Ian Crockett has translated the complete poems of tenth century Viking and skald, Egill Skallagrimsson, and, most impressively, yielded them up in The Song Weigher with a transfixing display of sound patterning and word play. If this is how the poems sounded a millennium ago, no wonder they haven't been forgotten.

Reading this rhythmical (and thoroughly blood-thirsty!) poetry, your ears are guaranteed to 'tune to skaldspeak'. The poems of Egill cover a huge range of topics - from battle-boasts to praise-poems, from love-lines to satire - and use many different forms... You can hear the sea rocking the poet's boat throughout this book. It certainly floated mine.