|
saga
saga in Old Norse literature , especially Icelandic and Norwegian, narrative in prose or verse, centering on a legendary or historical figure or family. Sagas may be divided into sagas of the kings, mainly of early Norwegian rulers; Icelandic sagas, both biographical and historical; contemporary s...
Read more
|
|
|
saga
saga in Old Norse literature , especially Icelandic and Norwegian, narrative in prose or verse, centering on a legendary or historical figure or family. Sagas may be divided into sagas of the kings, mainly of early Norwegian rulers; Icelandic sagas, both biographical and historical; contemporary s...
Read more
|
|
|
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson , 1178-1241, Icelandic chieftain, historian, critic, and saga teller, the leading figure in medieval Norse literature. He was the author of the invaluable Prose Edda (see Edda ), a treatise on the art of poetry and a compendium of Norse mythology. His great saga the Heimskringla...
Read more
|
|
|
Louis Marie Anne Couperus
Louis Marie Anne Couperus , 1863-1923, Dutch novelist. In his early works he emphasized with graceful irony the determining forces of human history and environment; this fatalism characterizes all his novels. Couperus is best known for the realistic family saga De Boeken der kleine Zielen (4 vol.,...
Read more
|
|
Leif Ericsson
Leif Ericsson , Old Norse Leifr Eiriksson, fl. AD 999-1000, Norse discoverer of America, b. probably in Iceland; son of Eric the Red . He spent his youth in Greenland and in 999 visited Norway, where he was converted to Christianity and commissioned by King Olaf I to carry the faith to Greenland....
Read more
|
|
|
Don Marquis
Don Marquis (Donald Robert Perry Marquis) , 1878-1937, American author, b. Walnut, Ill. In 1912 he began the humorous column "The Sun Dial" in the New York Sun and later conducted "The Lantern" in the Herald Tribune. He invented various characters of gay satire, notably "archy the co...
Read more
|
|
|
Bessie Head
Bessie Head 1937-86, South African writer. Born in South Africa to a white mother and black father, she was placed in foster homes and orphanages as a child. After 1964, she lived in exile in Botswana. Her candid writing voiced her strong concerns about racism, economic stagnation, and the status o...
Read more
|
|
|
Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov
Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov , 1895-1963, Russian short-story writer, novelist, and dramatist, b. Siberia. Ivanov had an adventurous early life as a sailor, circus performer, fakir, and partisan fighter. His talent for vivid description and ironic point of view was discovered and encouraged by Go...
Read more
|
|
|
Kirkwall
Kirkwall , town (1991 pop. 5,867), N Scotland, on the east coast of Mainland Island. It is the trading center and administrative seat of the Orkney Islands , with exports of eggs, fish, whiskey, cattle, and sheep. Local industries include boat building, food processing and packing. There is minor...
Read more
|
|
|
Norse
Norse another name for the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages ). The modern Norse languages—Danish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish—all stem from an earlier form of Norse known as...
Read more
|
