Sagas of Westej^n Iceland 1 2 7 



how the Icelandic chiefs must have looked back with 

 pride to the doings of their ancestors, and delighted to 

 take part in them in imagination. And the picture of 

 the Saga-maker, relating his story in their halls in the 

 winter evenings, is very much the same as the picture 

 of Homer or of the ballad-monger of the Homeric cycle 

 singing his ballad to the descendants of the Argive 

 chiefs. 



The Sagas which have come down to us are of various 

 lengths, and written in various styles. 



If we accept the theory of Vigfusson and of Powell 

 that the Sagas have their rise in the south-west of Ice- 

 land, we must place among the earliest extant ones the 

 Harclar Saga or Hdlmsvega Saga, as it is otherwise called, 

 a story of adventure relating the deeds of a company of 

 outlaws, who haunted the district of Iceland known as 

 Hvalesfjord or Whalesfirth. Another of these south- 

 western stories is the Saga of Hen Thori {Hmnsa 

 l)oris Saga), which tells of the rivalries of two Icelanders, 

 Thori and Ketil, of whom the one in the end burns the 

 other in his house — a very common ending of feuds in 

 Iceland. The action of both these stories lies a little 

 before the end of the tenth century. Another Saga 

 which has the stamp of great antiquity is the Saga of 

 another Thori, called Gold Thori {GvU-])oris S.), and of 

 this the action lies in the early part of the tenth cen- 

 tury. This belongs, too, to the western side of Iceland. 

 Kormalcs Saga is another of early composition, though 

 it does not belong to the birthplace of the Sagas, but to 

 the north of the island. The hero of it has an Irish 

 name (for Kormac, though it is common enough among 

 Icelandic names, was, like Njal, an Irish name originally). 



