`Brjans saga'.(historicity of Icelandic sagas discussed) From: Medium Aevum | Date: September 22, 2002| Author: Hudson, Benjamin | COPYRIGHT 2002 Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

One of the many interesting problems connected with the medieval Icelandic sagas has been the question of their value for history. Extreme views that either accepted the sagas as archives of contemporary historical records or else rejected all of them as complete literary fabrications have long since been discarded. Not only must each individual work be studied in order to decide its usefulness to the historian, but even individual episodes within the same saga can differ greatly i...