Anonymous, Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar

Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir (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

First circulation or publication c. 1400

Places

Iceland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Prose Fiction Narrative

Resources

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Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar is a medieval saga, one of the so-called Icelandic legendary sagas [

fornaldarsögur

] and tells the story of three generations of men who travel around and take part in battles in many parts of the world. Like most legendary sagas, it takes place in the distant past, at some vague point before the settlement of Iceland, and the setting is mainly various places in Scandinavia, but spiced with otherworldly places as well as travels to ill-defined distant places, like Indialand.

The saga is preserved in around seventy manuscripts, but of those only four are medieval parchment manuscripts. The oldest manuscript are two short fragments and one large book, AM 556 b 4to, all dated to the fifteenth century. Of great importance is also a manuscript from the sixteenth

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1103 words

Citation: Jóhannesdóttir, Þórdís Edda. "Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41107, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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