Magnús Magnússon Knihy

Drawing on a great deal of modern scholarship that has redefined the nation's story, Magnusson vividly re-creates the long and fascinating story of Scotland, offering the most up-to-date and comprehensive history available today. 40 pages of photos.

20,000 profiles of distinguished people from every age and every walk of life. The coverage is international, and covers all aspects of human endeavour. The dictionary is revised and updated regularly; the previous edition was published in 1984.

Written around 1245 by an unknown author, the Laxdaela Saga is an extraordinary tale of conflicting kinships and passionate love, and one of the most compelling works of Icelandic literature. Covering 150 years in the lives of the inhabitants of the community of Laxriverdale, the saga focuses primarily upon the story of Gudrun Osvif's-daughter: a proud, beautiful, vain and desirable figure, who is forced into an unhappy marriage and destroys the only man she has truly loved – her husband's best friend. A moving tale of murder and sacrifice, romance and regret, the Laxdaela Saga is also a fascinating insight into an era of radical change – a time when the Age of Chivalry was at its fullest flower in continental Europe, and the Christian faith was making its impact felt upon the Viking world.

Echoes of the Ancient World SeriesContents:PrefaceThe land of Thule: pre-Viking ScandinaviaThe dragon ships: the great age of Viking expansionHammer and cross: the coming of the new religionThe great void: creation and doom in the Viking cosmologyOdin, the all-father: lord of the gallows and lord of the slainStorm and harvest: Thor, Frey, Freyja: gods of the earth and skyLoki and Baldur: the father of lies and the shining godChoosers of the slain: Valkyries and the spirits of the otherworldThe way to Hel: death and its after-lifeSacred stones: Norsemen at worshipThe heroic ethic: the legend of Sigurd and the code of the warrior.

Written in the thirteenth century, Njal's Saga is a story that explores perennial human problems-from failed marriages to divided loyalties, from the law's inability to curb human passions to the terrible consequences when decent men and women are swept up in a tide of violence beyond their control. It is populated by memorable and complex characters like Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a powerful warrior with an aversion to killing, and the not-so-villainous Mord Valgardsson. Full of dreams, strange prophecies, violent power struggles, and fragile peace agreements, Njal's Saga tells the compelling story of a fifty-year blood feud that, despite its distance from us in time and place, is driven by passions familiar to us all. This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction, chronology, index of characters, plot summary, explanatory notes, maps, and suggestions for further reading.

As an unloved foster child on a farm in rural Iceland, Olaf Karason has only one consolation: the belief that one day he will be a great poet. The indifference and contempt of most of the people around him only reinforces his sense of destiny, for in Iceland poets are as likely to be scorned as they are to be revered. Over the ensuing years, Olaf comes to lead the paradigmatic poet's life of poverty, loneliness, ruinous love affairs, and sexual scandal. But he will never attain anything like greatness.As imagined by Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness in this magnificently humane novel, what might be cruel farce achieves pathos and genuine exaltation. For as Olaf's ambition drives him onward-and into the orbits of an unstable spiritualist, a shady entrepreneur, and several susceptible women-World Light demonstrates how the creative spirit can survive in even the most crushing of environments, and even the most unpromising human vessel.

The natural history of Scotland from the creation of its foundation to today's usage of the land. Key sections deal with conservation, seas and waterways, cities and heritage protection.