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TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The title page of the Norwegian work here presented in translation reads as follows: “Norrøne Gude- og Heltesagn. Ordnet og fremstillet av P. A. Munch. Tredje utgave, efter A. Kjær’s bearbeidelse, ved Magnus Olsen, Professor. Kristiania, P. F. Steensballes Boghandels Eftg. (H. Reenskaug) 1922.” Munch’s original volume was published in 1840; the second edition, revised by Kjær, appeared in 1880; the third edition, from which the translation is made, was revised by Professor Magnus Olsen and published in 1922.

According to the Norwegian preface to the second edition, Kjær made few changes in the body of the text; his most important alterations affected the sections entitled in English “Corruption,” “Ragnarok – The Twilight of the Gods,” and “On the Mythology of the Eddas.” He added the following new sections: “German Legends Dealing with Siegfried and the Nibelungs,” “The Development of the Legendary Cycle of the Volsungs,” “Orvar-Odd,” “Norna-Gest,” “Asmund Kempibane,” “Romund Greipsson,” “Ragnar Lodbrok and His Sons,” “Hjorleif and Half,” and “Fridthjof.” The first edition contained only brief discussions of Orvar-Odd and of Ragnar Lodbrok. Kjær also revised the original notes.

Professor Olsen, according to his own statement in the preface to the third edition, made use of newer readings of the ancient texts, harmonized the narrative style throughout, rewrote the sections entitled “On the Mythology of the Eddas,” “Introductory Remarks” (to the Heroic Legends), and “Of Temples, of Sacrifices, and of Divination,” added an appendix dealing with the reminiscences of the ancient mythology in Norwegian place names, and made a thorough revision of the critical notes.

The English translation includes the whole of the third edition of the original, text and notes, with the exception of the Appendix on Norwegian place names. The critical commentaries appended to the various sections of the Norwegian text have in the translation been grouped below. The numbered footnotes, on the other hand, have been retained as such. A few translator’s notes have been added; these are in all cases clearly identified.

No attempt has been made in the punctuation of the English text to distinguish between the first Norwegian edition and its successive revisions. Certain marks of punctuation in the original

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have therefore been changed or omitted in the translation, and some of the parentheses have been relegated to the foot of the page.

In the body of the English text, proper names are given without the old Norse accents. For the most part the names are spelled as in Old Norse, with the following principal exceptions: initial h has been omitted before consonants other than j, and final r has been omitted after another consonant; thus Rimfaxi, not Hrímfaxi, and Hermod, not Hermóðr. The Old Norse ð has been rendered as d; þ as th. Orthographical deviations from the above rules affect cases where an English spelling has become conventional or where considerations of euphony have suggested themselves. The Norwegian word Norrøn, both in the title and in the text, is translated as “Norse”; Nordisk as “Northern.”

The bibliography from the preface to the Norwegian third edition will be found in full; to it have been added some titles of particular use to English and American readers.

S. B. H.