Translations by William Morris

The following is a working checklist, with unpublished material transcribed.

For a list specifically devoted to the Old Norse translations, see William Whitla, "Appendix B: The Old Norse Translations of William Morris and Related materials," 96-99, in 'Sympathetic Translation' and the 'Scribe's Capacity': Morris's Calligraphy and the Icelandic Sagas." Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 10 (Fall 2001): 27-108.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Poetry
  • List of titles
  • Complete texts
• Non-Poetic Translations: Published
  • List of titles
• Non-Poetic Translations: Manuscripts and Unpublished Translations and Fragments
  • List of titles

POETRY

1. “Hafbur and Signy: Translated from the Danish” ( King Hafbur & King Siward / They needs must stir up strife, )

2. “The Lay of Christine: Translated from the Icelandic” ( Of silk my gear was shapen, / Scarlet they did on me, )

3. “Hildebrand and Hellelil: Translated from the Danish” ( Hellelil sitteth in bower there, / None knows my grief but God alone, )

4. “Knight Aagen and Maiden Else: Translated From the Danish” ( It was the fair knight Aagen / To an isle he went his way, / And plighted troth to Else, / Who was so fair a may. )

5. “The Son’s Sorrow: From the Icelandic” ( The King has asked of his son so good, / “Why art thou hushed and heavy of mood? )

6. “The Mother Under the Mold” ( Svend Dyring rode on the island-way / Yea have not I myself been young )

7. “Agnes and the Hill Man: Translated from the Danish” ( Agnes went through the meadows a-weeping, / Fowl are a-singing. / There stood the hill-man heed thereof keeping. / Agnes, fair Agnes! )

8. “The Prophecy of the Vala” ( Heath-Dame they called her / At each home she came to, )

9. “The Song of Atli” ( In days long gone / Sent Atli to Gunnar / A crafty one riding, / Knefrud men called him; )

10. “The Whetting of Gudrun” ( Words of strife heard I, / Huger than any, / Woeful words spoken, / Sprung from all sorrow, )

11. “The Lay of Hamdir” ( Great deeds of bale / In the garth began, / At the sad dawning / The tide of Elves’ sorrow )

12. “The Lament of Oddrun” ( I have heard tell / In ancient tales / How a may there came / To Morna-land, )

13. “Lay of Thrym”

14. “Baldur’s Doom” (Also "The Lay of Way-Wearer" [Vegtamsgruđa])

15. Part of the Lay of Sigrdrifa” ( Now this is my first counsel, / That thou with thy kin / Be guiltless, guileless ever, / Nor hasty of wrath, )* 

16. “Iliad,” translation. ( Singer of the wrath O Goddess of Achilles Peleus seek/ Baleful that laid on Achaeans ten thousand folded need )

17. The Aeneids of Virgil

18. Part of the Second Lay of Helgi Hundings-bane” ( Dag: Loth am I, sister / Of sorrow to tell thee, / For by hard need driven / Have I drawn on the greeting; )

19. “The Short Lay of Sigurd” ( Sigurd of yore, / Sought the dwelling of Guiki, / As he fared, the young Volsung, / After fight won; )

20. “The Hell-Ride of Brynhild” ( THE GIANT WOMAN “Nay, with my goodwill / Never goest thou / Through this stone-pillared / Stead of mine! )

21. “Fragments of The Lay of Brynhild” ( HOGNI SAID: “What hath wrought Sigurd / Of any wrong-doing / That the life of the famed one / Thou art fain of taking?” )

22. “The Second or Ancient Lay of Gudrun” ( A may of all mays / My mother reared me / Bright in bower; / Well loved I my brethren, )* 

23. “Nibelungenlied” ( In the words of the ancient stories Are many wonders told )* 

24. Axel Thordson and Fair Walborg

25. Beowulf ( What! we of the Spear-Danes of yore days, so was it/ That we lear'd of the fair fame of Kings of the folks )

26. The Odyssey of Homer ( Tell me, O Muse, of the Shifty, the man who wandered afar, / After the Holy Burg, Troy-town, he had wasted with war; )

27. The Ordination of Knighthood. Available at http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/ordination.html., edited by Yuri Cowan

NON-POETIC TRANSLATIONS, PUBLISHED

1. Grettis Saga: The Story of Grettir the Strong. Translated from the Icelandic by William Morris and Eiríkr Magnusson. London: F. S. Ellis, 1869.

