SAGANET.

This amazing site offers a comprehensive collection of Icelandic sagas and other early Germanic material:

The Saganet is a cooperative project by The National and University Library of Iceland and Cornell University with the association of the Árni Magnússon Institute to give access via the Internet to digital images of about 240.000 manuscript pages and 153.000 printed pages. The Saganet was opened on July 1, 2001 but work started on July 1, 1997.

The material consists of the entire range of Icelandic family sagas. It also includes a very large portion of Germanic/Nordic mythology (the Eddas), the history of Norwegian kings, contemporary sagas and tales from the European age of chivalry. A great number of manuscripts contain Icelandic ballads, poetry or epigrams. These Collections are kept in The National and University Library of Iceland, The Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland and in the Fiske Icelandic Collection at Cornell University. All manuscripts, on vellum and paper, and printed editions and translations of the Sagas as well as relevant critical studies published before 1900 are included and available through the Internet.

There are detailed instructions for searching and browsing, and (mirabile dictu) you can easily link to individual pages; for instance, here's the first page of one of many copies of Njáls saga (all grouped under one "uniform name," no matter what the individual MS is called). Many thanks to Incoming Signals for the link.

Posted by languagehat at April 20, 2004 12:28 PM