Bókastaðir

Bókastaðir is a free online library that aims to bring together the most important Old Norse texts, in Old Norse spelling. It currently holds 89 texts, nearly 2 million words. Most are transcribed from scanned public-domain editions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; a few come from openly licensed editions on the web, among them Menota and the Icelandic Saga Database.

How to use

Tap a sentence in a saga for a word-by-word gloss. Tap the word’s dictionary form in that panel for a fuller entry.

Glossed Old Norse source texts have been standardized to use a ø, ǫ, æ, œ spelling convention, but the original source text spelling remains available where it differs.

Sagas have an audio track, playable by sentence or by chapter, with or without a live translation. It can be read in either modern Icelandic or reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation (more below).

Translations and glosses are generated by AI and may contain errors. Corrections welcome.

If you’re interested in printed editions of any of these texts, Íslenzk fornrit editions are the standard scholarly text, published by Hið íslenzka fornritafélag: fornrit.is.

Sources

• PDF scans of public domain works. These were read using AI; occasional transcription errors may remain:
  • Altnordische Saga-Bibliothek — the scholarly editions of Hugo Gering, R. C. Boer, Finnur Jónsson, Kristian Kålund and Walther Heinrich Vogt, published between 1892 and 1924, checked against the modern Icelandic text. Volumes used: Egils saga (the second edition, 1924), Eyrbyggja saga, Gísla saga, Grettis saga, Laxdœla saga, Vatnsdœla saga, Örvar-Odds saga and Brennu-Njáls saga.
  • Íslendinga sögur — the popular editions published in Reykjavík by Sigurður Kristjánsson between 1891 and 1913, most of them edited by Valdimar Ásmundarson and three — Harðar saga, Hœnsa-Þóris saga and the þættir volume — by Þórleifr Jónsson, checked against the modern Icelandic text. Volumes used: Landnámabók (1891), Harðar saga ok Hólmverja (1891), Hœnsa-Þóris saga (1892), Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða (1893), Fljótsdæla saga (1896), Ljósvetninga saga, Vápnfirðinga saga, Valla-Ljóts saga, Reykdœla saga ok Víga-Skútu and Finnboga saga ramma (1896, 1897), Víga-Glúms saga, Svarfdæla saga and Flóamanna saga (1897, 1898), Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa (1898), Fóstbræðra saga and Víga-Styrs saga ok Heiðarvíga (1899), Þórðar saga hreðu (1900), Kjalnesinga saga (1902) and Fjörutíu Íslendinga-þættir (1904), which supplies Auðunar þáttr vestfirzka, Brands þáttr örva, Halldórs þáttr Snorrasonar hinn síðari, Hreiðars þáttr heimska, Hrómundar þáttr halta, Íslendings þáttr sögufróða, Odds þáttr Ófeigssonar, Sneglu-Halla þáttr, Ölkofra þáttr, Ögmundar þáttr dytts ok Gunnars helmings and Þorvalds þáttr tasalda.
  • Zwei Isländergeschichten — Andreas Heusler's edition of Hœnsa-Þóris saga and Bandamanna saga (2nd ed., Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1913).
  • Icelandic Sagas, vol. I — Guðbrandur Vigfússon's edition of Orkneyinga saga (London, 1887, Rolls Series 88).
  • Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda and Jómsvíkinga saga — C. C. Rafn's editions, published in Copenhagen; Jómsvíkinga saga with Þorgeir Guðmundsson, from Rasmus Rask's copy of the Stockholm vellum. Volumes used: Völsunga saga (vol. I, 1829), Áns saga bogsveigis and Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka (vol. II, 1829) and Jómsvíkinga saga (1824). From the same editor and society: Færeyinga saga (Færeyínga saga, 1832, its Icelandic text only) and Þorsteins þáttr skelks (Fornmanna sögur, vol. III, 1827).
  • Sturlunga saga — Guðbrandur Vigfússon's edition (Oxford, 1878), for Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, Sturlu saga, Guðmundar saga dýra, Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar (which he prints whole in an appendix) and Íslendinga saga (vol. I and vol. II), which he prints as one text with Þórðar saga kakala, Svínfellinga saga and Þorgils saga skarða inside it.
  • Biskupa sögur — Hið íslenzka bókmentafélag's edition (Copenhagen), for Guðmundar saga Arasonar (vol. II, 1878), and Páls saga biskups and Lárentíus saga biskups (vol. I, 1858).
  • Heimskringla — Finnur Jónsson's edition of Snorri Sturluson's lives of the Norse kings (Copenhagen, 1911), for the whole of it: the Prologus and all sixteen sagas.
  • Edda Snorra Sturlusonar — Finnur Jónsson's edition of Snorri Sturluson's Edda (Reykjavík: Sigurður Kristjánsson, 1907): the Prologus, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal.
  • Grágás — Vilhjálmur Finsen's edition of the law code in Konungsbók (Copenhagen, 1852), for Þingskapaþáttr, Vígslóði, Baugatal and Festaþáttr.
  • Austfirðinga sögur — Jakob Jakobsen's edition of the sagas of the East Fjords (Copenhagen, 1902-03, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur XXIX), which supplies Þorsteins saga hvíta, Þorsteins saga Síðu-Hallssonar, Gunnars þáttr Þiðrandabana, Þorsteins þáttr stangarhöggs and Brandkrossa þáttr, and a second edition of Vápnfirðinga saga, Hrafnkels saga Freysgoða and Droplaugarsona saga.
  • Droplaugarsona saga — Konráð Gíslason's edition of the saga of Droplaug's sons (Copenhagen, 1847, Nordiske Oldskrifter II), the first printing of the saga.
  • Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel — Charles Plummer's edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Oxford, 1892, vol. I), on the basis of John Earle's, which prints the Parker (A) and Laud (E) manuscripts side by side.
• Menota, which has published a scholarly transcription of Möðruvallabók including a full grammatical analysis on nearly every word. Eight of the sagas here come from it: Brennu-Njáls saga, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Finnboga saga ramma, Fóstbrœðra saga, Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds, Kormáks saga, Laxdœla saga and Víga-Glúms saga. Íslendingabók comes from Menota as well, from a different manuscript (AM 113 b fol).
• Icelandic Saga Database, which has put the sagas online in the public domain in modern Icelandic.

