of some larger extra-literary value to the Icelanders? Were they written under the
moderate, or even deep, influence of the oral tradition which informs them? To what
degree can we reconstruct the performance contexts of these materials? The possibility
of orally composed and recited fornaldarsögur has been eagerly pursued, although until
recently arguments in this area have principally been based on such passages as those
in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða and Sturlu saga, both of which portray orally performed
fornaldarsögur. As to their function, it has been noted that prominent Icelandic families
and individuals may have found advantageous the genealogical connections reported in
the fornaldarsögur between the heroes of these texts and themselves (e.g. Hálfs saga ok
Hálfsrekka). Along similar lines, there is reason to believe that Icelanders may have found
such ancestral ties to the champions of the legendary sagas important and useful, provid-
ing as they do an intimate and prestigious connection between the world of medieval
Iceland and the Scandinavian heroic age. Precisely this logic is offered by a writer looking
to explain the Icelanders’ renowned interest in history, legends and genealogies: ‘But we
can better answer the criticism of foreigners when they accuse us of coming from slaves
or rogues, if we know for certain the truth about our ancestry’ (Melabók, ch. 335 ).
Scholarly assessments of the fornaldarsögur vary widely: some (e.g. Völsunga saga)
attract much attention in literary criticism, whereas most others have been dismissed in
contemptible terms. As scholarship increasingly prizes the genre’s potential to augment
our knowledge of the Nordic Middle Ages in cultural and social, not merely literary,
terms, the worth of the fornaldarsögur rises steadily, and modern readers perhaps begin to
understand the texts in terms closer to those valued by their medieval audiences.
BIBLIOGRAPHYBoberg, I. ( 1966 ) Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature (Bibliotheca Arnamagnaeana 27 ),
Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard.
Figure 23. 3. 1 Sigurðr impaling the dragon Fafnir from below, from the Ramsund petroglyph in
Sweden. Copyright S. Mitchell–– chapter 23 ( 3 ): The heroic and legendary sagas––