The Sagas :: Mini-Talk

Hey there, you whole lot! Now I'm done with examinations (or so I believe) I thought about posting my mini-talk presentation about the sagas here, if you folks want to know anything else that you didn't get.

Here it goes:

The sagas are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, mainly in Iceland. The term saga originates from the Icelandic saga (pl. sögur), and refers to something ‘that is said, a statement.’ The texts are epic tales in prose, often with stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, tales of worthy men, who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian. There are various types of sagas. The King’s sagas (Konungasögur) speak about the lives of Scandinavian kings.

The Icelanders’ sagas are heroic prose narratives written in the 12^th and 14^th centuries of the great families of Iceland from 930 to 1030, which are the highest form of the classical Icelandic saga writing. Some well-known examples include Njáls saga, Laxdœla saga and Grettis saga. Then, similar to these, there are the Short tales of Icelanders, which would be shorter, but would often focus on the story of an Icelander who would travel abroad to the court of a Norwegian king. The most famous would have to be the legendary sagas, that remote history with myth or legend. Its aim is on a lively narrative and entertainment. Scandinavia's pagan past was a proud and heroic history for the Icelanders. The setting is primarily Scandinavia, but occasionally it moves temporarily to more distant and exotic locations. There are also very often mythological elements, such as dwarves, elves, giants and magic. In centuries past, they were considered to be reliable historic sources by Scandinavian scholars, but since the 19th century, they have been considered to contain very little historic material. Last, but not the least, the chivalric sagas, Norse sagas of the romance genre, are translations of Latin pseudo-historical works and French chanson de geste as well as native creations in the same style.

Some of the sagas live between Christianity and Paganism and fate plays a central role, a key line in Grettis saga (c h. 69) is:

... she spoke thus: "Now you are going, my two sons, and you are fated to die together, and no one can escape the destiny that is shaped for him.'

The civilization of Norse sagas is complex, many-layered, with often-contradictory agents sometimes acting as forces for good, sometime evil, and always human. The writing style tends towards the impersonal, terse, with no explanation of why's. Things happen; no one questions fate. Characters are often but briefly introduced and their Personalities are shown through action. A character must often and at disadvantage overcome fantastic enemies. Life is short, uncertain, and men's worth is determined by glory in arms. Critical concepts to the saga technique are honour, luck (or destiny), and fate, the supernatural, and character. Behavior is often not explained, as within the world of the saga it is what must be done, and early listeners of sagas had no need of questions.

Any slight to one's honour (or that of one's family) had to be avenged, by blood or money. Men could easily be goaded to fatal violence over a (real or imagined) slight to their honour. The concept of luck is simple, certainly in one such as Njáls saga: one is born with a certain store of good luck. When one's good luck runs out, one is doomed. The supernatural, related to prophetic dreams, often plays a major role as well.

One of the greatest and most famous recorders of sagas would be Snorri Sturluson, who was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician.