Disclaimer of the Summary

The extended summary of the Thidrekssaga is not an exact rendering of the content of the saga.
It is basically an English reworking of the Dutch notes I took while reading Von der Hagen's German translation of the Old-Norse original
Thus, its manuscript tradition is rather complex.

Purpose of this summary is to give the uninitiated a help for decyphering the Thidrekssaga, since first-time readers can easily be disheartened by the immense loads of details and the apparent lack of structure of the saga.
To serve my purpose, I have unhesitatingly sacrificed details and sometimes even the letter of the saga to clarify the spirit and the broad overview, all, of course, according to my own interpretation.
In addition, I wanted to introduce some theories of Ritter and Boer, occasionaly throwing in some of my own ideas. All rephrasings of Ritter's and Boer's theories are mine.

The offshoot of this all is:
If you want to seriously study the saga, please make use of the Old-Norse original or a direct translation. Also read Ritter's and Boer's books, as specified in the bibliography.

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