Saga
Medieval Icelandic prose narratives blending history, legend, and verse.
Sagas are prose stories and histories composed in Iceland and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Scandinavia. Originating in the Middle Ages, they were written in the vernacular Old Norse and its later descendants, primarily Icelandic, rather than in Latin. The most famous genre is the sagas of Icelanders, which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between families, but sagas cover diverse subjects including pre-Christian legends, saints, bishops, Scandinavian kings, contemporary Icelandic politics, and chivalric romances.
- origin
- Iceland and Scandinavia
- period
- Middle Ages and later centuries
- language
- Old Norse and later Icelandic
- genre
- Prose narrative with embedded verse
- known_for
- Sagas of Icelanders, kings' sagas, legendary sagas, chivalric sagas, saints' and bishops' sagas
Lore & Background
Sagas originated in the Middle Ages but continued to be composed in ensuing centuries. While the dominant language of medieval European history-writing was Latin, sagas were composed in the vernacular: Old Norse and its later descendants, primarily Icelandic. Though written in prose, they share similarities with epic poetry and often include stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text. The word saga comes from Old Norse, meaning 'what is said' or 'structured narrative', and was borrowed into English by scholars in the eighteenth century.
Reader's Guide
Sagas are significant as a major body of medieval vernacular literature, offering insight into the history, culture, and values of Iceland and Scandinavia. They are classified into several genres: kings' sagas (e.g., Heimskringla), sagas of Icelanders (e.g., Njáls saga), contemporary sagas (e.g., Sturlunga saga), legendary sagas (e.g., Vǫlsunga saga), chivalric sagas (translations and local compositions), and saints' and bishops' sagas. The accuracy of sagas is often disputed; they are based on oral traditions, and scholars now generally believe they are conscious artistic creations blending oral and written sources. The vast majority of texts called 'sagas' were composed in Iceland, with exceptions like Þiðreks saga from Norway and Hjalmars och Hramers saga from Sweden.
Did You Know?
- The word saga is cognate with English 'say' and 'saw' (as in 'old saw').
- The reliability of contemporary sagas (samtiðarsögur) is debated among scholars, as they were often written decades or even a century after the events they describe.
- The North Icelandic Benedictine School was a distinctive literary movement in the 14th century involving sagas with identifiable authors and a Latinate style.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a saga?
A saga is a prose narrative tradition that originated in medieval Iceland and, to a lesser degree, across Scandinavia. These works blend historical events, family legend, and embedded poetry into a single storytelling form.
What language were sagas originally written in?
Sagas were composed in the spoken vernacular of the North—Old Norse and its later descendant, Icelandic—rather than in the scholarly Latin that dominated most of medieval European writing.
What are the main subgenres of saga literature?
The tradition spans the Sagas of Icelanders (feuds, voyages, settlement), kings' sagas, pre-Christian legendary sagas, saints' and bishops' sagas, and chivalric romances adapted from continental sources.
When were sagas composed and written down?
The tradition took shape in the Middle Ages, with surviving manuscripts dating from the thirteenth century onward, though the stories themselves draw on much older oral material passed down through generations.
What distinguishes sagas from other medieval narrative forms?
Unlike most European medieval literature, sagas are written in the local vernacular rather than Latin and combine prose storytelling with inserted verse passages, often weaving documented history together with myth and family legend.
More in Narrative Genres And Forms 1-24
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