What are the best translations of Beowulf and the Volsunga Saga?
January 13, 2010 - 4:04 am
OK, my parents want to buy me the Volsunga Saga for X-mas and my Sister and Brother-in-law want to buy me Beowulf…. I know I’ve asked this before but I didn’t get the answers I was wanting…. What are the best translations of these books?
X-mas shopping starts soon so they are pestering me for answers! 
Go with the Seamus Heaney translation for Beowulf. I’ve never read it myself, but I hear it’s excellent.
January 13th, 2010 at 9:44 am
They are both boring as hell in any translation. The Vosunga Saga is as exciting as the phone book.
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January 13th, 2010 at 10:25 am
I haven’t read the Volsunga Saga since eight grade so I can’t really help you other than to say that there was a recent publication of the legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by Tolkien that came out. While not the whole saga ( and I cant recall if it owed more to the Volsunga version or the Nebilungiled) it is definitely worth a read.
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January 13th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Go with the Seamus Heaney translation for Beowulf. I’ve never read it myself, but I hear it’s excellent.
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January 13th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Sorry, Bobby, that my link to the web translation of the Volsunga saga didn’t help you out. But, if you’re not in a pulled together version like that, you may, instead be looking for bits and pieces from many other sources, like a good translation of Snorri Sturluson’s compilation of the Prose Edda together with various other resources for the Ring cycle, et. al.
Here’s a review of the Norton Critical editions of Beowulf:
http://www.beowulftranslations.net/nce.shtml
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