SOURCE: Bagge, Sverre. “From Sagas to Society: The Case of Heimskringla.” In From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, edited by Gísli Pálsson, pp. 61-75. Middlesex, England: Hisarlik Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Bagge explores the question of how reliably Snorri depicts political aspects of historical society.

In contrast to its treatment of the family sagas, modern criticism has not entirely expelled the kings' sagas from the field of historiography to that of literary criticism. This has, however, proved a mixed blessing. Since they are not considered to be pure fiction, literary scholars have avoided them, while the historians have had the feeling of putting their hands into a hornet's nest when trying to derive factual information from them. In the wake of the Weibull revolution early in this century (see below), it was for a long time considered good sport to expose the...