The Introduction describes the distinctive character of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, arguing that in range, quality and originality this body of literature rivals anything produced elsewhere in the Middle Ages. Highlighting the enduring importance, influence and popularity of this unique corpus of literature, it sets out the rationale for a volume providing a comprehensive account of its history and development. It then outlines the reasons for organizing the chapters of this volume primarily by the time and place of their texts’ setting, rather than any putative order of composition, in order to emphasize the fundamental intertextuality of Old Norse-Icelandic literary genres and the diversity of genre, style and worldview which these texts encompass. After this, the contents and approach of each section of the History are introduced in turn.

This chapter deals with the fornaldarsögur (sagas of olden times), defined as legendary sagas about events in Nordic countries before the settlement of Iceland. It sets out the evidence of their popularity and describes the extent of their geographical settings. After noting their stylistic similarities to Íslendingasögur, the discussion moves on to place them within the larger European and heroic tradition, outlining the material they share with Old English and Middle High German literature and their links to eddic and skaldic verse. The influences of French courtly literature, religious literature and classical sources are explored. The folkloric dimension of the fornaldarsögur is pointed out, and the possibility of classifying the sagas as generic hybrids is suggested. Next the transmission of fornaldarsögur is discussed, followed by a reassessment of how the corpus might be divided into subgroups. The chapter then discusses possible composition dates and provides an analysis of the emergence of the genre, including the influence of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum. It ends with a discussion of fantastical narrative elements, which led to the label lygisögur (‘lying sagas’).

This chapter introduces the wide-ranging textual culture which grew up in medieval Iceland and generated the enormous variety of Old Norse-Icelandic written texts. It details the present-day locations of the major collections of Icelandic manuscripts and gives an account of how these manuscripts were preserved and what proportion of them may have been lost. An account of the origins of manuscript production in Iceland and its subsequent history follows, with criteria for dating manuscripts and discussion of different scripts. The effect of the introduction of the printing press is noted. Recent new approaches to manuscript studies, including codicology and greater attention to paper manuscripts and the physical processes of manuscript-making, are also covered. The chapter moves on to address digitization and the standardization of online texts, and concludes with discussion of what the future may hold for manuscript studies, including collaboration between palaeographers and scientists such as geneticists, ecologists and chemists, and the emergence of a new discipline of biocodicology, enabling a holistic examination of the interplay between many different environmental factors.

This chapter provides an overview of the riddarasögur as a genre, beginning with the first transmission of romance material to Norway in the thirteenth century. It describes how this material was translated, adapted and reworked in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, giving rise to a blossoming literary tradition in Iceland which drew on the translated riddarasögur but featured a uniquely local perspective and narrative emphasis. The chapter discusses the relationship of the translated and indigenous romances to other genres within the Old Norse-Icelandic literary corpus, and argues that the romances introduced an ‘emotive script’ which offered a means of exploring concepts such as masculinity, femininity, honour and identity in a different way from existing genres. It surveys current scholarly interest in the sagas, looking in particular at their attitude to emotion, gender and agency – focusing on the so-called maiden king romances – as well as the geographic expansionism of the works, which offered their readers a vision of the world far beyond the borders of Iceland, informed by contemporary cosmographical learning.

This chapter opens with a detailed definition of the Íslendingasaga, or ‘family saga’: stories about the lives and deeds of people living in Iceland from the Age of Settlement to the early eleventh century. The sagas’ mode of narration is described, with its thick description of the material culture and mental landscape of the saga world and its characters, its topographical specificity and apparently naturalistic depiction of saga society. The link between saga characters and the audience for whom the sagas were originally written is illustrated. An analysis follows of the emergence and development of Íslendingasögur and how they first came to be written down. The sagas are assessed as works of literature, with analysis of narrative voice, structure, themes and methods of characterization. The conclusion draws attention to how distinctive and innovative these sagas are, their appearance of reality disguising a highly selective manner. It is pointed out that although they are now amongst the best-known texts in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, they were not the first to be known outside Iceland, and the recent appreciation of ‘post-classical sagas’ is noted.

This chapter deals with the konungasögur, the sagas of the Norwegian and Danish kings. Taking a chronological approach, it outlines the development of the genre from the Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian histories of the twelfth century through to the major compilations of the thirteenth century (Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna and Heimskringla) and the substantial manuscript collections of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such as Flateyjarbók. It stresses the diversity of the sources which the authors of the kings’ sagas incorporated within their works, emphasizing the fundamentally intertextual nature of the konungasaga genre. In discussing the growth of the genre, it highlights the variety of voices, sources and modes contained within these sagas, exemplified in their different approaches to the skaldic verses quoted within their prosimetric structure. Placing Old Norse-Icelandic historiography within the context of historical writing in medieval Europe, the chapter argues that the kings’ sagas offer a polyphonic history of the medieval north, and in doing so explore the process of history-writing itself.

