Fornaldarsǫgur

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) There are some exceptions, such as '' Yngvars saga víðförla'', which takes place in the 11th century. The sagas were probably all written in Iceland, from about the middle of the 13th century to about 1400, although it is possible that some may be of a later date, Einar Ól. Sveinsson, "Fornaldarsögur", in ''Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingtid til reformasjonstid, bd. 4'' (Copenhagen, 1959) such as '' Hrólfs saga kraka''.

Description of the sagas

In terms of form, ''fornaldarsögur'' are similar to various other saga-genres, but tend towards fairly linear, episodic narratives. Like sagas in other genres, many quote verse, but in the ''fornaldarsögur'' that verse is almost invariably in the metre of Eddaic verse (unlike the skaldic verse found in most other saga genres). The setting is primarily Scandinavia in the time prior to the settlement of Iceland and the conversion of Scandinavia, but occasionally it moves temporarily to more distant and exotic locations or has its characters encounter Christian cultures (one example of both being '' Örvar-Odds saga''). 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.Else Mundal, "Sagalitteraturen", in Odd Einar Haugen (ed.) ''Handbok i norrøn filologi'' (Bergen, 2004) The present consensus is that, although some of the sagas contain a small core which is not fiction, or are based on historical characters, the primary function of the legendary sagas was entertainment, and the aim of the sagas has not been to present a historically accurate tale. Recently, however, it has been emphasized that the sagas are useful sources for the culture of 13th and 14th century Iceland, "in terms of the light that they can shed on the culture in which they were composed" i.e. Iceland in the later Middle Ages. In the words of Margaret Clunies Ross,
:The themes, characters and the whole world of the ''fornaldarsaga'' lend themselves to interpretation, not as realistic narratives, but rather as subjects dealing with deep and disturbing issues that cannot be approached from the perspective of the mundane world but must rather be enacted in a literary world in which often taboo subjects can be raised and aired, though not necessarily resolved. They may also be treated in a comic or parodic vein.

Some of the sagas are based on distant historic characters, and this is evident in cases where there are corroborating sources, such as '' Ragnars saga loðbrókar'', '' Yngvars saga víðförla'' and ''Völsunga saga''. In the case of '' Hervarar saga'', it conveys names of historical places in present Ukraine during the period c. 150-450, and the last part of the saga is used as a historic source for Swedish history. Indeed, they often contain very old Germanic matter, such as the '' Hervarar saga'' and the ''Völsunga saga'' which contains poetry about Sigurd that did not find its way into the ''Poetic Edda'' and which would otherwise have been lost (see the Great Lacuna). Other sagas deal with heroes such as Ragnar Lodbrok