2. Völsunga Saga: The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs, with certain Songs from the Elder Edda. Translated by Eiríkir Magnusson and William Morris. London: Ellis, 1870.

3. Three Northern Love Stories, and Other Tales. Translated by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson. London Ellis and White, 1875.

• Contains The Story of Gunnlaug the Worm-Tongue and Raven the Skald; The Story of Frithiof the Bold; The Story of Viglund the Fair; The Tale of Hogni and Hedinn; The Tale of Roi the Fool; The Tale of Thorstein Staff-Smitten.

4. The Saga Library. Translated by William Morris and Eiríkr Magnússon. 6 vols. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1891-1901.

• Contains vol. 1 trans. Morris, "collated" by Eirikr Magnusson, 1891: The Story of Howard the Halt; The Story of the Banded Men; The Story of Hen Thorir;
• vol. 2, trans. Morris, "collated" by Eirikr Magnusson, 1892: The Story of the Ere-Dwellers (Eyrbyggja Saga); The Story of the Heath-Slayings (Heibarviga Saga); Heimskringla: Stories of the Kings of Norway
• vol. 3, trans. Morris, "collated" by Magnusson, 1893: Heimskingla I, The Story of the Ynglings; The Story of Halfdan the Black; The Story of Harald Hairfair; The Story of Hakon the Good; The Story of King Harald Greycloak and of Earl Hakon the son of Sigurd; The Story of King Olaf Tryggvison;
• vol. 4, trans. Eirikr Magnusson, "collated" by Morris, 1894: Heimskringla II, The Story of Olaf the Holy, the Son of Harald;
• vol. 5, trans. Eirikr Magnusson, "collated" by Morris, 1895: The Story of Magnus the Good, The Story of Harald the Hard-Redy, The Story of Olaf the Quiet; The Story of Magnus Barefoot; The Story of Sigurd the Jerusalem-farer, Eystein, and Olaf; The Story of Magnus the Blind and Harald Gilli; The Story of Ingi, Son of Harald, and his Brethren; The Story of Hakon Shoulder-Broad; The Story of King Magnus, Son of Erling;
• vol. 6, Magnusson, 1905: Heimskringla IV, Preface (discussion by Magnusson of the creation of the Saga Library), Introduction: on Snorri Sturlason's life and works; indexes; corrections; genealogies.

5. Of King Florus and the Fair Jehane. Translated by William Morris. Kelmscott Press, 1893.

6. The Tale of Emperor Coustans and Over Sea. Translated by William Morris, Kelmscott Press, 1894.

7. Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1895

8. "Egils Saga," [40 chapters] in May Morris, William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist, Oxford: Blackwell, 1936. See also unpublished ms. variant below.

9. The Story of Kormak the Son of Ogmund, translated by William Morris and Eiríkr Magnusson. London: William Morris Society, 1970.

MANUSCRIPTS AND UNPUBLISHED TRANSLATIONS AND FRAGMENTS

For a list of Morris's illuminated manuscripts of his translations and other works, see William Whitla, Appendix A: "William Morris's Calligraphic Manuscripts," 80-95, in"'Sympathetic Translation' and the 'Scribe's Capacity': Morris's Calligraphy and the Icelandic Sagas." Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 10 (Fall 2001): 27-108.

An additional list of Morris's illuminated manuscripts and a note on these manuscripts, both by Alfred Fairbank, may be found in The Story of Kormak the Son of Ogmund, by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, with an Introduction by Grace J. Calder and a Note on the manuscript work of William Morris by Alfred Fairbank. William Morris Society, 1970. See "A Note on the Manuscript Work of William Morris," Alfred Fairbank, 53-64; "An Annotated List of the Manuscript Work of William Morris," Alfred Fairbank, 65-69.

