Echoes of Valhalla: The Afterlife of the Eddas and Sagas (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781780237152)

Tolkien's wizard Gandalf, Wagner's Valkyrie Br nnhilde, Marvel's superhero the Mighty Thor, the warrior heading for Valhalla in Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," and Donald Crisp's portrayal of Leif Eriksson in the classic film The Viking--these are just a few examples of how Icelandic medieval literature has shaped human imagination during the past 150 years. Echoes of Valhalla is a unique look at modern adaptations of the Icelandic eddas (poems of Norse mythology) and sagas (ancient prose accounts of Viking history, voyages, and battles) across an astonishing breadth of art forms.

J n Karl Helgason looks at comic books, plays, travel books, music, and films in order to explore the reincarnations of a range of legendary characters, from the Nordic gods Thor and Odin to the saga characters Hallgerd Long-legs, Gunnar of Hlidarendi, and Leif the Lucky. Roaming the globe, Helgason unearths echoes of Nordic lore in Scandinavia, Britain, America, Germany, Italy, and Japan. He examines the comic work of Jack Kirby and cartoon work of Peter Madsen; reads the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Gordon Bottomley; engages thought travelogues by Frederick Metcalfe and Poul Vad; listens to the music of Richard Wagner, Edward Elgar, and the metal band Manowar; and watches films by directors such as Roy William Neill and Richard Fleischer, outlining the presence of the eddas and sagas in these nineteenth- and twentieth-century works.

Altogether, Echoes of Valhalla tells the remarkable story of how disparate, age-old poetry and prose originally recorded in remote areas of medieval Iceland have come to be a part of our shared cultural experience today--how Nordic gods and saga heroes have survived and how their colorful cast of characters and adventures they went on are as vibrant as ever.


Author: J Karl Helgason
ISBN-10: 1780237154
ISBN-13: 9781780237152
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Language: English
Published: 06/15/2017
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.70w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 06/15/2017