Sir H Rider Haggard

Eric Brighteyes Sir H Rider Haggard

The novel was an early example (and Haggard's introduction implies it was the first) of modern efforts in English at pastiching Viking saga literature. It clearly shows the influence of the pioneering saga translations by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson in the late 1860s. While it is perhaps not quite a match for Frans Gunnar Bengtsson's genre-defining 1941 novel Röde Orm (later expanded and better known as The Long Ships), Bengtsson had the advantage of being culturally closer to his sources. For saga pastiches originating in English, Eric Brighteyes set a standard of quality and fidelity to the saga style that remained unmatched until Poul Anderson's novel The Broken Sword, 60 years later.