Bloodhoof is a compulsively modern recasting of the ancient Eddic poem Skírnimál - a minimalist epic telling of the abduction of Gerður Gymisdóttir from a land of giants and her eventual return from the court of Freyr with her beloved son. The journey is full of iron-hard rocks, ice and serpents, and fields of corn whispering in the breeze.

Bloodhoof is a story of "ghosts and long-dead heroes" - a game of thrones that will linger in the memory. Parallel-text verse in Icelandic and English.

Gerður Kristný was born in Reykyavik in 1970. She has produced 18 books of fiction and non-fiction, as well as children's books and poetry. Her work recently featured in the anthology Best European Fiction 2012, and in the October 2011 issue of Words Without Borders. She has also been a Featured Poet in Eyewear magazine. Her numerous prizes include the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2010 for Bloodhoof.

Rory McTurk is Emeritus Professor of Icelandic Studies at the University of Leeds, and the editor of the Blackwell's Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (2007).

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Gerour Kristny is a phenomenally energetic Icelandic writer, having produced 18 books of fiction and non-fiction prose, as well as children's books and poetry, in the 16 years since the appearance of her first. She has won numerous prizes and awards, from the Icelandic Journalism Award in 2005 to the Icelandic Literature Prize in 2010 for Bloodhoof. She says she chooses each word of her poetry carefully so rarely needs to revise - it certainly shows in this volume.

Bloodhoof is the recasting into compulsively spare modern verse of an ancient Eddic poem but this only begins to hint at its attractions. It is a minimalist epic telling of the abduction of Gerdur Gymisdottir from the land of giants to the court of Freyr of the 'wolfgrey eyes', and the subsequent events culminating in the birth of her son and her hopes of being saved by her own kin. It is full of ironhard rocks and ice, serpents in the breast gnawing at the harness of hope, but also widereaching fields of corn whispering in the breeze and a throne carved with beasts and dragonsheads. You could read the whole book in perhaps half an hour but it will take many months or years to begin to clear the ghosts and longdead heroes from your mind.