Fornaldarsögur (Legendary Sagas)

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir (University of Iceland)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Kjerstin Moody (Gustavus Adolphus College), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Date of occurrence c.1200- c.1400

Places

Iceland (Location)

Genres and Modes

Prose Fiction Narrative

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Fornaldarsögur

, also known as

fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda

or legendary sagas, are Icelandic medieval sagas that share a variety of common features. The

fornaldarsögur

were mostly written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and some even somewhat later, but several of them are based on ancient poetry and oral tales, and retell the pre-history of the Nordic countries, kings, chieftains, and heroes. One of the characteristics of these sagas is the Nordic setting and, at the same time, a Nordic worldview. In many cases, protagonists appear in more than one story (i.e. they have an internal context) and some of them are identical to earlier figures from genealogies and other historical data. Other things that characterize the

fornaldarsögur

are common themes and motifs (a…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2226 words

Citation: Guðmundsdóttir, Aðalheiður. "Fornaldarsögur (Legendary Sagas)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 December 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19701, accessed 04 May 2024.]

Save this article