Talk:Saga

message: These supposed Norse sagas were, written by Icelanders, in Iceland, in Icelandic (Icelanders can pick up the original texts and read them). The sagas are Icelandic and even though they are sometimes referred to as Norse it is erroneous to do so.
78.151.173.120 (talk) 14:18, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most Sagas are from Bavaria and Austria. And they are poetry. So the whole article is wrong. 79.106.203.96 (talk) 06:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norse or not, pause for thought 

message: I'd suggest, though, that some thought be given to merging  Sagas with this one.  Sagas in the plural is a nonstandard title in any case.  Saga, apparently, may require a disambiguation page.  -- IHCOYC 14:08, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very nice work here. 

message: Can saga really mean an epic poem? For instance, can Beowulf be called a saga? It is out of the question in, say, Icelandic or Danish, but English is not my first language, so I'd be curious to know. Io 15:41, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question for native speakers of English: 

message: for two reasons: It is not Norse and it is not a saga. I also have problems with the following:
:There are plenty of tales of kings (e.g. Heimskringla), every-day people (e. g. Bandamanna saga) and larger than life characters (e. g. Egils saga). It covers history of all Nordic countries where some groups, especially the pre-historic country Kvenland, have questionaried researchers for a long time and still do. It also covers e.g. England and North America, where it is not until recently (start of 20th century) the latter tale has been found to be authentic through archeological evidence.
What does this actually mean? Especially, what does questionaried mean?
Cheers Io 23:53, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I removed Beowulf 

message: One should always read before one edits. Beowulf plays a larger role in the article than I thought. I'll remove him altogether at a later date, if nobody objects. Io 00:14, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oh, cr**. 

message: I'm glad to make your acquaintance (that goes for Dsmdgold as well, of course :-). There's nothing wrong with Beowulf. It is a fine poem. It's just that it is neither Norse nor a saga and this article is entitled Norse saga. Could you tell me, why Beowulf should be here? 
To Dsmdgold: I will, provided that I don't get involved in any kind of war. There are a lot of things to be remedied in the article (and part of the paragraph I asked about is mine, so I plead guilty on some charges :-).
Cheers Io 01:23, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  To [[User:Dino|Dino]]: 

message: More to follow. Listing the entire canon may seem excessive, but this should be the place to do it, if at all. Io 17:55, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I filled in the names of two categories of sagas. 

message: :It is easy, in our "enlightened" 21st century world to criticize. But how different are we?
It sounds more programmatic than encyclopedic.
Also, should the section
The saga as a literary technique
be kept as it is? As it stands, it is a list of a variety of genres with little in common, except that stories are told in all. It seems way too inclusive. Io 22:13, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I removed the following: 

message: Since the English Wikipedia doesn't currently support Unicode in article names, and since there's a request pending on WP:RfD to delete one of these "non-legible" redirects (see above), I would really appreciate it you all could come to a definite decision on whether you want to keep or delete them. Noel (talk) 13:37, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Unicode characters in En: article titles

message: I am thinking of writing an article on the Gutasaga. It is a Norse saga, but it is not Icelandic. Any opinions about its possible mention in this article?--Wiglaf 18:54, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. Since my question has not received an answer I have included the Gutasaga in the article.--Wiglaf 10:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Since this is "Norse saga", not "Icelandic saga", I don't see a problem with that. dab (ᛏ) 11:00, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gutasaga

message: According to the 1989 Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Volume 4 (of 12), page 289, article by author Peter A. Jorgensen (University of Georgia):
:"Drauma-Jons Saga is a short narrative preserved in five Icelandic vellum manuscripts, the oldest from around 1400, in some 45 manuscripts. It was probably first written down at the start of the 14th century, but whether it was a translation from a foreign source or a native product employing foreign (including oriental) motifs is not certain."
He goes on to give further bibliographical references in German academic journals should you desire those. My question is, since the Icelandic version is the only one known to exist, if this does not go under Iceland, where would it go? Given that there does not seem to be a consensus on its origins, I see no reason it should not be listed here. --Stbalbach 01:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Even if it's written in Iceland by an Icelander it still isn't necessarily an Icelandic saga in the sense of this list. It would have to deal with Icelandic people in the period between the settlement and c.a. 1100 AD. Does it? -- Haukurth 02:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: According to your previous quote it is unknown whether Drauma-Jóns saga is a translation or not. That makes it fairly clear that it isn't an Icelandic saga (Íslendingasaga) in the narrow sense of this list. Many things were written in Iceland in this period and some of them have titles that end with 'saga' (which, after all, simply means "story" in Icelandic). There is, for example, an Alexanders saga. Haukurth 10:09, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which list do you suggest Drauma-Jons belongs to? Clearly it belong in a "Icelandic Romances" category since Marianne Kalinke listed it as such in her book. I'm not sure what the difference is between a Romance and a Story. --Stbalbach 23:04, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The current article on 'saga' is misleading. The term is actually used (in English) to refer to a specific thing. In the narrow sense of this list we're discussing Drauma-Jóns saga is not (as far as I know) a saga. There wouldn't be anything wrong with putting it on a list of old Icelandic literary works but it belongs with others of its kind (translations, if it is a translation, the Fornaldarsögur if it is one of those, et cetera). The works under the Icelandic sagas list are by no means an exhaustive list of Old Icelandic literary works. There's another list on the same page for Legendary sagas. Maybe Drauma-Jóns saga is one of those, though it sounds more like it belongs with such works as Alexanders saga. -- Haukurth 23:56, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drauma-Jons 

