The other sagas in the Edda are “The Song of Lodbrok” or “Lodbrog,” “Hervara Saga,” the “Vilkina Saga,” the “Blomsturvalla Saga,” the “Ynglinga Saga” (all relating to Norway), the “Jomsvikingia Saga,” and the “Knytlinga Saga” (which pertain to Denmark), the “Sturlunga Saga,” and the “Eryrbiggia Saga” (which pertain to Iceland). All the above were compiled and edited by Sæmund Sigfusson, and are in verse; but Snorro Sturleson reduced them to prose in his prose version of the old Edda.
II. Sagas not in the Edda. Snorro Sturleson, at the close of the twelfth century, made the second great collection of chronicles in verse, called the Heimskringla Saga, or the book of the kings of Norway, from the remotest period to the year 1177. This is a most valuable record of the laws, customs, and manners of the ancient Scandinavians. Samuel Laing published his English translation of it in 1844.
1. The Icelandic Sagas. Besides the two Icelandic sagas collected by Sæmund Sigfusson, numerous others were subsequently embodied in the Landama Bok, set on foot by Ari hinn Frondê, and continued by various hands.
2. Frithjof’s Saga contains the life and and adventures of Frithjof, of Iceland, who fell in love with Ingeborg, the beautiful wife of Hring, king of Norway. On the death of Hring, the young widow marries her Icelandic lover. Frithjof lived in the eighth century, and this saga was compiled at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a year or two after the Heimskringla. It is very interesting, because Tegnér, the Swedish poet, has selected it for his Idylls (1825), just as Tennyson has taken his idyllic stories from the Morte d’Arthur or the Welsh Mabinogion. Tegnér’s Idylls were translated into English by Latham (1838), by Stephens (1841), and by Blackley (1857).
3. The Swedish Saga, or lay of Swedish “history,” is the Ingvars Saga.
4. The Russian Saga, or lay of Russian legendary history, is the Egmunds Saga.
5. The Folks-Sagas are stories of romance. From this ancient collection we have derived our nursery tales of Jack and the Bean-Stalk, Jack the Giant-Killer, the Giant who smelt the Blood of an Englishman, Blue Beard, Cinderella, the Little Old Woman cut Shorter, the Pig that wouldn’t go over the Bridge, Puss in Boots, and even the first sketches of Whittington and His Cat, and Baron Munchausen. (See Dasent, Tales from the Norse, 1859.)
6. Sagas of Foreign origin. Besides the rich stores of original tales, several foreign ones have been imported and translated into Norse, such as Barlaham and Josaphat, by Rudolph of Ems, one of the German minnesingers. On the other hand, the minnesingers borrowed from the Norse sagas their famous story embodied in the Nibelungen Lied, called the “German Iliad,” which is from the second part of Snorro Sturleson’s Edda.
Sagaman, a narrator of sagas. These ancient chroniclers differed from scalds in several respects. Scalds were minstrels, who celebrated in verse the exploits of living kings or national heroes; sagamen were tellers of legendary stories, either in prose or verse, like Scheherazādê, the narrator of the Arabian Nights, the mandarin, Fum-Hoam, the teller of the Chinese Tales, Moradbak, the teller of the Oriental Tales, Ferămorz, who told the tales to Lalla Rookh, and so on. Again, scalds resided at court, were attached to the royal suite, and followed the king in all his expeditions; but sagamen were free and unattached, and told their tales to prince or peasant, in lordly hall or at village wake.
Sage of Concord (The), Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of Literary Ethics (1838), Poems (1846), Representative Men (1850), English Traits (1856), and numerous other works (1803-1882).