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sagas of Icelanders

{{Short description|Group of narratives}}

{{distinguish|text=Sagas, an Icelandic literary form encompassing this and other genres; Íslendinga saga, a specific saga based on historical events from the thirteenth century}}

{{Old Norse topics}}

File:Egil Skallagrimsson 17c manuscript.jpg in a seventeenth-century manuscript of Egil's Saga]]

File:AM426 Grettir.jpg is ready to fight in this illustration from a seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscript.]]

File:Íslendingasögur.jpg

The sagas of Icelanders ({{langx|is|Íslendingasögur}}, {{small|modern}} {{IPA|is|ˈislɛndiŋkaˌsœːɣʏr̥}}), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries, during the Saga Age. They were written in Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse, primarily on calfskin.{{cite web |title=Fullsterkur |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8974780/?ref_=nm_knf_t1 |date=26 August 2018 |work=IMDB.com |access-date=15 April 2022}} They are the best-known specimens of Icelandic literature.

They are focused on history, especially genealogical and family history. They reflect the struggle and conflict that arose within the societies of the early generations of Icelandic settlers.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/oct/03/1|title=The Icelandic Sagas: Europe's most important book?|last=Myers|first=Ben|date=2008-10-03|work=The Guardian|access-date=2017-08-24|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}} The Icelandic sagas are valuable and unique historical sources about medieval Scandinavian societies and kingdoms, in particular regarding pre-Christian religion and culture and the heroic age.{{Cite book|last=Bagge|first=Sverre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NFJNAgAAQBAJ|title=Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation|date=2014|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-5010-5|pages=45|language=en|author-link=Sverre Bagge}}

Eventually, many of these Icelandic sagas were recorded, mostly in the 13th and 14th centuries. The 'authors', or rather recorders, of these sagas are largely unknown. One saga, Egil's Saga, is believed by some scholarsEgil's Saga, English translation, Penguin Books, 1976, introduction by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, p. 7Sigurður Nordal had this to say in his edition of Egils saga: "This matter will never be settled fully with the information we now have. … As for me, I have become more and more convinced, as I gained a better understanding of Egils saga that it is the work of Snorri, and I will henceforth not hesitate to count the saga among his works, unless new arguments are presented, which I have overlooked." to have been written by Snorri Sturluson, a descendant of the saga's hero, but this remains uncertain. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is produced by Hið íslenzka fornritafélag ('The Old Icelandic Text Society'), or Íslenzk fornrit for short.

Historical time frame

Among the several literary reviews of the sagas is the Sagalitteraturen by Sigurður Nordal, which divides the sagas into five chronological groups (depending on when they were written not their subject matters) distinguished by the state of literary development:{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/njalssaga00lars|title=Njáls Saga|last=Lönnroth|first=Lars|publisher=University of California Press|year=1976|isbn=0-520-02708-6|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/njalssaga00lars/page/204 204]–205|url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

  • 1200 to 1230 – Sagas that deal with skalds (such as Fóstbrœðra saga)
  • 1230 to 1280 – Family sagas (such as Laxdæla saga)
  • 1280 to 1300 – Works that focus more on style and storytelling than just writing down history (such as Njáls saga)
  • Early fourteenth century – Historical tradition
  • Fourteenth century – Fiction

This framework has been severely criticised as based on a presupposed attitude to the fantastic and an over-estimation on the precedence of Landnámabók.{{cite journal |last1=Ármann Jakobsson and Yoav Tirosh |title="The 'Decline of Realism' and inefficacious Old Norse literary genres and sub-genres" |journal=Scandia |date=2020 |issue=3 |pages=102–38 |url=https://www.academia.edu/44059206}}

List of sagas

It is thought that a number of sagas are now lost, including the supposed Gauks saga Trandilssonar – The saga of Gaukur á Stöng. In addition to these, the texts often referred to as the "Tales of Icelanders" (Íslendingaþættir) such as "Hreiðars þáttr" and "Sneglu-Halla þáttr" of the kings' saga Morkinskinna could be included in this corpus, as well as the contemporary sagas (written in the 13th century and dealing with the same period) incorporated into Sturlunga saga.{{cite journal |last1=Tirosh |first1=Yoav |url=https://www.academia.edu/41468126 |title=On the Receiving End: The Role of Scholarship, Memory, and Genre in Constructing Ljósvetninga saga |journal=PhD Thesis, University of Iceland |date=2019 |publisher=Unpublished Doctoral Thesis |location=University of Iceland}}

See also

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

  • Arnold, Martin (2003). The Post-Classical Icelandic Family Saga. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press
  • Ármann Jakobsson (2013). Nine Saga Studies: The Critical Interpretation of the Icelandic Sagas. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press. {{ISBN|9-789-97954997-0}}. {{OCLC|855995457}}
  • Bampi, Massimiliano, Carolyne Larrington and Sif Rikhardsdottir (eds.) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/critical-companion-to-old-norse-literary-genre/2B1BA3C8DFBC548F3EA428859C0842A6 A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre.] Studies in Old Norse Literature 5. D. S. Brewer. Woodbridge, 2020
  • Falk, Oren. 2021. Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland: This Spattered Isle. Oxford University Press.
  • Karlsson, Gunnar (2000). [https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-history-of-iceland The History of Iceland]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
  • Liestøl, Knut (1930). The Origin of the Icelandic Family Sagas. Translated by Jayne, Arthur Garland. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|9780837172538}}.
  • Miller, William Ian (2009). Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|9780226526829}}. {{OCLC|781292936}}
  • Mundal, Else (ed.) [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo14377771.html Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions]. Museum Tusculanum, 2013.
  • Smiley, Jane; Kellogg, Robert Leland (2001). The Sagas of Icelanders: a selection. New York: Penguin Books. {{ISBN|9780141000039}}. {{OCLC|492636430}}
  • Viðar Hreinsson (eds.) (1997). The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. 5 vols. Reykjavík: Leifur Eiriksson Publishing. {{ISBN|9789979929307}}. {{OCLC|44999940}} – see {{URL|http://www.sagas.is/yfirlit.htm|sagas.is}}

External links

  • [https://www.sagadb.org/ Icelandic Saga Database] – many sagas of Icelanders, along with some translations into English and other languages
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20170312154947/http://www.usask.ca/english/icelanders/ Proverbs and Proverbial Materials in the Old Icelandic Sagas] from the University of Alaska
  • [http://web.archive.bibalex.org/web/20060118105605/http://www.heimskringla.no/original/islendingesagaene/index.php Icelandic sagas] – a selection in Old Norse
  • {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120221113316/http://sagnanet.is/ Sagnanet]}} – photographs of some of the original manuscripts
  • [http://www.vinland1.com/ Harmony of the Vinland voyages]
  • [https://sagamap.hi.is Icelandic Saga Map] – an online digital map with the geo-referenced texts of all of the Íslendingasögur

{{Icelandic Sagas}}

{{Icelandic language}}

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Category:Sagas of Icelanders

Category:Medieval literature

Category:Icelandic literature

Category:Iceland history-related lists