''Huldar saga'' is the name of a lost

Icelandic saga The sagas of Icelanders ( is, Íslendingasögur, ), also known as family sagas, are one genre of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives mostly based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early el ...

said to have been told by

Sturla Þórðarson Sturla Þórðarson ( ; ; 29 July 1214–30 July 1284) was an Icelandic chieftain and writer of sagas and contemporary history during the 13th century. Biography The life of Sturla Þórðarson was chronicled in the Sturlunga saga. Sturla was th ...

in 1263. Though the saga is no longer extant, the account of its telling has attracted extensive commentary as a rare account of medieval Icelandic saga-performance. ''Huldar saga'' is also one of the names of at least one post-medieval Icelandic saga in the same genre.

Sturla Þórðarson's ''Huldar saga''

This medieval ''Huldar saga'' is mentioned in ''Sturlu þáttr'', a short tale about Sturla Þórðarson that survives only in the version of ''

Sturlunga saga ''Sturlunga saga'' (often called simply ''Sturlunga'') is a collection of Icelandic sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlungs, a powerful family clan ...

'' attested in the manuscript Reykjafjarðarbók, indicating that it does not belong to the written archetype of the saga. It depicts Sturla winning the favour of King

Magnus VI of Norway Magnus Haakonsson ( non, Magnús Hákonarson, no, Magnus Håkonsson, label=Modern Norwegian; 1 (or 3) May 1238 – 9 May 1280) was King of Norway (as Magnus VI) from 1263 to 1280 (junior king from 1257). One of his greatest achievements was the m ...

through his storytelling; in this, it is similar to many of the '' Íslendingaþættir''. It is assumed that the saga was akin to the ''

fornaldarsögur A legendary saga or ''fornaldarsaga'' (literally, "story/history of the ancient era") is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the settlement of Iceland.The article ''Fornaldarsagor'' in ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (1991) ...

'', but there is debate as to whether Sturla knew it only orally or whether it was ever written (before his time or after). It has been suggested that the eponymous Huld is identical to a character in ''

Ynglinga saga ''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his ''Heimskringla''. It was first translated into English and published in 1844 ...

'', but this is not certain. The passage is noted as a rare account of medieval Icelandic saga-performance, composed only about thirty-five years after the event is claimed to have taken place. It also seems to witness the existence of a lost *''Huldar saga''.Stephen A. Mitchell, ''Heroic Sagas and Ballads'' (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991). The context for the passage is that King

Hákon IV of Norway Haakon IV Haakonsson ( – 16 December 1263; Old Norse: ''Hákon Hákonarson'' ; Norwegian: ''Håkon Håkonsson''), sometimes called Haakon the Old in contrast to his namesake son, was King of Norway from 1217 to 1263. His reign lasted for 46 y ...

is on campaign in Scotland. Learning that Hákon's son Magnús is now ruling in Norway, an impoverished Sturla decides he needs to ingratiate himself with the new king. He sails to Bergen, but is not received warmly by Magnús, who merely promises not to kill him. Magnús then has Sturla accompany him and the court on a voyage southwards.

The eighteenth-century ''Sagan af Huld hinni miklu''

The name ''Huldar saga'' is also borne by a saga first witnessed in eighteenth-century manuscripts and known as ''Sagan af Huld hinni miklu''. Modern scholars do not believe it is related to Sturla's tale; Matthew Driscoll has indeed characterised it as 'an 18th-century reconstruction' of Sturla's tale. At least twenty-one manuscripts of the saga are known. The saga was printed in Reykjavík in 1909 as ''Sagan af Huld drottningu hinni ríku'' ('the saga of Queen Huld the Powerful') and as ''Sagan af Huld hinni miklu og fjölkunnugu trölldrottningu'' ('the saga of Huld the Great and the magical troll-queen') and published in Akureyri in 1911.

Sturla Þórðarson's ''Huldar saga''

The eighteenth-century ''Sagan af Huld hinni miklu''

References

Further reading