PREFATORY NOTE TO THE ONE-VOLUME EDITION.
_SIR GEORGE DASENT'S translation of the Njals Saga, under the title The Story of Burnt Njal, which is reprinted in this volume, was published by Messrs. Edmonston & Douglas in 1861. That edition was in two volumes, and was furnished by the author with maps and plans; with a lengthy introduction dealing with Iceland's history, religion and social life; with an appendix and an exhaustive index. Copies of this edition can still be obtained from Mr. David Douglas of Edinburgh._
_The present reprint has been prepared in order that this incomparable Saga may become accessible to those readers with whom a good story is the first consideration and its bearing upon a nation's history a secondary one--or is not considered at all. For_ Burnt Njal _may be approached either as a historical document, or as a pure narrative of elemental natures, of strong passions; and of heroic feats of strength.
Some of the best fighting in literature is to be found between its
covers. Sir George Dasent's version in its capacity as a learned work for the study has had nearly forty years of life; it is now offered afresh simply as a brave story for men who have been boys and for boys who are going to be men._
_We lay down the book at the end having added to our store of good
memories the record of great deeds and great hearts, and to our gallery of heroes strong and admirable men worthy to stand beside the strong and admirable men of the Iliad--Gunnar of Lithend and Skarphedinn, Njal and Kari, Helgi and Kolskegg, beside Telamonian Aias and Patroclus, Achilles and Hector, Ulysses and Idomeneus. In two respects these Icelanders win more of our sympathy than the Greeks and Trojans; for they, like ourselves, are of Northern blood, and in their mighty strivings are unassisted by the gods._
_In the present volume Sir George Dasent's preface has been shortened,
and his introduction, which everyone who is interested in old Icelandic
life and history should make a point of reading in the original edition,
has been considerably abridged. The three appendices, treating of the
Vikings, Queen Gunnhillda, and money and currency in the tenth century,
have been also exised, and with them the index. There remains the Saga
itself (not a word of Sir George Dasent's simple, forcible, clean prose
having been touched), with sufficient introductory matter to assist the
reader to its fuller appreciation._
_Sir George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L., the translator of the Njals Saga, was
born in 1817 at St. Vincent in the West Indies, of which island his
father was Attorney-General. He was educated at Westminster School, and
at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he was distinguished both as a fine
athlete and a good classic, He took his degree in 1840, and on coming
to London showed an early tendency towards literature and literary
society. The Sterlings were connected with the island of' St. Vincent,
and as Dasent and John Sterling became close friends, he was a constant
guest at Captain Sterlings house in Knightsbridge, which was frequented
by many who afterwards rose to eminence in the world of letters,
including Carlyle, to whom Dasent dedicated his first book, Dasent's
appointment in 1842 as private secretary to Sir James Cartwright, the
British Envoy to the court of Sweden, took him to Stockholm, where under
the advice of Jacob Grimm, whom he had met in Denmark, he began that
study of Scandinavian literature which has enriched English literature
bu the present work, and by the_ Norse Tales, Gísli the Outlaw, _and
other valuable translations and memoirs. On settling in London again in
1845 he joined the_ Times _staff as assistant editor to the great
Delane, who had been his friend at Oxford, and whose sister he married
in the following year. Dasent retained the post during the paper's most
brilliant period. In 1870 Mr. Gladstone offered him a Civil Service
Commissionership, which he accepted and held until his retirement in
1892, at which time he was the Commission's official head. He was
knighted "for public services" in 1876, having been created a knight
of the Danish order of the Dannebrög many years earlier._
_In addition, to his Scandinavian work, Sir George Dasent wrote several
novels, of which_ The Annals of an Eventful Life _was at once the most
popular and the best. He died greatly respected in 1896._
E. V. LUCAS.
