A digression

The Boston Public Library, Grettir's saga, and the otherworldly art of Kay Nielsen

So, I’m finishing up my researches into Richard the Lionheart at the Boston Public Library, and waiting in the lobby for my ride. They have some books on display so I start wandering and looking.

The second book I open has some stunning art work in it.

Wow. Grabs me immediately, and I start paging through it. Who’s Kay Nielsen?

Spooky, and a little unworldly. I turn a few more pages, and boom.

I KNOW this image. I’ve seen it before. Where? Certainly not from The Three Princesses of Whiteland. (A title which might not pass muster these days…).

So, where……

Aha. Got it.

It’s the cover of one edition of the Morris & Magnússon translation of Grettir’s saga, one of my favorite Icelandic sagas. (I wrote about it here: Grettir and the UFO). Btw if you are thinking of reading it, get the Jesse Byock translation.

In any case, the images are very very striking. It turns out that Kay Nielson was a very well known illustrator, with a focus on fairy tales. The most striking of the illustrations that catch my eye are from the first edition of West of the Sun, East of the Moon. It’s a collection of Scandinavian folk tales, illustrated by Nielsen. Signed first editions of this book are going for $25,000. Seriously. Don’t think I’m going to be going for one of those, but…you know what?

You can read it for FREE, along with illustrations, on Bookship! It was a surprise to me too! Just click here to get started: https://links.bookshipapp.com/7YzrTnSBYsb

The Paris Review has great shots of many of these. Now this picture, is NOT Richard the Lionheart. But it could be.

BTW: the opening music was Jón Leifs’ symphonic Grettir, invoking Grettir’s battle with Glam, the Icelandic Zombie.

Update: today I’m reading a newsletter about AI-generated art. They mention the open beta for DreamStudio, which uses the open-sourced Stable Diffusion code. Let’s give it a go. I enter a text prompt to generate an image:

in the style of Kay Nielsen, King Richard Lionheart attacks the castle of Acre, Holy Land, a clear blue sky

and out pops: