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Saga   /sˈɑgə/   Listen
Saga

noun
(pl. sagas)
1.
A narrative telling the adventures of a hero or a family; originally (12th to 14th centuries) a story of the families that settled Iceland and their descendants but now any prose narrative that resembles such an account.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Saga" Quotes from Famous Books



... were little and sat on her knee, She gave us her saga with pictures to see. We read till our eyes opened wide and moist, While nodding and ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... impetus to Mr. Crewe's cause. "A new era in American politics!" "Society to take a hand in the gubernatorial campaign of Millionaire Humphrey Crewe!" "Noted social leader, Mrs. Patterson Pomfret, declares it a duty, and saga that English women have the right idea." And a photograph of Mrs. Patterson Pomfret herself, in her victoria, occupied a generous portion ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... tickles me. Two or three historical personages will just appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I think Townsend the runner. I know the public won't like it; let 'em lump it then; I mean to make it good; it will be more like a saga. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Joyce's books were almost the only sources of Gaelic inspiration open to a writer who was not a professed student. Douglas Hyde, though always at work, had not yet brought the fruits of his researches to light; Miss Eleanor Hull had not collected into a handy volume the materials of "The Cuchullin Saga"; Kuno Meyer we did not know; Standish O'Grady, though he had published his "Heroic Period," had not yet begun popularising the bardic tales in such volumes as "Finn and his Companions." No one was reading anything about Ireland but political matter. I ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... Saga relating the adventures of a Viking, Orvar Odd in Aquitaine, describes how he saw some of the natives taking refuge in an underground retreat, and how he pursued and killed them all. [Footnote: Fornmanna Soegwr, Copenhagen, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... like a spell or charm in a child's fairy tale. Even theft with asportation could not alter property rights, even in favor of innocent purchasers, when the owner did not intend to part therewith. A moment's recollection of what is now perhaps the most familiar of Teutonic saga to the ordinary reader, the text of Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung," will give ample evidence of that mental attitude. But the Oriental mind was far more subtile. To the Jews or Lombards we owe the discovery of that bill of exchange—the first of negotiable instruments, and the first ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... Eric and Svein, often also mentioned in this Saga. On their father's death they fled to Sweden, to Denmark, and were busy stirring up troubles in those countries against Olaf Tryggveson; till at length, by a favorable combination, under their auspices chiefly, they got his brief and noble reign put an end to. Nay, furthermore, Jarl Eric left sons, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... found in the Irish saga of Diarmaid and Grainne. We read Mr. O'Grady's introduction on the position of Eionn Mac Cumhail, the legendary Over-Lord of Ireland, the Agamemnon of the Celts. "Fionn, like many men in power, is ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... They met King Harald in a fjord in Rogaland called Hafrsfjord. The forces on each side were very large, and the battle was one of the greatest ever fought in Norway. There are many accounts of it, for one always hears much about those people of whom the saga is told. Troops had come in from all the country around and from other countries as well, besides a multitude of vikings. Onund brought his ship alongside of that of Thorir Long-chin in the very middle of the battle. King Harald ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... of the MS. is mythological, the rest heroic. I propose to observe this distinction, and to deal in this study with the stories of the Gods. In this connexion, Snorri's Edda and the mythical Ynglinga Saga may also be considered, but as both were compiled a couple of centuries or more after the introduction of Christianity into Iceland, it is uncertain how much in them is literary explanation of tradition whose meaning was forgotten; some also, especially ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday

... sky. Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair. I see the gleam of axe and spear, The sound of smitten shields I hear, Keeping a harsh and fitting time To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme; Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, His gray and naked isles among; Or muttered low at midnight hour Round Odin's mossy stone of power. The wolf beneath the Arctic moon Has answered ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... was that after three tragedies proper there came a play, still in tragic diction, with a traditional saga plot and heroic characters, in which the Chorus was formed by these Satyrs. There was a deliberate clash, an effect of burlesque; but of course the clash must not be too brutal. Certain characters of the heroic saga are, so to speak, ...
— Alcestis • Euripides

