Also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, he was a Danish historian, theologian and author, thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark. Saxo Grammaticus, who's believed to have lived from 1150 until 1220 (though the dates are uncertain), wrote a sixteen-volume history of the Denmark that he lived in. Volumes X through XVI (oddly -- or perhaps not so oddly -- written first) are a conventional history of Saxo's day and age. But the first of the volumes are the stuff of myth and legend, delightful tales of mythic Norse persons and circumstances. This book is comprised of those mythic volumes, and it's special stuff indeed.