message: Although hooked-o-acute = o-ogonek-acute does not exist precomposed in Unicode, the Unicode standard does provide for combinations of characters and accents.  This particular combination would be Vǫ́lsung (Vǫ́lsung).  This renders correctly (though not beautifully) on Firefox, but to force correct rendering across all browsers including Internet Explorer, you should use the IPA template:  (). (This is just technical information—I have no opinion on orthographic conventions for Old Norse.) --Macrakis 17:01, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Entering hooked o with acute

message: Is there any sort of chronological order in which to read the sagas?  Just read and enjoyed the Penguin edition of the Vinland Sagas and wondering where I should go next.  Thanks!  Cardinal Wurzel 10:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Chronology?

message: Several important points have been raised on this page, but I'll post my comments here at the bottom for convenience:
*No, the sagas are not Icelandic, they are Norse. Even if most of them were written by Icelanders, not all of them were written in Iceland or for an Icelandic audience, nor do they take place there. And modern Icelanders can't "just pick the old texts up and read them". They will have at least as much difficulty as a 21st century British or American reader with an "original" Shakespeare manuscript, perhaps even more.
*"Sagas" are usually defined as narratives of a certain length in Old Norse. That means Latin texts and short stories (þættir which have their own article) should not be included here - and definitely not the Old English Beowulf.
*There are some important sub-categories missing, most prominently Bishops' sagas and Contemporary sagas (the latter are not the same as Sagas of Icelanders, although there are some similarities)
*As for spelling, I think that normalized versions of Old Norse should be used, i.e. the only "special" letters used should be thorn and ed (Þ and Ð/ð). O-ogonek should be transcribed as ö etc.
--dllu 13:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few different points 

message: There was a section in this article summarizing the meanings of the word 'saga' in the various modern Scandinavian languages. I removed it because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. (see WP:NOT)  An encyclopedia treats concepts, not words.  When we say 'saga' in English, we're referring specifically to the Old Norse epics.  What the word 'saga' means in the modern Scandinavian languages (or even in Old Norse) is irrelevant (except to clarify the etymology).  Along the same lines, the article ulna talks specifically about that particular bone, not about the elbow in general, though "ulna" in Latin means "elbow"; the article chef talks about professional cooks, though the French word means any "head" i.e. boss. --Macrakis (talk) 16:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Different meanings of the word 'saga'

message: twilight is the meaning of many things but the most used meaning is:Example The period after sunset and before sunrise ; any faint light; a period of waning glory, decline in achievements, etc  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.59.3.87 (talk) 18:43, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  twilight 

message: Most people believe saga means the stuff in ARTICLE.
But saga means vampire things like a 4-part saga between vampires and werewolves or vampires and wizards  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.59.3.87 (talk) 13:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saga 

message: "The texts are epic tales in prose, ...often with stanzas or whole poems" - sorry I'm ignorant on these matters, but isn't this sentence contradictory? It's either prose, or it's poetry - or am I wrong? Plus this doesn't carry a reference and what's with the '...'?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.78.86.107 (talk) 18:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really; it is prose with poetry.  Just like books with illustrations. [Note: somebody already removed the errant ellipsis.] ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 15:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Prose' in introduction 

message: There are many places where citations are needed, but I for one would like to see one for this (in Background section):
However, most scholars now believe the sagas were conscious artistic creations, based on both oral and written tradition. -- In fact, this article relies heavily on anonymous "scholars".  This is not a moot point; I'm trying to evaluate reliability for information in Icelandic saga. ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 14:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there should be a reference to back up that quote. It's also not entirely true: more and more scholars (myself included) believe that most sagas are essentially written versions of the oral tales that they were based upon. dllu (talk) 08:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations needed 

message: At the moment there's one line, which almost looks like vandalism: "A modern example of a saga is George Lucas's classic film trilogy, The Star Wars Saga. The Lord of the Rings novels by J.R.R. Tolkien are also a saga."
I agree with both of those as examples but it would be nice to have a definition too. My understanding is that the modern English useage, when refering to modern literature, is a story that covers a long period of time (several years at least, more often several human generations) and is mainly about events on a very large, epic scale (usually along the lines of a fight between good and evil that threatens the entire world, universe, realm or whatever). But that's just my understanding, I have no idea if it's accurate. Ideally someone somewhere will have given an 'official' authoritive definition we could include, but again I have no idea if that's the case. As you may have guessed by now I don't think I have remotely enough knowledge on the subject to make the edit myself, which is why I'm asking here instead. But I think it would be helpful to acknowledge and address the modern useage. (If only as a more encyclopedic alternative to a section entitled "Why Twilight is NOT a Saga, no matter what the advertising says".) Danikat (talk) 22:17, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could use a section on modern English useage 