... translation of the Njals Saga, under the title The Story of Burnt Njal, which is reprinted in this volume, was published by Messrs. Edmonston & Douglas in 1861. That edition was in two volumes, and was furnished by the author with maps and plans; with a lengthy ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... of editing and commenting; and it is really difficult to estimate the quantity of valuable matter which is thus deposited in obscure but still accessible places. A deal of useful work, too, has been done in the way of translation; and where the book to be dealt with is an Icelandic saga, a chronicle in Saxon, in Irish Celtic, or even in old Norman, one may confess to the weakness of letting the original remain, in some instances, unexamined, and drawing one's information with confiding gratitude from the translation furnished ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... found engraven on the face of rocks, on tombstones, etc. "Do you see, Alette," continued he, eagerly, "this represents a woman and a little child; probably Karlefne's wife, who bore a son during this visit to Vineland. And this must be a bull; and in Karlefne's Saga a bull is mentioned, which terrified the natives by his bellowings; and these figures to the right represent the natives. This must be a ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... any summits? When we get our affairs in order, I must be off somewhere myself. Northward, I think. I want a little bracing cold. I should like to see Iceland. You know the Icelandic sagas? Magnificent! There's the saga of Grettir the Strong—by Jove! But come, this isn't business. I have news for you, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... danger. They were about to offer their lives to pave the way for others to reach the works that none of them, probably, would ever reach. For the like of this, in gathering the enemy's spears to his breast, a saga had risen around one national hero. But Fracasse's veterans were only the shivering units of the millions; the part of the machine that happened to be the first to strike another machine in collision. Such was the end of all the training, the marching, the drilling in the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... in Cyprus wine the once gallant spirit which, even at the end, could sometimes shake off its degradation, and blaze into a moment's despairing brilliancy, at the thought of the Clans and the Claymores, and the brave days of Forty-five. And so, in the words of the old Saga men, here he drops out of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Padda, that is to say, it STANDS. She holds it with a firm hand, as the Saint in the old paintings bears the church. In her, the Iceland of ancient and modern times meets. She has more warmth, more kindness of heart, more womanly affection, than any antique figure from a Saga. She gives herself completely, resignedly. She is tender and she is mild, without being meek. In her inmost self, however, she is proud. When first this pride is touched, then hurt, and finally the ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban

... one of the largest farmers in Iceland, and owned the adjoining island, namely, 'Lonely Island,' or 'Drangey,' famous as the retreat of the outlawed hero of the 'Gretter-Saga.' The legend states that one Christmas night the chief's fire went out, and having no means of rekindling it, he swam from Drangey Island to the Reykir farm to get a light, a distance which to us, humanly speaking, seems impossible for any man to ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Germans, rather appearing to submerge his own personality in the united patriotism of the struggle—such is the picture which the throne machinery has impressed on the German mind. The histrionic gift may be at its best in creating a saga. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... as it were, the signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we hear nothing of fasting, cleansing, and atonement. This we might explain as part of the general splendid unreality of the Greek saga, but sober historians of the fifth century B.C. express the same spirit. Thucydides is by nature no reveller, yet religion is to him, in the main, a rest from toil. He makes Pericles say of the Athenians: Moreover ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... matter, along with historical knowledge, may well have constituted the earliest writings in Icelandic, probably dating as far back as the eleventh century, while the oldest preserved texts were composed early in the twelfth century. This was the beginning of the so-called saga- writing. The important thing was that most of what was written down was in the vernacular, Latin being used but sparingly. Thus a literary style was evolved which soon reached a high standard. This style, so forceful in its perspicuity, was effectively simple, yet rich in the variety ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... Lilliard' at the Battle of Ancrum Muir in 1545. Seneca mentions the feat. It occurs in the Percy Folio, Sir Graysteel (in Eger and Grine) fighting on one leg. Johnie Armstrong and Sir Andrew Barton both retire to 'bleed awhile' after being transfixed through the body. Finally, in an early saga, King Starkathr (Starkad) fights on after his ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... "Bear in mind," says Thorkel to Bork, in the Icelandic saga of Gisli the Outlaw, "bear in mind that a woman's counsel is always unlucky."—On the other hand, quoth Panurge, "Truly I have found a great deal of good in the counsel of women, chiefly in that of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... we know to be true, as to make it impossible not to attach a certain amount of credit to them. This particular story is the more interesting as its denouement, abruptly left in the blankest mystery by one Saga, is incidentally revealed to us in the course of another, relating to events with which the first had no connection. [Footnote: From internal evidence it is certain that the chronicle which contains these Sagas must have been written about the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... great subjects, the great matieres, are French in their early treatment, with the exception of the national work of Spain, Iceland, and in part Germany. All the forms, except those of the prose saga and its kinsman the German verse folk-epic, are found first in French. Whosoever knows the French literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, knows not merely the best literature in form, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... Meanwhile, dearest, you must put up with my company, as I myself am learning to do. It seems to me almost that I need no one else! I sit here in my room, out there in the woods, and I am content. I read a great deal; I have just re-read the "Volsunga Saga," and have begun Tolstoi's "Cossacks." I am trying, too, to continue my mother's translation of "Prometheus," but the difference between my work and hers is so great that I sometimes lose heart. However, I shall try to finish it. Her beautiful face and yours look ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema

