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Sagas of Icelanders

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File:Egil Skallagrimsson 17c manuscript.jpg
Egill Skallagrímsson in a seventeenth-century manuscript of Egil's Saga
File:AM426 Grettir.jpg
Grettir is ready to fight in this illustration from a seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscript.
File:Íslendingasögur.jpg
Detail of a miniature from a thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript

The sagas of Icelanders (Template:Langx, Template:Small {{#invoke:IPA|main}}), 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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 scholars<ref>Egil's Saga, English translation, Penguin Books, 1976, introduction by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, p. 7</ref><ref>Sigurður 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."</ref> 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 frameEdit

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:<ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref>

  • 1200 to 1230 – Sagas that deal with skalds (such as Fóstbrœðra saga)<ref name=":4"/>
  • 1230 to 1280 – Family sagas (such as Laxdæla saga)<ref name=":4"/>
  • 1280 to 1300 – Works that focus more on style and storytelling than just writing down history (such as Njáls saga)<ref name=":4"/>
  • Early fourteenth century – Historical tradition<ref name=":4"/>
  • Fourteenth century – Fiction<ref name=":4"/>

This framework has been severely criticised as based on a presupposed attitude to the fantastic and an over-estimation on the precedence of Landnámabók.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

List of sagasEdit

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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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