Old Norse News

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. Read more »

Septentrionalia is a not-for-profit re-publisher of out-of-print works on medieval northern Europe, with special emphasis on Old Norse. Their scans, which are generally of very high quality, are available to download for free, and they also make some of them available in tangible book-form, at surprisingly reasonable cost. As some of the most seminal works of Norse scholarship are now out-of-copyright (and have never been replaced), this means that it’s suddenly become much easier to track down, and even to own, Sveinbjörn Egilsson/Finnur Jónsson’s Lexicon Poeticum, or the three-volume Arnamagnæan edition of Snorra Edda, for example. It’s a really great initiative, a very accessible site, and a most impressive labour of love by its creators. Read more »