Of all the great medieval Icelandic sagas, Laxdaela Saga (composed by an unknown author c. 1245) has always stirred the European imagination the most profoundly. Romantic in style, in taste and in theme, it culminates in that most enduring and timeless of human relationships in story-telling, the love triangle. Gudrun Osvif's-daughter, the imperious beauty who is forced to marry her lover's best friend, is one of the first great romantic literary heroines.

With its clerical religious learning, its courtly chivalry, its antiquarian feeling for history and its sympathy for the old heroic poetry, Laxdaela Saga reflects European tastes and preoccupations. But it is also intended as a national epic, giving dignity and grandeur to a young nation's past.

The cover shows a detail from a medieval Icelandic wood carving in pine.