contrasting the forefather or foremother to the main character. In the context of the
Viking period it is illuminating to focus on the sagas which open at the time of
settlement of Iceland c. 870 – 950 , and thus reflect the author’s or the audience’s interest
in the migration period and their interest in the neighbouring countries in the Viking
period. These sagas are, in alphabetical order: Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss, Egils saga,
Eyrbyggja saga, Flóamanna saga, Gísla saga Súrssonar, Grettis saga, Hallfreðar saga,
Harðar saga, Hrafnkels saga, Kjalnesinga saga, Kormaks saga, Laxdæla saga, Reykdæla saga,
Svarfdæla saga, Vatnsdæla saga, Víga-Glúms saga, and Þórðar saga hreðu Víglundar saga,
Þorskfirðinga saga.
Iceland had become part of the Norwegian kingdom (c. 1262 – 4 ) when most of the
sagas of Icelanders are written, with perhaps the exception of Egils saga, the skalds’ sagas
and possibly Laxdæla and Eyrbyggja. Some of these sagas may reflect an interest by
members of the Icelandic aristocratic elite to argue for the close ties between Iceland and
Norway, the old homeland for many of the settlers, now the seat of the king. But each
saga treats the topic of the settlement differently, and the sagas that begin their story in
Iceland and omit the migration story place less importance on these ties. Moreover, the
sagas that begin their narration after the settlement treat the topic with lack of interest.
Four patterns in the sagas’ depiction of the settlement emerge:
1 Sagas containing a complex migration story and detailed elucidation of the
migrating family’s relationship with the king. This theme is rehearsed in sagas such
as Laxdæla saga, Vatnsdæla saga, Eyrbyggja saga, and the sagas of the court poets,
such as Egils saga, Hallfreðar saga and Kormaks saga. Some of these sagas are pre-
served in old manuscript fragments from the thirteenth century, and are probably
among the oldest written sagas of Icelanders.
2 The emphasis on the history of a fighter-poet’s family, where the family’s life in
Norway is played out in detail in sagas such as Grettis saga and Gísla saga Súrssonar
(particularly the longer version). Other sagas of this kind are Harðar saga og
Hólmverja (no migration story), Víga-Glúms saga, Víglundar saga and Þórðar saga
hreðu (see Guðrún Nordal 2007 ). The portrayals of the hero seem to be modelled on
the sagas of the court poets, but in fact these sagas focus on different themes from
the skalds’ sagas. All of them deal with personal loss, the loss of land, the loss of
freedom, as in the outlaw sagas, and some end on a very tragic note. There is a
strong tendency in all of these sagas to deepen the portrayal of the hero by linking
him to the family’s past in Norway. Víga-Glúms saga is not a typical settlement
saga, but the family’s ‘fylgja’ in Norway settles in Iceland.
3 Learned interest in the settlement and the mythic past of Iceland is attested in sagas
such as Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss, Flóamanna saga, Kjalnesinga saga (not a migration
story, the saga begins at the time of the settlement), Þorskfirðinga saga. Some of the
settlement stories are even drawn from external written sources such as in
Flóamanna saga. In this group there is an apparent interest in travels to Greenland.
4 In some sagas we find a very short reference to the settlement, where there is no
migration story and little importance placed on the settlement process. Among
those are sagas such as Hrafnkels saga and Reykdæla saga.
The shifting emphasis on the migration to Iceland and the settlement in the sagas
of Icelanders reveals the ambiguity in the sagas’ deliberation and reconfiguration of
–– chapter 23 ( 2 ): The sagas of Icelanders––