Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics

viii, 373 pp. Includes fifteen essays, each written by an authority on one of the major epic traditions. Discussed in detail are the Iliad and the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata and Ramayana (the great Sanskrit epics), as well as the Iranian Shahnama and its successors, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, the Icelandic sagas, the Irish sagas, the Song of Roland and other Old French chansons de geste, the Spanish epics including the Cid, the Russian byliny and Serbocroatian epic songs, the Kalevala and the Kalevigpoeg. Of special interest are the discussions of the Turkic and African epic traditions.