Heroic Sagas and Ballads

In "Heroic Sagas and Ballads", Stephen A. Mitchell examines the world of the medieval Icelandic legendary sagas and their legacy in Scandinavia. Central to his argument is the view that these heroic texts should be studied in the light of the later Icelandic Middle Ages rather than that of the Viking Age, although the stories, the tellers, and the audiences are clearly concerned with exactly this period of Scandinavian history. Viewing these sagas as the products of highly diverse forms of inspiration and creation - some oral, some written - Mitchell explores their aesthetic and social dimensions, demonstrating their function both as entertainment and as a literature with a more serious purpose, one with deep roots in Nordic literary consciousness. The traditions that these sagas relate possessed an importance beyond the temporal and geographical confines of medieval Iceland, and "Heroic Sagas and Ballads" considers the process by which these heroic materials were subsequently recast as metrical romances in Iceland and as ballads throughout the rest of Scandinavia.