II.

The Saga

Iceland is most famous for its medieval sagas, written between the 12th and 14th centuries. Sagas are tales of Norwegian kings and real or legendary heroes, both men and women, of Iceland and Scandinavia. Composed in prose, generally by unknown authors, they are thought to have been widely recited by storytellers before being committed to writing. None of the original manuscripts is extant; transcripts and collections, sometimes with revisions and amplifications of the originals, date from the 13th century and after.

Hundreds of sagas were written in medieval Iceland. They may be divided into kings' sagas, such as Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, which traces the rulers of Norway from legendary times to 1177, and Knýtlinga Saga, dealing with Danish kings from Gorm the Old to Canute IV; legendary sagas, which are basically knightly romances and fantasies (sometimes called lying sagas) of varying literary merit; and the sagas of Icelanders—more or less fictionalized accounts of the so-called Saga Age (900-1050) in Iceland. To the last category belong such highly accomplished literary works as Egil's Saga, the life of the warrior-poet Egill Skallagrímsson; Laxdaela Saga, a triangular love story; Gísla Saga, the tragic tale of a heroic outlaw; and Njál's Saga, generally considered the high point of Icelandic literary art, a complex and rich account of human and societal conflicts.

In addition, the saga form was used in the 13th century to write contemporary history as it evolved around preeminent personages of the time. The result is generally known under the collective name of Sturlunga Saga; it recounts in gory detail the internecine struggle of the 13th century that led to the end of the old Icelandic commonwealth. The best of its components is the Íslendinga Saga of Sturla Thórdarson, a nephew of Snorri Sturluson. Other historical writings of medieval Iceland include the Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders) by Ari Thorgilsson the Learned and the Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), in which Ari may also have had a hand.