It would appear from this account that mythical-heroic sagas could also be used as
entertainment at large weddings on Icelandic farms, and although certain of these sagas
were evidently regarded by some as untrustworthy or even ‘lying’, they were believed by
many people to be true. We also learn from this source that farmers as well as priests
would at least occasionally be expected to compose oral poems or prose sagas for the
entertainment of their friends and neighbours. We may conclude that not only konunga-
sögur but also fornaldarsögur – such as the saga of Thráinn the Berserk and Hrómundr
Gripsson – were sometimes brought to the Norwegian court and used for the king’s
entertainment. The quotation from King Sverre, furthermore, indicates that at least this
king – who was a highly literate and sophisticated sole ruler of Norway between 1184
and 1202 – understood the value of fiction, even though many other people at this time
clearly did not.
Unfortunately, there is no account of sagnaskemtan where Íslendingasögur were told or
read aloud. Although there is no reason to suppose that these sagas ever reached Norway,
as fornaldarsögur and konungasögur evidently did, we may assume that stories about
Icelandic families and their feuds were told both at thingmeetings, where the legal
aspects of the feuding would be appreciated, and at festive occasions in Icelandic farms,
where the inhabitants traced their ancestry back to prominent saga heroes.
The oral character of early saga prose is apparent in many different ways, particularly
in the Íslendingasögur but also in many konungasögur and fornaldarsögur. The language is
colloquial, straightforward, full of dialogue and containing a large number of epic
formulas, type scenes and stereotyped narrative patterns, for example when a new
character is introduced (‘A man was called X, the son of Y’), when a visit is described
(‘He was received well’) or when the story moves to a new scene (‘Now it is time to tell of
X’). There are frequent references to what people in the district have said or told: ‘It is
said that.. .’, ‘Some people have said.. .’, ‘Some say this... but others say that.. .’
The whole story is normally told in an apparently ‘objective’ manner suggesting that it
has come down from reliable witnesses and trustworthy community spokesmen through
several generations. The narrator sometimes refers to characters or events as if they were
already well known to the audience, even though they have in fact not been mentioned
earlier: ‘At this time X lived in the Eastfjords,’ ‘This happened the winter after X was
killed.’ Such features may sometimes be explained as literary devices or as references to
previously written texts, but in most cases they indicate that the text has its roots in a
living oral tradition.
As in most oral narratives, the development of the plot is to a large extent pre-
dictable. When a man from family A kills a man from family B we know that revenge
will soon follow and that the women on both sides will goad their brothers and
husbands on to battle by suggesting that they are cowards if they do not fight. Legal
battles at the Thing follow ritualistic patterns as do killings, weddings, travels abroad,
viking adventures, flytings, encounters with giants and troll women, not to speak of
formal presentations at a foreign court. When a hero has a horrible dream involving
wolves or other predatory beasts, we know for certain that he is doomed to be attacked
and killed. And we can expect him to make some salty and memorable remark in his
moment of death.
In spite of all these recurrent patterns, some of the sagas are highly artistic in their
overall structure, style and characterisation. It is also obvious that some of the longest
sagas are written compositions, combining many episodes or thættir, a word originally
–– Lars Lönnroth––