Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/76

58 Norway, the, — so called from the first two words of one of the manuscripts (kringla heimsins, the earth's circle) — begins with the saga of the royal family of the Ynglings, who were descended from the gods and ruled at Upsala, and then tells the history of Norway, carrying it forward to the year 1177. The short Ynglinga Saga, based on the old "Ynglingatal," the poem composed by the skald Thjodolf of Hvin, is throughout mythic and heroic, and is peculiarly interesting as an effort to present the ancient gods as historical persons; but in the saga of Halfdan the Swarthy the light of history dawns, and we soon enter the broad daylight of facts. Snorre's sources were, besides the traditions and songs that still existed in his time, a whole cycle of written sagas. Without doubt he consulted all the historical works which we have already mentioned and many others which have not been preserved, and his activity was not confined simply to copying and compiling from his predecessors, but he reproduced them with a care and criticism which his forerunners in the saga field had not fully learned to apply. He makes extensive use of the songs of the skalds of former ages and of his own time, and adds in his descriptions a number of new facts that were unknown to the earlier writers. All these things together, in connection with his classic language and style and the unity and comprehensiveness that distinguish his work, not only raise him above all other saga writers, but make him a truly great historian.

That Snorre closes his work with the year 1117 must doubtless be accounted for by the fact that the Saga of King Swerre, who ascended the throne of Norway in 1184, was already written by one of Swerre's contemporaries, the Abbot of the Thingeyra monastery in the north of Iceland. Karl Jonsson visited Norway and produced his saga under the supervision and with the coöperation of the king himself. Already before this attempts had been made at writing contemporary history. Thus the "Hryggjar-