saga of Magnus. Translated by Sir G. W. Dasent. (London, 1894; Rolls Edition.) This gives the Norse account of the battle of Largs, and events leading up to it.
The Icelandic text of the two preceding books is published in separate volumes in the same series.
The Story of Burnt Njal. By Sir G. W. Dasent. (Edinburgh, 1861; also a later and cheaper edition.) This is the finest of the Icelandic sagas. It deals mainly with life in Iceland, but contains several references to Orkney under Earl Sigurd the Stout, and the fine description of the battle of Clontarf quoted in this book.
The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill; or, The Invasion of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen. Irish text, with translation and introduction by Jas. H. Todd. (London, 1867; Rolls Edition.) This gives an account from the Irish point of view of the Norse invasions of Ireland up to and including the battle of Clontarf.
The Heimskringla; or, Chronicles of the Kings of Norway. Translated by Samuel Laing. (3 vols., London, 1844; new edition, edited by Dr. R. B. Anderson, 4 vols., London, 1889.)
Heimskringla Saga. The Saga Library Edition. Translated by Wm. Morris and Eirikr Magnusson. (4 vols., London, 1893-1905.) The sagas included in the Heimskringla form a history of the early kings of Norway, and contain frequent references to Orkney. Snorri Sturlason, the author, ranks among the greatest of historians.
Corpus Poeticum Boreale. By Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell. (2 vols., Oxford, 1883.) This is an almost complete collection of old Norse Eddic and Court poetry, including poems by Torf Einar, Arnor the Earl’s poet, Earl Rognvald, and Bishop Bjarni. In a valuable introduction Vigfusson shows that many of the Eddic lays were written in the western Norse colonies in the British Isles, and some of them presumably in the Orkney earldom.
Icelandic Primer. By Henry Sweet. (Oxford, 1886.)
Icelandic Prose Reader. By G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell. (Oxford, 1879.)
Icelandic-English Dictionary. By R. Cleasby. Edited by G. Vigfusson, with appendix by W. W. Skeat. (London, 1874.)
The preceding three books form the best equipment for studying the language of the Norse period.
The Dialect and Place-Names of Shetland. By J. Jakobsen. (Lerwick, 1897.) Many of the place-names explained occur in Orkney.
The Vikings in Western Christendom, by C. F. Keary (London, 1891), gives an interesting account of the early Viking age, from 789 to 888 A.D.
Saga Time, by J. Fulford Vicary (London, 1887), gives a popular description of society from the ninth to the eleventh century.
Orcades, seu Rerum Orcadensium Historia. By Thormodus Torfaeus, Icelandic historian (1697). Translated by Alexander Pope, minister of Reay. (Wick, 1866.) Only a partial translation.
*Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland. By J. J. A. Worsaae; translation. (London, 1852.) A standard work.
Monumenta Orcadica: the Norsemen in the Orkneys and the Monuments they have left, with a Survey of the Celtic Pre-Norwegian and Scottish Post-Norwegian Monuments in the Islands. By L. Dietrichson. (Christiania, 1906.) The most recent and most scientific account of the Norse remains in Orkney, written in Norwegian, but with a very full summary—almost equivalent to a translation—in English. Of special interest is the account of the newly-discovered monastery in Eynhallow.
The Viking Age. By Paul du Chaillu. (2 vols., London, 1889.) An account of the manners and customs, as well as the history, of the Viking period; well illustrated, but not accurate or authoritative.
The Early Kings of Norway. By Thomas Carlyle. (London, 1875.) A short account of the period from 860 to 1397; of no great historical value.