Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/398

 386 CHRONICLE OF THE NOTES, in the dates, or succession of events, of what took place in England. There is great discrepancy between them as to the dates or succession of events in the first twenty-seven years after the year 1000 ; and the Saxon Chronicle may reason- ably be taken as the best authority. The Sagas, in fact, and Snorro's work founded on them, and which is to be considered as one great saga put together from many smaller, are not history so much as historical biographies ; not very dissimilar, as a class of Hterary compositions, to the historical novels and dramas of a later age. They have a literary aim predomi- nating over historical accuracy ; and attempt by speeches, re- flections, poetry, anecdotes, to make an agreeable narrative out of historical facts. They are certainly not of equal au- thority with the chronicles written prior to the 13th century, which had no higher aim or merit than to string the events chronologically together. As literary compositions, they show a much more manly taste and turn of mind, than the prurient tales or mawkish lays which are given in the " Fablieaux et Contes de XII. et XIII. Siecle," as the compositions of the troubadours and scalds or minstrels of Provence and the south of France in the 12th or 13th century. The discrepancy of the sagas with chronological history appears in the date of Swein's death, which took place the 11th February, 1014, and of Ethelred's, who succeeded him, and died 1016. But Olaf is stated in the saga to have come to Norway in autumn, 1014, and the battle of London Bridge could not have taken place before 1016 ; and if the battle of Hringmaraheide in Ulf kel's land be the same as that of Assandown in Essex, which was in Ulf kel's land, these events, and the marriage of Canute with Emma the widow of Ethelred, which took place in 1017, are confusedly stated in the saga as events which took place before 1014. Olaf is stated in the saga to have passed two summers and a winter in the West, in Val- land, after the battle of London Bridge ; and to have come to Rouen after the death of King Edmund, which was in 1016 ; and to have met there the sons of Ethelred, whom Canute had expelled, and joined them in an attempt to regain their kingdom the following summer. After their defeat in a battle at a place called Jungofurda, Olaf left them, and set off for Norway ; but this could not have been before the year 1017, although the year 1014 must be tak^n for that of his arrival in Norway, in order to agree with the succession of