Instructor

Office: 1366 Van Hise Hall

Phone: 262-9637

Email: sbrantly@facstaff.wisc.edu

Office Hours: Wednesdays 2:25-3:15; Thursdays 2:25-3:15

Course Requirements

Required Texts

• Gwyn Jones, ed. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
• Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, trans. Seven Viking Romances
• Patricia Terry, trans. Poems of the Elder Edda
• Laxdaela Saga
• Njal's Saga
• The Saga of Gisli
• Egil's Saga
• Grettir's Saga
• King Harald's Saga
• The Saga of the Volsungs

Syllabus

September

• 2: Slide Introduction
• 4: Saga Scholarship
• 9: Mythology
• Read: "Völuspá", "The Lay of Vafthrudnir", "Skirnir's Journey", "The Lay of Hymir" and "The Lay of Thrym" in The Poems of the Elder Edda. Also "Thidrandi Whom the Goddesses Slew" in Eirik the Red and other Icelandic Sagas.
• 11: Viking World View
• Read: "Sayings of the High One" and "The Insolence of Loki" in Terry
• 15: Egil's Saga
• 18: Egil's Saga
• 22: Laxdaela Saga.
• 24: Laxdaela Saga
• 39: Njal's Saga

October

November4: Eirik the Red
6: Eirik the Red
11: The Eddic Version of the Volsungs

Read in Terry: "The First Lay of Helgi Hunding's Bane", "The Lay of Helgi Hjorvard's Son", "The Second Lay of Helgi Hunding's Bane", "The Prophecy of Gripir", "The Lay of Regin", "The Lay of Fafnir", "The Lay of Sigdrifa", "Fragment of a Sigurd Lay"

13: The Eddic Version of the Volsungs II

Read in Terry: "The Lay of Gudrun", "The Short Lay of Sigurd", "Brynhild's Journey to Hel", "The Second Lay of Gudrun", "The Third Lay of Gudrun", "Oddrun's Lament", "The Lay of Atli", "The Greenland Lay of Atli", "Gudrun's Chain of Woes", "The Lay of Hamdir"

18: The Saga of the Volsungs
20: The Saga of the Volsungs
25: Bosi and Herraud in Seven Viking Romances
27: Thanksgiving

December

PAPERS DUE LAST DAY OF CLASS,
DECEMBER 11