The focus of this chapter is the samtíðarsögur (contemporary sagas) included in the compendium Sturlunga saga, compiled around the beginning of the fourteenth century, which contains narratives dealing largely with the history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The chapter opens by placing Sturlunga saga in the context of other Old Norse-Icelandic historical writing, considering why the distant past of the saga age attracted more attention from Icelandic writers than the period of relatively recent history covered by Sturlunga saga. It outlines what is known of Þórðr Narfason, often identified as the compiler of Sturlunga saga, and describes his interaction with Sturla Þórðarson in 1271−2, considering the possible role of Sturla in the compilation and offering a brief discussion of Sturlu þáttr. The content, structure and themes of the narratives within the compilation are then discussed in turn. The chapter closes with a brief outline of the compilation’s manuscript history, modern editions and critical reception.

This chapter offers an analysis of the language, metres and forms of Old Norse poetry. It begins with a brief account of Old Norse language and related languages, and then considers the specialized language of Old Norse poetry, with its distinctive lexis and syntax, especially in skaldic verse. Compound words and kennings are discussed, followed by analysis of alliteration and rhyme in Old Norse poetry. The stanzaic form of eddic verse is described, with a detailed account of its main metres and scansions based on Sievers’s ‘five types’. Next, the forms of skaldic poetry are outlined, with an account of lausavísur or ‘loose stanzas’, and the different kinds of stanza sequences, such as the flokkr and the drápa. The primary metre of skaldic verse, dróttkvætt or ‘court metre’, is defined and illustrated, together with some of its many variations, and then attention turns to the rímur, a later form of rhyming and alliterative poetry in extended sequences of stanzas. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how metrical considerations may have affected scribal practice in the Middle Ages and have impacted editorial processes by modern scholars.

This chapter traces the history of Christian poetry in Old Norse-Icelandic from the tenth century to the fourteenth century. Beginning with Hallfreðr Óttarsson, it describes how poets began to incorporate Christian material into their verse during the conversion period in Norway, avoiding pagan imagery and developing new kennings for Christian concepts. It then discusses poetry composed by Icelandic skalds in praise of St Óláfr Haraldsson and his successors, including Einarr Skúlason’s twelfth-century poem Geisli. From the twelfth century onwards the body of Christian poetry is sizeable, and this chapter sets such important works as Harmsól, Sólarljóð and Lilja in the context of this developing poetic tradition. It also outlines the history of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry dealing with saints, including the Virgin Mary, apostles and virgin martyrs. It is suggested that the composition of poems on Christian subjects in praise of God, Christ and the saints was a continuation of the pre-Christian encomiastic tradition, with appropriate modifications of subjects, style and metres.

This chapter focuses on a major subgroup of Islendingasögur, the poets’ sagas or skalds’ sagas. While many Íslendingasögur include skaldic verses placed in the mouths of characters, in poets’ sagas the verses are attributed to and spoken by known poets, who were predominantly Icelanders. The role some of these Icelanders played as court poets to rulers of Norway is often depicted in short narratives or þættir, and is here argued to represent the beginnings of the development of poets’ sagas. Four sagas are concerned with the more personal aspects of the poets’ lives back in Iceland, and the narrative follows a distinct and repeated pattern of rivalry with another man, in some cases also a poet, who marries the object of the protagonist’s desire. These sagas, Kormáks saga, Hallfreðar saga, Bjarnar saga Hítdœkappa and Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, are analysed in detail to highlight the centrality and similarity of the love-triangle pattern, with Egils saga displaying a vestigial element of it. Themes of love, grief and insult (nið) are discussed, and the chapter concludes by contrasting the bitterness of the poets’ rivalries with the strength of their devotion to their patrons.

This chapter focuses on the reception of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. It begins with a discussion of the definition of the term ‘reception’ and moves on to describe the beginnings of medievalism in Europe and its roots in social and political change. The relationship between nationalism and a ‘Nordic’ or ‘Germanic’ racial identity is explored, and the role of Old Norse myth in politics, ideology and propaganda is analysed. Following a survey of early modern and eighteenth-century European responses to Old Norse literature, including the work of Paul-Henri Mallet, and nineteenth-century translations of Old Norse literature and the work of Jacob Grimm, the discussion moves on to German nationalism and Old Norse, culminating in the National Socialist appropriation of Old Norse mythology and motifs. The use of medieval Icelandic literature to reconstruct a supposed pre-Christian Germanic religion is outlined, and the anti-Christian and anti-Jewish attitudes of so-called völkisch thought explained. The subsequent rise of Neopaganism throughout the world is the subject of the rest of the chapter, with special attention to the racist ideology evident in various Neopagan groups.

Homilies and other texts of Christian instruction form an important part of Old Norse-Icelandic literature and give unparalleled insight into the religious worldview of medieval Icelanders and Norwegians. This chapter traces the development of this corpus, beginning with the first Norse encounters with Christian book culture in the conversion period and the earliest examples of book-production in Norway. It surveys evidence for the character, frequency and context of preaching in Iceland and Norway, including descriptions of sermons in such literary texts as Sverris saga. It discusses the most important repositories of sermons and homilies from this period, including the Icelandic Homily Book and Norwegian Homily Book. Finally, it considers Christian instruction and clerical training more broadly in the Old Norse world, looking at vernacular adaptations of theological primers and treatises translated from Latin, such as Elucidarius, Alcuin’s treatise on virtues and vices, and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, and closing with discussion of the exempla (dœmisögur) associated with Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skálholt.