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CHAPTER VIII.
LITERARY INFLUENCE: THE SAGAS OF
ICELAND AND IRELAND.
I.
THE most interesting branch of early Norse literature is
the saga or prose story. Of these there are many varieties
but the most distinctive are the following :
(i) the Islendinga
Sogur, or stories relating to prominent Icelanders, (2)
Konunga Sogur, or stories of Kings, chiefly of Norway ;
(3) Fornaldar Sogur, or stories about early times. All these
are essentially Icelandic in origin ; sagas having their
origin in Norway are by no means unknown, but they are,
as a rule, translated or derived from French and other
foreign sources. 1
In their present form the sagas relating
to the history of Iceland date for the most part from the
thirteenth century, though some of them were probably
committed to writing in the latter part of the twelfth.
The earliest Icelandic document of which we have any
record is the original text of the Laws, said to have been
written in the year 1181. Ari’s Islendinga-Bok, containing
1 It has been stated (cf. E. Mogk : Geschichte cLr Norwegisch-
Islandischen Literatur. Strassburg, 1904, p. 830) that many of
Saxo’s stories came from Norway, where they had been collected
by an Icelander in the twelfth century. There can be no doubt that
stories of some kind relating to families and localities especially
stories which accounted, or professed to account for local names
were current in Norway down to this time. Such stories form the
basis of many of the Fornaldar Sogur, but in all probability these had
been familiar to Icelanders from the first settlement of the island,
or at lea.st during the tenth century. We have no evidence that they
ever gained literary form in Norway. (Cf. Fiunur Jonsson : Old
Norskt Lilteraturs Historic, II., p. 791.)
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