Website Watch: Heimskringla.no
Like Septentrionalia, which we featured last week, Heimskringla (“Norrøne Tekster og Kvad” (Old Norse Prose and Poetry)) is a major private initiative that aims to make a wide selection of texts and relevant scholarly material available, free of charge, on the internet. As the site itself says:
The purpose of the project “Norrøne Tekster og Kvad” (Old Norse Prose and Poetry) is to make Old Norse literature freely accessible on the internet. In addition to source texts in the original language readers will find several texts translated into the later Scandinavian languages, classical scholarly works and other background material, in particular from before 1900.
Their collection so far consists of the following collections of primary sources:
- Dróttkvæði
- Cronica Guthilandorum
- Edda Snorra Sturlusonar
- Eddukvæði
- Fernir forníslenskir rímnaflokkar
- Flateyjarbók
- Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda
- Heimskringla eða Sögur Noregs konunga
- Íslendingasögur
- Málshættir og orðtök
- Rímnasafn – Samling af de ældste islandske rimer
- Ýmsar sögur af Noregs- og Danakonungum, Færeyingum og Orkneyjajörlum
Like all initiatives of this type, the choice of texts is determined by their availability and copyright status, so the editions offered are often rather ancient: but in many cases, they’re still the only ones available.
What I also like in particular about Heimskringla are its added extras: the bookshop is a good place to find recent publications from mainland Scandinavia that you might not come across otherwise, and there’s a discussion forum. It’s an extremely attractive and well-designed site, and is presented in several languages. Heimskringla is run by Jón Július Sandal.
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