Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/105



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( proceedings at this meeting have already been reported in, Vol. V, No. i.)

That the native Icelandic Saga in its origin and growth helps to explain like processes going on elsewhere seems probable, and it is perhaps worth while to notice its development as briefly as may be here with but scant detail.

The Icelandic Saga—a prose epic, telling the life of some interesting person of the past in regular style and method—seems to have come about somewhat as follows:—A man, whose career had made him widely known in his life, dies, leaving behind him a memory for good or for evil. This "memory" consists of some particulars concerning his family, native place, position, and a small number of anecdotes (as, for lack of a better term, we may call them) characteristic of the man and illustrating his personality, sometimes by a pithy phrase, oftener by a notable deed.

The mass of the Landnáma-bóc details are such traditional anecdotes epitomised by Are or his informants.

A stock of remembrance falls into the hands, or rather comes into the mouth, of some person skilled in the gentle art of narration. Now of this art there were many exponents, some professional, such as the poets and wandering tramps