... Ynglinga saga Niord takes his sister to wife, because the law of Van-land allowed it, although that of the Ases did not.[1706] Other cases in the Edda go to show that the taboo on such marriages was not in the ancient ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... he was accompanied according to an Icelandic Saga,(49) by King Olaf, of Norway, who assisted him in expelling the Danes from Southwark, and gaining an entrance into the city. The manner in which this was carried out, is thus described. A small knot of Danes occupied a stronghold in the City, whilst others were in possession ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... listening to hackneyed tales of domestic tragedy and a stranger's reminiscences? Why did his mind continually linger round the rock of Doom, so noisy on its promontory, so sad, so stern, so like an ancient saga in its spirit? Cecile—he was amazed at it, but Cecile, and the Jacobite cause he had come here to avenge with a youth's ardour, had both fallen, as it were, into ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... that the Gaelic name of the original Earls of Ross was O'Beolan - a corruption of Gilleoin, or Gillean, na h'Airde - or the descendants of Beolan. "And we actually find," says the same authority, "from the oldest Norse Saga connected with Scotland that a powerful chief in the North of Scotland named O'Beolan, married the daughter of Ganga Rolfe, or Rollo, the celebrated pirate who became afterwards the celebrated Earl of Normandy." If this view is well-founded the ancestor of the Earls of ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... the impingement of Beauty and the claims of Freedom on a possessive world are the main prepossessions of the Forsyte Saga, it cannot be absolved from the charge ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... are aiming To bring the redskin down. The plough team's trappings jingle Across the furrowed field, And sounds domestic mingle Where valor hung its shield. But every wind careering Seems here to breathe a song— A song of brave frontiering— A saga of the strong. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... appears from the lamentable hiatus into which the fame of Charles D. Stewart has lately fallen. His Partners of Providence suffers from the inevitable comparison with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn which it cannot stand, though it continues the saga of the Mississippi with sympathy and knowledge; but The Fugitive Blacksmith has a flavor which few comparisons and no neglect can spoil. Its protagonist, wrongly accused of a murder which he by mischance finds ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... Allen—yes, some connection with Ethan Allen. I am, myself. But everybody has always called her Miss Hetty till few people remember that she has another name. She was born there in the old house below 'the Burning,' and she has lived there for eighty years, and that is all her saga. You can't see her house from here, but it is part of Crittenden's all the same, although it is a mile away by the main road as you go towards the Dug-Way. But you can reach it in six or seven minutes from here by a back lane, through the Eagle ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... found in Rink's Legends. When we learn that the Norsemen, during their three centuries of occupation of Greenland, brought away many of the marvelous tales of the Eskimo, it is not credible that they left none of their own. Thus we are told in the Floamanna Saga how a hero, abandoned on the icy coast of Greenland, met with two giant witches (Troldkoner), and cut the band from one of them. An old Icelandic work, called the Konungs Skuggsjo (Danish, Kongespeilet), has much to say of the marvels of Greenland and its monsters ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... graphic account; narration, recital, rehearsal, relation. historiography[obs3], chronography[obs3]; historic Muse, Clio; history; biography, autobiography; necrology, obituary. narrative, history; memoir, memorials; annals &c. (chronicle) 551; saga; tradition, legend, story, tale, historiette[obs3]; personal narrative, journal, life, adventures, fortunes, experiences, confessions; anecdote, ana[obs3], trait. work of fiction, novel, romance, Minerva press; fairy tale, nursery ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... when that ghostly friend has heard all, he sings and plays the tambour, invoking the spirit to descend on the sick man. The singing of barbarous songs was part of classical spiritualism; the Norse witch, in The Saga of Eric the Red, insisted on the song of Warlocks being chanted, which secured the attendance of 'many powerful spirits'; and modern spiritualists enliven their dark and dismal programme by songs. Presently the Hareskin physician ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... a certain King of Parmenia named Riwalin Kanelengres (in the Norse saga he is King of Bretland; in the English he is called Rouland rise, King of Ermonric), who, leaving his own country in the charge of his marshal, Rual li foitenant, joined the court of the powerful King Marke ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... instance of a word, not very dissimilar to Mazer, may be found in Eric Red's Saga, part of the Flatoe Annals, supposed to be written in the tenth century, and one of the authorities for the pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Icelanders. Karlsefne, one of the heroes of the Saga, while his ship was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various

