Arrow-Odd: A Medieval Novel

Translated with an introduction by Paul Edwards and Hermann Pálsson. Translated with fluency and ease, this is the 14th-century Icelandic tale of Arrow-Odd who was given — or cursed with — a life span of 300 years. At first reading it appears to be a linear, picaresque narrative with few linking elements. However, there are persistent, recurring themes that give it a cyclic form. The story opens in Norway, but quickly carries us to the icy lands of the Lapps, on Viking expeditions to Russia, over to Ireland and across the Greenland Sea. Sometimes Odd is a warrior-Viking of considerable greed, at others a pilgrim in the wilderness in the Holy Land; at one time the captive of French priests, at another the diminutive lover of a giantess. At different times a warrior, poet, king, and buffoon, he finally returns to the place of his birth in search of his lost childhood. His cyclic journey ends on this nostalgic note.