Fragment of The Aeneid, Society of Antiquaries, calligraphic trial, Book I, lines 34-89, f. 1 and 1v.

• *Tale of Haldor (beginning fragment), calligraphic manuscript. Mark Samuels Lasner Collection. Also B. L., Add. Ms 45,317, f. 29.
• * Fragment of beginning for Hallbiorn the Strong
• A calligraphic manuscript of the Story of the Ynglings from the Heimskringla Saga is at the Society of Antiquaries library, Burlington House.
• King Harald, incomplete calligraphic manuscript is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Bodl. Ms. Eng. misc. d. 265.
• The Story of Hen Thorir, calligraphic manuscript at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Bodl. Ms. Eng. misc. d. 266. Also a calligraphic manuscript at the Fitzwilliam Museum Library, Cambridge, Ms. 27 ff. 1-56 and versos. This ms. was given to Georgiana Burne-Jones and donated by her to the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1909. A note says "Hen Thorir," "The Story of the Banded Men," and "Haward the Halt" were written in 1875.
• The Story of the Banded Men, calligraphic manuscript at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Ms. 270, ff. 58-151 and versos. A note says "Hen Thorir," "The Story of the Banded Men," and "Haward the Halt" were written in 1875.
• The Story of Haward the Halt, calligraphic manuscript at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Ms. 270, ff. 162-240. A note says "Hen Thorir," "The Story of the Banded Men," and "Haward the Halt" were written in 1875.
• Original Poem, "A Gloss in rhyme on the story of Haward, by William Morris," inserted by Morris into calligraphic manuscript after "The Story of Howard the Halt," Fitzwilliam MS. 270, 241-243v; see Poems of the Earthly Paradise Period, C-71.
• The Story of Harald: Kenneth Goodwin’s Handlist (1983) lists a calligraphic manuscript as in the possession of John M. Crawford, Jr. of NY. Completed around 1871.
• The Story of Egil Son of Scaldgrim, calligraphic manuscript, Society of Antiquaries library, Burlington House.
• Hafbur and Signy, incomplete
• King Hafbur and King Siward, incomplete calligraphic manuscript; Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms. Eng. misc. e. 233/2
• Story of Sigi, incomplete
• The Story of Halfdan the Black
• Thorstein and Gunnlaug, incomplete.
• * “Tristram” ( For the pricking on and moving of the hearts of noble folk to live gloriously and virtuously . . . . ) B. L. MS. 45,329, ff. ii + 99 c. 1870, unfinished
• * The Lancelot du Lac, 2 vols. calligraphic mss., 2 vols. rough draft, unfinished. 2 vols. revised text in calligraphic mss. Society of Antiquaries library, Burlington House.
• "Lancelot du Lac," 8 ff., 7 with versos. Cheltenham Library, EWL Z2: 1991.1016.996. Z2, in Rubaiyat calligraphic script; fair copy with spaces for large initials.
• The Story of the Men of Weaponfirth (unpublished fragment). Fair copy in 'Italian' script, titled in red ink, "The Story of the Men of Weaponfirth/ Chap 1: Brodd Helgi slayeth Swart." Cheltenham Library and Wilson Art Gallery, Y7, ff. 1-18, calligraphic ms. both sides.
• Laxdaela Saga (unpublished fragment), B. L. Add. Ms. 45,317, ff. 29-44 (rectos only); paraphrase of portion of Laxdaela Saga, entitled on an envelope "Abstract of Story of Gudrun from Laxdaela," and annotated in an unidentified hand '(not to be inclued),' untitled and beginning "Kiarton son of Olaf Peacock lives at his father's house of Herdholt . . . " 6 pages, 3 leaves, numbered 1, 3, 5 on the rectos only; watermarked 1867. William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, MS J154.
• *The Tale of Norn-Guest. Morris's translation of the Icelandic "Nornagests Dattr.' B. L. Add. Ms. 45,317, ff. 19-28 (rectos only).

* Unpublished