Old Norse News

If you’ll excuse the shameless self-promotion… I’m very pleased to announce that my new book, Myths of the Pagan North: the gods of the Norsemen (and, in response to queries: yes, the publishers had a hand in the title) will be out later this week. Read more »

It seems as though we’re unlikely to see any further printed volumes of the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose in the foreseeable future, which is a great shame. But to make us feel a bit better about the situation, the Dictionary has redesigned its website with a host of new features. This is what they say in their recent press release:

In the course of 2010 major changes to ONP’s website have been undertaken:

As of June 2010 all of the dictionary’s unedited slips/citations (en – ǫ) with revised references are presented via ONP’s homepage, linked to graphic images of the text pages from which the quotations are excerpted. The previously published articles (ONP vols 1-3, a – em) as well as the volume of indices (Registre // Indices + updates) are also accessible in electronic form.

In November 2010 the first new structural presentation of verbs and prepositions was posted, and in the new year preliminary drafts of articles on simplex nouns together with a full treatment of ‘ghost words’ will also be available. Everything on this new site is open to comment and criticism via a direct postal link. It is hoped that distant users will contribute significantly with reactions and suggestions for future developments.

Note: these features seem only to be accessible by the Danish interface–the English pages haven’t been updated.

My attempt to get up to date with the backlog of recently published books continues. Slowly.

This time we have a study of contrasts: in the pagan corner, there’s Annette Lassen’s new book about Odin på kristent pergament; from the other end of the Old Norse spectrum, we have a (to me) very exciting collection of essays about the Norwegian Homily Book, Vår eldste bok, edited by Odd Einar Haugen and Åslaug Ommundsen.

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An intriguing idea for your summer holidays…

Njáls Saga on horseback

Are you interested in travelling on horseback through the setting of Iceland’s most dramatic and popular Saga? In late June Jón Karl Helgason, assistant professor at the University of Iceland and the author of The Rewriting of Njáls Saga (1999), will be co-guiding a four day tour (3 riding days) through the setting of Njáls Saga.
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