Viking Tales is comprised of mostly short chapters covering the time period between King Halfdan's reign in Norway through Leif Erikson's discovery of North America. Hall tells the stories of generations of Vikings in a manner which is both thrilling for young listeners, educational in spite of itself, and exciting for all involved in the reading. I really felt like this book helped us to solidify the timeline of Viking history in our minds, as well as making it personable and approachable.

Iceland is a little country far north in the cold sea. Men found it and went there to live more than a thousand years ago. During the warm season they used to fish and make fish-oil and hunt sea-birds and gather feathers and tend their sheep and make hay. But the winters were long and dark and cold. Men and women and children stayed in the house and carded and spun and wove and knit. A whole family sat for hours around the fire in the middle of the room. That fire gave the only light. Shadows flitted in the dark corners. Smoke curled along the high beams in the ceiling. The children sat on the dirt floor close by the fire. The grown people were on a long narrow bench that they had pulled up to the light and warmth. Everybody's hands were busy with wool. The work left their minds free to think and their lips to talk. What was there to talk about? The summer's fishing, the killing of a fox, a voyage to Norway. But the people grew tired of this little gossip. Fathers looked at their children and thought:"They are not learning much. What will make them brave and wise? What will teach them to love their country and old Norway? Will not the stories of battles, of brave deeds, of mighty men, do this?"So, as the family worked in the red fire-light, the father told of the kings of Norway, of long voyages to strange lands, of good fights. And in farmhouses all through Iceland these old tales were told over and over until everybody knew them and loved them. Some men could sing and play the harp. This made the stories all the more interesting. People called such men "skalds," and they called their songs "sagas."Every midsummer there was a great meeting. Men from all over Iceland came to it and made laws. During the day there were rest times, when no business was going on. Then some skald would take his harp and walk to a large stone or a knoll and stand on it and begin a song of some brave deed of an old Norse hero. At the first sound of the harp and the voice, men came running from all directions, crying out:"The skald! The skald! A saga!"They stood about for hours and listened. They shouted applause. When the skald was tired, some other man would come up from the crowd and sing or tell a story. As the skald stepped down from his high position, some rich man would rush up to him and say:"Come and spend next winter at my house. Our ears are thirsty for song."So the best skalds traveled much and visited many people. Their songs made them welcome everywhere. They were always honored with good seats at a feast. They were given many rich gifts. Even the King of Norway would sometimes send across the water to Iceland, saying to some famous skald:"Come and visit me. You shall not go away empty-handed. Men say that the sweetest songs are in Iceland. I wish to hear them."These tales were not written. Few men wrote or read in those days. Skalds learned songs from hearing them sung. At last people began to write more easily. Then they said:"These stories are very precious. We must write them down to save them from being forgotten."After that many men in Iceland spent their winters in writing books. They wrote on sheepskin; vellum, we call it. Many of these old vellum books have been saved for hundreds of years, and are now in museums in Norway. Some leaves are lost, some are torn, all are yellow and crumpled. But they are precious. They tell us all that we know about that olden time. There are the very words that the men of Iceland wrote so long ago--stories of kings and of battles and of ship-sailing. Some of those old stories I have told in this book.

CLASSIC VIKING STORIES/b> Viking Tales is a classic collection of stories that follows the life of Harald Fairhair. DETAILS: Includes the Original Illustrations

"Viking Tales" by Jennie Hall. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Viking Tales by Jennie Hall - The Original Classic Edition Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition. It was previously published by other bona fide publishers, and is now, after many years, back in print. This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: EVERY day the boy Harald heard some such story of war or of the gods, until he could see Thor riding among the storm-clouds and throwing his hammer, until he knew that a brave man has many wounds, but never a one on his back. ...After breakfast the next morning the guests went out and stood by their horses ready to go, but before they mounted, thralls brought a horn of mead to each man. ...And many of King Harald's warriors walked the long, hard road to Valhalla, and feasted there with some of these very vikings that had died in King Harald's battles. But after many hard fights on land and sea, after many men had died and many had fled away to other lands, King Harald won, and he made the men that were yet[100] in the islands take the oath, and he left his earls to rule over them. ...I should like to stand on a hill and look around on a wide land and think, 'This is all ours, ' and out upon a rough sea and think, 'Far off there are our foes and they dare not come over to us.'

Hall has captured the true spirit of the ancient age through her vibrant portrayal of voyage in this book. It includes historical explorations of unknown Islands. These adventurous tales, including the discovery of America (named Vinland) by the Norse, are a gripping chronicle of the human desire for exploration and a tantalizing glimpse of what would many centuries later become the New World.

This spectacular collection of ancient Viking myths and legends was compiled by Jennie Hall - a leading enthusiast in Nordic mythology. The tales draw upon well-known legends involving the Nordic pantheon of the Gods, as well as the folk stories which follow a young hero named Harald. The two countries focused upon are Norway and Iceland, with the seafaring culture for which the Nordic peoples were renowned in the early Middle Ages receiving much prominence. Rich with swashbuckling heroism, the stories within this volume are recounted compellingly, starting with an account of King Harald's infancy. The stories are imbued by Hall's deep research into the Nordic culture - the hierarchy of their society, the means by which they set laws and settled disputes, how they married and partook in family life, and how they fought and died in war. Together with this book's thrilling stories, Jennie Hall imbues her own researches into the language pronunciations and cultural traits of the Nordic peoples.