Welcome to the Icelandic Saga Database
saga n : a narrative telling the adventures of a hero or a family; originally, a story of the families that settled Iceland and their descendants.
The Icelandic Saga Database is an online resource dedicated to the digital publication of the Sagas of the Icelanders -- a large body of medieval literature which forms the foundation of the Icelandic literary tradition. The sagas are prose histories describing events that took place amongst the Norse and Celtic inhabitants of Iceland during the period of the Icelandic Commonwealth in the 10th and 11th centuries AD.
Latest updates
05.10.2009: New Danish translations
Ljósvetninga saga and Harðar saga og hólmverja now available in Danish.
10.01.2009: Hrafnkels saga update
Hrafnkels saga is now available with Old Norse spelling.
23.04.2008: Norwegian Laxdæla
Laxdæla saga now available in Norwegian translation.
21.04.2008: PDF format
All sagas are now available in PDF format, with a table of contents. To access a saga in PDF format, press the left-most control button on the page for the saga. All the sagas can be downloaded in PDF format on the Downloads page.
01.03.2008: Icelandic
Icelandic language interface is now available. Interface language can be selected in the top right menu bar.
The sagas are believed to have been written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD, perhaps originating in an oral tradition of storytelling. While their facticity and authorship is for the most part unknown, they are a widely recognized gem of world literature thanks to their sparse, succinct prose style and balanced storytelling. The sagas focus largely on history, especially genealogical and family history, and reflect the struggles and conflicts that arose amongst the second and third generations of Norse settlers in medieval Iceland, which was in this time a remote, decentralised society with a rich legal tradition but no organized executive power.
This website contains all the extant Icelandic family sagas. The sagas are made available in an easy, readable format using modernized Icelandic spelling, with the Old Norse versions and translations into English and other languages made available where these exist in the public domain.