2022/06/09 by Shiels, Ian
#FOS: Arts (arts #Old Norse literature #Sagas #history of arts #music) #performing arts
paper · doi:10.57686/256204/15
Vilmundar saga viðutan is a ‘late’ saga, probably written in the fourteenth century and preserved in over fifty MSS of the fifteenth century or later. This good new edition of a ‘legendary romance’ (p. vi) can be seen as part of a recent flourishing of interest in fornaldarsǫgur and riddarasǫgur (‘sagas of ancient times’ and ‘sagas of knights’), until recently looked down on as low-grade fantasies inferior to the earlier ‘classic’ family sagas and kings’ sagas (Íslendingasǫgur and Konungasǫgur) and unworthy of consideration as documents of historical or anthropological value — hence sometimes called lygisǫgur ‘lying sagas’.