In A.D. 986, Earl Hákon, ruler of most of Norway, won a triumphant victory over an invading fleet of Danes in the great naval battle of Hjórunga Bay. Sailing under his banner were no fewer than five Icelandic skalds, the poet-historians of the Old Norse world. Two centuries later their accounts of the battle became the basis for one of the liveliest of the Icelandic sagas, with special emphasis on the doings of the Jómsvikings, the famed members of a warrior community that feared no one and dared all. In Lee M. Hollander's faithful translation, all of the unknown twelfth-century author's narrative genius and flair for dramatic situation and pungent characterization is preserved.

Lee M. Hollander was professor emeritus of Germanic languages at the University of Texas at Austin and an authority in Nordic language and literature. His translations of the best prose and poetry of the Old North—among them Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway and The Poetic Edda—have also appeared under the imprint of the University of Texas Press.

• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. Knút the Foundling
• 2. King Gorm's Dreams
• 3. Earl Harold's Visions
• 4. Knút Gormsson Is Slain in England
• 5. King Harold and Earl Hákon Plot Together
• 6. King Harold Has Áki Tókason Slain
• 7. Palnir's Marriage. The Rise of Palnatóki
• 8. Of King Harold and Saumaesa
• 9. Svein's Dealings with King Harold
• 10. Palnatóki Slays King Harold and Proclaims Svein King
• 11. Palnatóki Acknowledges His Arrow
• 12. The Founding of Jómsborg
• 13. Of Earl Strút-Harold and Véseti and Their Sons
• 14. King Svein Arbitrates the Feud
• 15. Búi, Sigvaldi, and Vagn Join the Jómsvikings
• 16. Of Palnatóki's Death and Sigvaldi's Ambition
• 17. Sigvaldi Captures King Svein
• 18. The Vows of the Jómsvikings
• 19. Geirmund Escapes and Warns Earl Hákon
• 20. Preparations for the Battle
• 21. The Battle
• 22. The Aftermath
• 23. The Testing of the Jómsvikings
• 24. Of Vagn, Sigvaldi, and the Other Jómsvikings