Inherited through the line of the berserker Angantýr and his war-loving daughter Hervor, the ever-lethal, shining sword Tyrfing and its changes of hands frame the uncanny story of The Saga of Hervor and Heiđrek. A second heroic saga, Hrólf Kraki and His Champions, recounts the daring deeds of the members and entourage of the ancient Danish house of Skjoldung. Passed down orally in pre-Christian Norse times, transmitted in writing in medieval Iceland, and here wielded by the hand of Jackson Crawford, the tales told in this volume retain their sharp edges and flashes of glory that never fail to slay.

Jackson Crawford holds an MA in linguistics from the University of Georgia and a PhD in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From 2011 to 2020 he taught the Old Norse language, as well as courses in Norse mythology and Old Norse saga literature, at major universities including UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Colorado Boulder. During that time, he also served as a consultant on a popular video game, television programs, and major Hollywood films. Since 2020 he has been an independent educator, using his YouTube channel and popular translations of Norse myths and sagas from Hackett Publishing to reach hundreds of thousands of viewers and readers with well-sourced information about Norse language, mythology, and runes. His research interests today focus on the relationship of the runes to Mediterranean alphabets, as well as the use of linguistic criteria to determine the date of Old Norse texts.