Old Norse literature - Wikipedia





	
	

	
	

	Old Norse literature

	
		From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

		

		

		
		

		Jump to navigation
		Jump to search
			History of literature
by era
	
Bronze Age
	
	Ancient Egyptian
	Akkadian
	Sumerian


	
Classical
	
	Avestan
	Chinese
	Greek
	Hebrew
	Latin
	Tamil
	Pali
	Prakrit
	Sanskrit
	Syriac


	
Early Medieval
	
	Matter of Rome
	Matter of France
	Matter of Britain
	Armenian
	Byzantine
	Old English
	Georgian
	 German
	Japanese
	Kannada
	Middle Persian
	Turkish


	
Medieval
	
	Old Bulgarian
	Middle English
	Arabic
	Persian
	Armenian
	Byzantine
	Castilian
	Catalan
	Dutch
	French
	Georgian
	German
	Bengali
	Hindi
	Old Irish
	Italian
	Japanese
	Korean
	Malayalam
	Nepal Bhasa
	Norse
	Russian
	Serbian
	Telugu
	Turkish
	Welsh


	
Early Modern
	
	Renaissance
	Baroque


	
Modern by century
	
	18th
	19th
	20th
	21st


	
 Literature portal
		v
	t
	e





Old Norse literature refers to the vernacular literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350. It chiefly consists of Icelandic writings.


In Britain[edit]

From the 8th to the 15th centuries, Vikings and Norse settlers and their descendants colonised parts of what is now modern Scotland. Some Old Norse poetry survives relating to this period. The Orkneyinga saga (also called the History of the Earls of Orkney) is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200.[1] 20th-century poet George Mackay Brown was influenced by the saga, notably for his 1973 novel Magnus. The Icelandic Njáls saga includes actions taking place in Orkney and Wales. Besides these Icelandic sagas a few examples, sometimes fragmentary, of Norse poetry composed in Scotland survive.[2] Among the runic inscriptions at Maeshowe is a text identified as irregular verse.[3] Scandinavian cultural contacts in the Danelaw also left legacies in literature. Höfuðlausn or the "Head's Ransom" is a skaldic poem attributed to Egill Skalla-Grímsson in praise of king Eirik Bloodaxe in the Kingdom of Northumbria. 


See also[edit]


	Literature portal




	Edda
	Norse sagas
	Icelanders' sagas
	Kings' sagas
	Legendary sagas


	Old Icelandic Homily Book
	Old Norse poetry
	Scandinavian literature
	Danish literature
	Faroese literature
	Icelandic literature
	Norwegian literature
	Swedish literature






References[edit]


	^ "Orkneyjar - The History and Archaeology of the Orkney Islands".

	^ 
Crawford, Robert (2007). Scotland's Books. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780140299403.

	^ 
Clancy, Thomas Owen (1998). The Triumph Tree. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. ISBN 0862417872.





	Old Norse Prose and Poetry from heimskringla.no


	
	v
	t
	e


European literature

	
	Abkhaz
	Albanian
	Anglo-Norman
	Aragonese
	Armenian
	Asturian
	Austrian
	Azerbaijani
	Basque
	Belarusian
	Belgian
	Bohemian
	Bosnian
	Breton
	British
	Bulgarian
	Catalan
	Chuvash
	Cornish
	Croatian
	Cypriot
	Czech
	Danish
	Dutch
	English
	Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
	Middle English


	Estonian
	Faroese
	Finnish
	Flemish
	French
	Frisian
	Friulian
	Gaelic
	Galician
	German
	Greek
	ancient
	medieval
	modern


	Greenlandic
	Hungarian
	Icelandic
	Irish
	Northern Irish


	Italian
	Jèrriais
	Kazakh
	Kosovar
	Latin
	Latvian
	Lithuanian
	Luxembourg
	Macedonian
	Maltese
	Manx
	Montenegrin
	Norwegian
	Occitan (Provençal)
	Old Norse
	Ossetian
	Polish
	Portuguese
	Romanian
	Russian
	Sardinian
	Scottish
	Scots
	Scottish Gaelic


	Serbian
	Slovak
	Slovene
	Spanish
	Swedish
	Swiss
	Turkish
	Turkish Cypriot
	Ukrainian
	Venetian
	Welsh
	in English
	in Welsh


	Western Lombard
	Yiddish











		This article about literature from a country or region is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
	v
	t
	e












Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Norse_literature&oldid=991872030"


		Categories: 	Old Norse literature
	Early Germanic literature
	Literature by country stubs


Hidden categories: 	All stub articles




	




	





	Navigation menu

	
		

	
		Personal tools
	

	
			Not logged in
	Talk
	Contributions
	Create account
	Log in


		
	



		
			

	
		Namespaces
	

	
			Article
	Talk


		
	



			

	
	
		Variants
	

	
		

		
	



		

		
			

	
		Views
	

	
			Read
	Edit
	View history


		
	



			

	
	
		More
	

	
		

		
	



			
	
		Search
	

	
		
			
			
			
			
		

	




		

	

	

	
		
	

	

	
		Navigation
	

	
			Main page
	Contents
	Current events
	Random article
	About Wikipedia
	Contact us
	Donate


		
	



	

	
		Contribute
	

	
			Help
	Learn to edit
	Community portal
	Recent changes
	Upload file


		
	




	
		Tools
	

	
			What links here
	Related changes
	Upload file
	Special pages
	Permanent link
	Page information
	Cite this page
	Wikidata item


		
	




	
		Print/export
	

	
			Download as PDF
	Printable version


		
	




	
		In other projects
	

	
			Wikimedia Commons


		
	



	

	
		Languages
	

	
			Čeština
	Deutsch
	Français
	Italiano
	Latina
	Magyar
	Norsk bokmål
	Norsk nynorsk
	Português
	Svenska


		Edit links

	









		 This page was last edited on 2 December 2020, at 06:42 (UTC).
	Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply.  By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



		Privacy policy
	About Wikipedia
	Disclaimers
	Contact Wikipedia
	Mobile view
	Developers
	Statistics
	Cookie statement