Note 224 — Chapter VIII · LITERARY INFLUENCE: THE SAGAS OF ICELAND AND IRELAND.

It has been stated (cf. E. Mogk: Geschichte der Norwegisch-Isländischen Literatur. Strassburg, 1904, p. 830) that many of Saxo’s stories came from Norway, where they had been collected by an Icelander in the twelfth century. There can be no doubt that stories of some kind relating to families and localities—especially stories which accounted, or professed to account for local names—were current in Norway down to this time. Such stories form the basis of many of the Fornaldar Sögur, but in all probability these had been familiar to Icelanders from the first settlement of the island, or at least during the tenth century. We have no evidence that they ever gained literary form in Norway. (Cf. Finnur Jónsson: Old Norske Litteraturs Historie, II., p. 791.)