About the book: 2009 / The uniqueness of medieval Norway is the central theme of this volume. The book "Edda and Saga" introduces the reader to the world of Old Norse myth and epic. The focus is on the interpretation of heroes in the songs of the Edda and in the sagas. Is it true that the heroes of the Edda embodied examples of ideal behavior, loyalty and duty? How to explain the comic depiction of the gods in a number of songs in the Edda? What is the connection between the Edda and the Icelandic sagas - the most perfect prose genre of medieval European literature? These and other problems are discussed in the book based on a study of a wide range of monuments of Old Icelandic writing. The monograph “Norwegian Society in the Early Middle Ages,” based on the legal and literary monuments of medieval Norway and Iceland, examines the problem of social relations in the era separating pre-class society from early feudal society. The “big family” and its transformation, specific forms of land ownership, the originality of the Scandinavian community, a wide layer of free people and the nobility towering above it - all these questions are studied on two levels: what is the objective nature of the Norwegian society of the Viking Age and what is the perception of social reality by the members of this society themselves , their social identity, permeated with mythological ideas. The volume also includes articles devoted to various aspects of the social history of Scandinavia in the early Middle Ages.