ith 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approached either as a historical document, or as a pure narrative of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