The Fireside

  Christopher Tolkien's translation of The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise  is coming to paperback, in continued celebration of his centenary. It will be published May 8 by HarperCollins, with the ISBN of  9780008767631  . The description follows: Christopher Tolkien’s masterly translation of the Icelandic Heidrek’s Saga, including the dramatic Battle of the Goths and the Huns, the lyrical Waking of Angantyr, and the unique riddle-contest between King Heidrek and the god Odin. Heidrek’s Saga  is a medieval entertainment – a ‘romance’, but a romance that derives little of its matter from the literature of France or Germany. It is an example of a kind of story-telling that was flourishing in Iceland by the beginning of the twelfth century, and which (in contrast to the more celebrated ‘Sagas of the Icelanders’) told of legendary figures whose origins lie far back in time beyond the settlement of the country. The elements of the story, diverse in age and atmosphere, ...

Tolkien's version of Beowulf  will soon be released. There has been some scholary controversy over this release from those who study Anglo-Saxon literature, as well as Beowulf  scholars. The Tolkien scholars have been waiting awhile for this one for a while.  Tolkien's expertise on Beowulf and his own literary powers have made this translation a work every Tolkien fan will want to treasure. This edition includes the translation in prose and an illuminating commentary, based on a series of lectures given by J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford in the 1930s. Through Tolkien’s clarity of vision, it is as if you entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendel’s terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot. This edition also inclu...