Guta Saga: The History of the Gotlanders

by Christine Peel (Translator)

Guta Saga

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Guta Saga is a very brief (seven-page) text in Old Norse on the legendary history of the island of Gotland. It was produced somewhere between 1220 and 1330 and included as an appendix to a manuscript on Gotland law. The title is a tad misleading, and those expecting a dramatic story like the Icelandic historical sagas will be disappointed. However, in spite of the Guta Saga’s brevity, its mixture of legend and fact (the island as, perhaps, the home of the Goths, then a base for Norse expansion east, all the way down to Byzantium), and its response to events of its time make it an interesting text, and one that much commentary can be written about.

I read the saga in Christine Peel’s edition, originally published in 1999 by the Viking Society for Northern Research. It includes the Old Norse text, a facing-page translation, an ample introduction, a commentary, and a full glossary. This Old Gutnish dialect of Old Norse is very accessible for anyone who has studied Old Icelandic and read some of its literature; the differences are mainly orthographic, and one gets used to them soon enough, so I only occasionally had to refer to the glossary or the facing-page translation.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating bit of legend and history; I found it very inspiring for my own writing of fiction and RPGs set in a similar time and place . . .