In A.D. 986, Earl H簿聶翻kon, ruler of most of Norway, won a triumphant victory over an invading fleet of Danes in the great naval battle of Hj簿聶翻runga Bay. Sailing under his banner were no fewer than five Icelandic skalds, the poet-historians of the Old Norse world. Two centuries later their accounts of the battle became the basis for one of the liveliest of the Icelandic sagas, with special emphasis on the doings of the J簿聶翻msvikings, the famed members of a warrior community that feared no one and dared all. In Lee M. Hollander's faithful translation, all of the unknown twelfth-century author's narrative genius and flair for dramatic situation and pungent characterization is preserved.
