Vatnsdoela saga, a text long stigmatised as transgressing certain norms, at least in the eyes of modern scholarship and literary criticism, forms the subject of this case study. Its composition is thought to have occurred before 1280, because Sturla Þórðarson (d. 1284) used it in his redaction of Landnámabók, and after 1260, because the saga shows awareness of Hallfreðar saga and other works that are believed to have been written before 1260. It is known in full only from transcriptions of Vatnshyrna, a nowlost early fourteenth-century manuscript. Sturla appears to have used a different, superior manuscript for his redaction of Landnámabók and the Melabók redactor used a different manuscript again (Vatnsdoela saga, p. lvii). The present case study will contend that if we eschew normative genre approaches Vatnsdoela saga has the potential to add to our understanding of the saga genre.

I start with some remarks by Norman W. Ingham. How, he asks, does the community recognise that a work belongs to a certain genre? In most cases, he contends, ‘by a set of features the text displays – features of structure, mode, subject matter, style, commonplaces, implied functions, and more.’ He concludes that classification by shared features is unavoidable, even though the common set of features may not be inclusive or always decisive. In this spirit, I shall itemise some features that Vatnsdoela saga has in common with other sagas that have Icelanders as their principal personages, looking first at narrative material.

MULTI-GENERATIONAL NARRATIVE: Vatnsdoela saga chronicles the direct line of descendants of Ketill raumr over five generations. The leading figures in each generation are respectively Þorsteinn Ketilsson, Ingimundr inn gamli Þorsteinsson, Þorsteinn Ingimundarson ins gamla, Ingólfr Þorsteinsson and Þorkell krafla Þorgrímsson. In Iceland the family were known as the Hofverjar.

EMIGRATION FROM NORWAY TO ICELAND: Vatnsdoela saga recounts the family’s move from northern Norway, led by Ingimundr inn gamli, to settle Vatnsdalr (modern Vatnsdalur) in the north of Iceland.

INCLUSION OF THE CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY: The account of this decisive moment, which occurs in the generation of Þorkell krafla, takes in both regional missionary activity and the decision at the Althing.