Why read History of the Danes?

Book cover of History of the Danes

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Text: English, Latin

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked History of the Danes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jackson Crawford

Author

While Snorri wrote in his native Old Norse in Iceland, unbeknownst to him, a Danish writer remembered as Saxo the Grammarian ('Grammaticus') was writing a monumental history of the Danish kingdom in Latin. Since the old gods were held to be the ancestors of the royal families of medieval Scandinavia, Saxo spends quite a bit of time in the first nine books of 'The History of the Danes' retelling their stories. Many fans of Norse mythology who read the Eddas still never approach Saxo's work, which in fact has been mined in recent centuries for many rich details that are…

From Jackson's list on Norse myths from direct sources.