Saxo Grammaticus was a Danish historian, theologian and author, thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He lived from 1150 to 1220 and wrote a sixteen-volume history of the Denmark that he lived in.

Saxo Grammaticus was a Danish historian, theologian and author, thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He lived from 1150 to 1220 and wrote a sixteen-volume history of the Denmark that he lived in.

Volumes X through XVI (oddly -- or perhaps not so oddly -- written first) are a conventional history of Saxo's day and age. But the first of the volumes are the stuff of myth and legend, delightful tales of mythic Norse persons and circumstances. This book is comprised of those mythic volumes, and it's special stuff indeed.