A Gift from Iceland

Don and Norma Young look on as Brian Nettlefold examines a five-volume set of Icelandic sagas.
Photo by Levi Perry, Special to BayToday.ca.

The government of Iceland has donated The Complete Sagas of Icelanders to Nipissing University.

Don and Norma Young, members of the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto, donated the five-volume set to the library on behalf of the government. Brian Nettlefold, Executive Director of Library Services, accepted the Sagas on behalf of the Library in front of an audience of about 30 people Wednesday night.

“The Sagas are available to any country that asks,” Norma Young said.

“We have no idea who from Nipissing asked, but we suspect there to be a closet Viking in the crowd.”

The donation celebrates the anniversary of the voyages of Leifur Eriksson to North America.

Eriksson is believed to have discovered Vinland, now widely believed to be in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, between 1001-1002.

The five-volume sagas contain forty full sagas and forty-nine shorter tales and anecdotes, which speak of the lives of families—and their descendants—that first settled Iceland.

Nipissing’s library had only four sagas before the donation

“This is excellent for us, it’s opening up a whole new area of literature students haven’t been exposed to,” Nettlefold said.

The Sagas are an account of the history and culture of Iceland passed on down through the ages. The stories are about ordinary people and their exploits.

“These stories could be the basis for a new curriculum,” Nettlefold said.

This edition of the Sagas is the first to be published in English. Thirty translators, including leading international scholars and university teachers from seven countries, were involved in the translation.

“Any addition to our library is substantial,” said Nipissing student Geoff Core.

Iceland is only a small country of about 290,000 people, but it has a rich history and a fascinating culture.

“I think it’s awesome for us because most of us are third and fourth generation immigrants,” said Nathalie Jolivet a second-year English major student at Nipissing, “and it’s important to learn about where we come from.”