message: I would have liked to see something in here about Saga as a literary genre to add to the current text about Saga as a historic artefact. Some of the points that an editor might like to consider discussing or including are as follows:
* which types of characters are found in saga, fully human, gods, anthropomorphic animals, elves, goblins, trolls, forces of nature, inanimate objects (teapot from Alice in Wonderland) etc
* are magical, marvellous, or miraculous elements like spells, potions, and so on included
* are abstract ideas, principles, or concepts represented by characters, as allegory for example
* are stories only told in chronological order or is flashback, memory, and so on employed
* are they set in identifiable historic locations, or in a mythic land that may not have existed
* are they set in a historically identifiable time, in simply an ancient time, or in a mythic or fabulous age
* do they convey a moral or normative lesson or ideal, or are they just "this is what happened" stories
* are they meant to be or thought to be true or realistic to some extent
* do they employ story structures like quest or are they only about historical events like battles
* do they all have happy or fairy tale endings or are there genre such as tragedy, romance, etc
* do gods either appear in the stories or influence events or characters behaviour
* is kenning employed, calling the sea the whale road, or calling ships sea-horses etc
* are humans truly human or do any of them have super-human or heroic powers or abilities
* anything else you think makes them either unique or distinct from myth, legend, fable etc. Cottonshirtτ 15:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saga as literary genre 

message: Were the sagas written in black bearberry ink as author Michael Ridpath writes in his novel Where the Shadows Lie? 79.79.248.208 (talk) 07:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black bearberry ink? 

message: This edit comment makes me suspicious about the change made, especially because the person made a more substantial edit to the Sagas of Icelanders page that was reverted. Can someone review?--Duesouthfan (talk) 19:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  strange edit comment 

message: Edda is poetry and saga is pretty much prose. There seems to be some overlap although I don’t know for sure. But this article must make reference to eddas and expain how they are related, mention authors who composed both, if any, etc. This is bad that it’s missing.Rich (talk) 00:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: A helpful suggestion. I'll try and do this, if no-one beats me to it :-) Alarichall (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edda is missing 

message: ==== Kings' Sagas (Konungasögur): ====
These sagas focus on the lives of Scandinavian kings and their reigns. A blend of history with legendary elements.
* "Heimskringla" by Snorri Sturluson
* "Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum" (A Synopsis of the Kings' Sagas)
* "Fagrskinna" (The Beautiful Manuscript)
==== Family Sagas (Íslendingasögur): ====
Family sagas are prose narratives that depict the lives, conflicts, and adventures of Icelandic families and individuals from the 10th and 11th centuries.
* "Njáls Saga" (The Saga of Njáll)
* "Egils Saga" (The Saga of Egill Skallagrímsson)
* "Laxdæla Saga" (The Saga of the People of Laxárdal)
* "Grettis Saga" (The Saga of Grettir the Strong)
* "Hrafnkels Saga" (The Saga of Hrafnkell Freysgoði)
==== Legendary Sagas (Fornaldarsögur): ====
Legendary sagas blend Norse mythology, heroism, and history to tell the stories of legendary heroes and their adventures, often taking place before the settlement of Iceland.
* "Völsunga Saga" (The Saga of the Völsungs)
* "Hervarar Saga" (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek)
* "Ragnar Loðbrók Saga" (The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok)
==== Mythological and Religious Works: ====
These works focus on Norse mythology, beliefs, and religious practices.
* "Poetic Edda" (A collection of Old Norse poems)
* "Prose Edda" by Snorri Sturluson
* "Gesta Danorum" by Saxo Grammaticus (A history of the Danish people, including mythological material)
==== Skaldic Poetry: ====
Skaldic poetry is a highly stylized form of Old Norse poetry composed by skalds (court poets) in praise of kings, nobles, or in commemoration of significant events.
* "Drápa af Harald Hardråde" by Þjóðólfr Arnórsson
* "Hákonarmál" by Eyvindr skáldaspillir
* "Eiríksmál" by an unknown skald
==== Rímur: ====
Rímur are narrative poems composed in Iceland from the 14th century onwards.
* "Króka-Refs Rímur" by Björn Jónsson of Skarðsá
* "Bjarkarímur" by Eysteinn Ásgrímsson
* "Völsungarímur" by an unknown author 
(talk) 19:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some categories would be nice 

message: Rímur are narrative poems composed in Iceland from the 14th century onwards.
* "Króka-Refs Rímur" by Björn Jónsson of Skarðsá
* "Bjarkarímur" by Eysteinn Ásgrímsson
* "Völsungarímur" by an unknown author 
(talk) 19:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rímur: 

message: "Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia"
Most Sagas are poetic. And were written in Bavaria and Austria. Not Iceland Scandinavia! 79.106.203.96 (talk) 06:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Any WP:RS for this claim? TylerBurden (talk) 13:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong info