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Iceland

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  • PoetryThe Lay of HamdirHamðismálAnonymous · 900A sister's vengeance carried out by her brothers, at the court of a Gothic king: the last heroic song of the manuscript of the Eddic poems.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryThe Lay of AtliAtlakviðaAnonymous · 900The visit of the Burgundian kings to Atli's court, a distorted memory of the wars between Huns and Burgundians in the fifth century.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryThe Lay of SkirnirSkírnismálAnonymous · 900A god's marriage proposal to a giantess, carried out by a messenger who moves from gifts to threats.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryThe Lay of VafthrudnirVafþrúðnismálAnonymous · 950A contest of knowledge between a disguised god and a giant, in which each answer yields a fragment of Norse cosmology.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryBaldr's DreamsBaldrs draumarAnonymous · 950A god who goes down among the dead to question a seeress about his son's dreams.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetrySonatorrekEgill Skallagrímsson · 960A tenth-century lament, composed by a skaldic warrior and preserved in a saga written nearly three hundred years later.Literature
  • PoetryThe Prophecy of the SeeressVöluspáAnonymous · 1000A Norse cosmogony and eschatology, spoken by a seeress to the god Odin.Literature
  • PoetryHávamálAnonymous · 1000The practical wisdom of the ancient Nordic world, put in the mouth of Odin, and the account of his winning of the runes.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryThe Greenlandic Lay of AtliAtlamálAnonymous · 1150The fall of the sons of Gjúki at Atli's court, told again in a long, dark poem that is linked to Greenland.LiteraturePublic domain
  • ChronicleFagrskinna: A Catalogue of the Kings of NorwayFagrskinnaAnonymous · 1220The history of the Norwegian kings told soberly, from one battle to the next, for the Norwegian court.Literature
  • ChronicleMorkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030-1157)MorkinskinnaAnonymous · 1220The court of the Norwegian sovereigns seen by Icelanders, who find their place there through speech and verse.Literature
  • NarrativeEgil's SagaEgils sagaAnonymous · 1220The life of a Viking poet, quarrelsome and tender, who stands up to the kings of Norway.Literature
  • NovelThe Saga of Tristram and ÍsöndTristrams saga ok ÍsöndarBrother Robert · 1226The first French courtly romance to be rendered into Old Norse, at the request of a king of Norway.Literature
  • ChronicleHeimskringlaSnorri Sturluson · 1230The great collection of kings' sagas, written in Iceland around 1230, in a language that was not that of the clerics of Europe.Literature
  • NarrativeLaxdaela SagaLaxdæla sagaAnonymous · 1245A family saga from the west of Iceland, in which a woman plays the leading role and love rekindles an old quarrel.LiteraturePublic domain
  • NarrativeThe Saga of Erik the RedEiríks saga rauðaAnonymous · 1250The voyages of the Norse to Greenland and the lands of the West, told by the Icelanders two centuries later.LiteraturePublic domain
  • NarrativeGisli Sursson's SagaGísla saga SúrssonarAnonymous · 1250A saga of Icelanders that takes as its subject vengeance when it destroys a family instead of drawing it closer together.Literature
  • EpicThe Saga of King Heidrek the WiseHeiðreks sagaAnonymous · 1250A legendary saga that brings together older materials, including the memory of the wars between Goths and Huns in the fourth century.LiteraturePublic domain
  • NarrativeEyrbyggja SagaEyrbyggja sagaAnonymous · 1250Chieftains' quarrels and ghosts in the west of Iceland, at the time of the conversion to Christianity.Literature
  • EpicThe Saga of the VolsungsVölsunga sagaAnonymous · 1270The prose rendering of a heroic matter common to the Germanic world, in which one recognises the fall of a Burgundian kingdom.Literature
  • NarrativeNjal's SagaNjáls sagaAnonymous · 1280A saga of vendetta and law in Iceland around the year one thousand, written nearly three centuries later.Literature
  • NarrativeHrafnkel's SagaHrafnkels sagaAnonymous · 1280An Icelandic chieftain, a horse dedicated to the god Freyr and an oath kept to the point of murder.Literature
  • NarrativeGrettir's SagaGrettis saga ÁsmundarsonarAnonymous · 1320The life of an Icelandic outlaw of the eleventh century, mingling legal quarrels with trolls, berserkers and walking dead.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryLilja, The LilyLiljaEysteinn Ásgrímsson · 1340A Marian hymn of the Icelandic Middle Ages, which sets the Christian faith in a form that came from the skalds.Literature
  • EpicThe Saga of King Hrolf KrakiHrólfs saga krakaAnonymous · 1400An Icelandic legendary saga, telling of Danish kings of the fifth and sixth centuries, the very ones that Beowulf names.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryHymns of the PassionPassíusálmarHallgrímur Pétursson · 1666Fifty meditations on the sufferings of Christ, read by Icelanders every Lent.Literature
  • PoetryLjóðmæliJónas Hallgrímsson · 1847not translated into EnglishThe posthumous collection of one of the founders of modern Icelandic literature, whose poems nourished the struggle for autonomy.Literature
  • NovelLad and LassPiltur og stúlkaJón Thoroddsen · 1850A rural love story, at the moment when Iceland acquires a novelistic prose.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryLofsöngurMatthías Jochumsson · 1874not translated into EnglishA hymn written for the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of Iceland, which became the country's anthem.Literature
  • Short storiesVonirEinar Kvaran · 1889not translated into EnglishIcelandic emigration to Canada, seen by a poor man who has staked everything on a woman's love.Literature
  • PoetryÞyrnarÞorsteinn Erlingsson · 1897not translated into EnglishThe collection of an Icelandic atheist and socialist, in which combative verse stands alongside songs that became popular.Literature
  • NovelHallaJón Trausti · 1906not translated into EnglishA novel of rural life, published under a pseudonym by a typesetter whom critics had overlooked as a poet.LiteraturePublic domain
  • PoetryHafblikEinar Benediktsson · 1906not translated into EnglishA neo-Romantic book of verse, in which the native land stands alongside translations of European poets.Literature
  • PoetryAndvökurStephan G. Stephansson · 1909not translated into EnglishThe poetry of an Icelandic emigrant on the Canadian prairies, written in his native language, far from any literary life.LiteraturePublic domain
  • TheatreEyvind of the HillsFjalla-EyvindurJóhann Sigurjónsson · 1911The story of a couple of outlaws of the highlands, drawn from an Icelandic folk tale.Literature
  • CinemaSons of the SoilSaga BorgarættarinnarGunnar Sommerfeldt · 1920The first fictional feature film shot in Iceland, undertaken by a Danish studio from an Icelandic novel written in Danish.Cinema
  • NovelThe Virgin of SkalholtSkálholtGuðmundur Kamban · 1930A drama of love and authority in episcopal Iceland in the seventeenth century, drawn from a real case.Literature
  • NovelKristrún í HamravíkGuðmundur G. Hagalín · 1933not translated into EnglishAn old woman from the north-west of Iceland, told in the speech of her region, as it is spoken and not as it is written.Literature
  • PoetryFagra veröldTómas Guðmundsson · 1933not translated into EnglishThe book that made the Icelandic capital a subject for poetry, when writers saw only greyness in it.Literature
  • NovelThe Good ShepherdAdventGunnar Gunnarsson · 1936An Icelandic shepherd in the winter mountains, and what the duty owed to lost animals costs.Literature
  • NovelIceland's BellÍslandsklukkanHalldór Laxness · 1946A historical novel written at the time of independence, about a wretched people whose old manuscripts are their only treasure.Literature
  • PoetryTime and WaterTíminn og vatniðSteinn Steinarr · 1948The collection that renewed Icelandic poetry, when regular verse still dominated it.Literature
  • CinemaBetween Mountain and ShoreMilli fjalls og fjöruLoftur Guðmundsson · 1949A love story thwarted by a suspicion of theft, among the farmers of a still rural Iceland.Cinema
  • TheatreAtoms and MadamsKjarnorka og kvenhylliAgnar Þórðarson · 1955A comedy of manners from the fifties, laughing at a brand-new country coveted for its resources.Literature
  • NovelCab 7979 af stöðinniIndriði G. Þorsteinsson · 1955A man from the countryside who has become a taxi driver, in the Reykjavík of the post-war years and the American base.Literature
  • NovelTómas Jónsson, BestsellerTómas Jónsson, metsölubókGuðbergur Bergsson · 1966The furious monologue of an old man in his cellar, which brought the Icelandic novel into modernity.Literature
  • CinemaLand and SonsLand og synirÁgúst Guðmundsson · 1980The rural exodus of the thirties, in one of the first three feature films supported by the Icelandic film fund.Cinema
  • CinemaWhen the Raven FliesHrafninn flýgurHrafn Gunnlaugsson · 1984An Icelandic-Swedish adventure film that treats the Viking age in the manner of Sergio Leone's westerns.Cinema
  • NovelJustice UndoneGrámosinn glóirThor Vilhjálmsson · 1986A young magistrate, a nineteenth-century incest trial and a ride across a wild Iceland.Literature
  • CinemaChildren of NatureBörn náttúrunnarFriðrik Þór Friðriksson · 1991Two old people flee the capital's care home to find the places of their youth.Cinema
  • NovelAngels of the UniverseEnglar alheimsinsEinar Már Guðmundsson · 1993A man with schizophrenia tells his life, between laughter and shipwreck, in postwar Reykjavík.Literature