Old Norse * (Beta)

Where a saga offers it, the Voice toggle reads the text with Old Norse phonology instead of modern Icelandic: for example, hét with a long é rather than a diphthong.

It is made by taking a neural modern Icelandic voice and altering it sound by sound. It is meant only as an illustration of how the language may have sounded. The modern pronunciation is also available, if preferred.

The modern Icelandic voice is Azure’s. Old Norse * uses a neural voice from the Language and Voice Lab at Reykjavík University, trained on the Talrómur corpus (CC BY 4.0).

About & Contact

There is nothing else in literature quite like the Icelandic sagas. Gritty but funny, epic but understated, foreign but familiar.

Reading the sagas in the original Old Norse is not easy. It's a tricky language, and though there are excellent books, old and new, there are not many of them. Many of the older printed editions of the sagas are in the public domain, but online they exist only as page scans. This site is an attempt to bring those texts together as searchable, readable text, and to build what's needed to learn to read them: most sagas here carry a word-by-word gloss, in-context translation help and grammatical detail, and there are grammar cheat sheets, verb conjugations and a drill feature.

Most of the texts are transcribed with AI from those scans; the editions, printed between 1824 and 1921, are listed under Sources. All the glosses, notes and resources on this site were created with the help of AI. The sagas here run over a million words, and AI is the most affordable way to gloss a corpus of that scale. Definitions link back to Cleasby-Vigfusson and Zoëga for reference. As with anything AI-generated, the transcriptions, translations, glosses, and notes may contain errors. Corrections are welcome.

There is more I hope to add as resources allow, including more sagas transcribed from public domain editions, a mobile app, and more editorial content.

Questions, comments, corrections and requests welcome: [email protected].