... of the shanachie is wide, and wide, too, the range of Sharp in the role of shanachie of barbaric life on both sides of the Moyle. Among such writings there are few tellings of the order of the folk-tale, more of the order of the hero saga, many—perhaps the best of them—of an order all his own that has developed, it is likely, from the old "Saints' Lives," but to which he has given a ring of authenticity that makes them seem descended from an antiquity as remote as that of folk-tale or hero-tale. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... guardian of the sorceress—by Orcus, who is the treasurer of wrath—I curse thee! and thou art cursed! May thy love be blasted—may thy name be blackened—may the infernals mark thee—may thy heart wither and scorch—may thy last hour recall to thee the prophet voice of the Saga of Vesuvius! And thou,' she added, turning sharply towards Ione, and raising her right arm, when Glaucus burst impetuously on ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... capture in Bavaria of a band of outlaws numbering nearly a thousand men. The year 1771 witnessed the execution of the robber-chieftain Klostermayer, who, under the name of the Bavarian Hiesel, became the subject of an idealizing saga in which we recognize the essential features of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... Tryggvesson built a ship, the keel of which, as it lay on the grass, was 74 ells long; in modern measure, it would be a vessel of about 942 tons burden. Even if we make allowance for the exaggeration or ignorance of the writer of the saga, there is still a vast contrast between this vessel and the little ship Centurion in which Anson ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock

... head!"] I am delighted with the thoughts of the portraits [of his mother and sister, who had promised to have their likenesses taken], und i bi korios wias da gleich sieht; wons ma gfoin, so los i mi und den Vodan a so macho. Maidli, lass Da saga, wo list dan gwesa he? [Footnote: "And I am anxious to see what they are like, and then I will have my father and myself also taken. Fair maiden, say, where have you been, eh?" [Patois.]] The opera here is Jomelli's; it is fine, but too grave and old-fashioned ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... contains nearly the closest savage parallel to the various household tales which find their heroic and artistic shape in the Jason saga. Still more surprising in its resemblances is the Malagasy version of the narrative. In the Malagasy story, the conclusion is almost identical with the winding up of the Scotch fairy tale. The girl hides in a tree; her face, seen reflected in a well, is mistaken by women ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... here of the sources from which Villemarque drew a part at least of his matter. There are resemblances to Arthurian and kindred romances. For example, the incident which describes the flight of young Morvan is identical with that in the Arthurian saga of Percival le Gallois, where the child Percival quits his mother's care in precisely the same fashion. The Frankish monarch and his Court, too, are distinctly drawn in the style of the chansons de gestes, which celebrated ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... like a really good saga, about gods and giants, and the fire kingdoms, and the snow kingdoms, and the Aesir making men and women out of two sticks, and ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... The saga then goes on to say that trading voyages to the settlement which had been formed by Karlsefne now became frequent, and that the chief lading of the return voyages was timber, which was much needed in Greenland. A bishop of Greenland, Eric Upsi, is also ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... region between Honnef and Dollendorf. These hills with their step-and-terrace formation were once fortified by Valentinian against the formidable Frankish hordes, and German poetry early began to find scenery in them worthy of its national epic, and so laid the scene of the Saga of Wilkina among these mountains and valleys. Here, above the legends of Roland and Siegfried and the Christian captive, who, exposed to the dragon of the rock, vanquished him by the cross, so that he fell backward and broke his neck, is the solid remembrance of castles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... with Saint Jerome (Pref. in Jobum) "Vel verbum e verbo, vel sensum e sensu, vel ex utroque commixtum, et medic temperatum genus translationis." My work claims to be a faithful copy of the great Eastern Saga book, by preserving intact, not only the spirit, but even the mecanique, the manner and the matter. Hence, however prosy and long drawn out be the formula, it retains the scheme of The Nights because ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and Miss Bruce from other French sources, by Miss May Sellar, Miss Farquharson, and Miss Blackley from the German, while the story of 'Sigurd' is condensed by the Editor from Mr. William Morris's prose version of the 'Volsunga Saga.' The Editor has to thank his friend, M. Charles Marelles, for permission to reproduce his versions of the 'Pied Piper,' of 'Drakestail,' and of 'Little Golden Hood' from the French, and M. Henri Carnoy for the same privilege in regard to 'The Six ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... The latter visited every country from Further India to Spain;—even China and Madagascar seem to have been within the compass of his later travels; and his voyages in the Indian Ocean bring us to the real Sinbad Saga of the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... province of Munster, is told also in the Hartz, about The Dummburg, and closely resembles the Eastern story of 'The Forty Thieves,' where even the rock Sesam, which falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli, recalls the name of the mountain in the German saga. This name for a mountain is, according to a document in Pistorius (3, 642), very ancient in Germany. A mountain in Grabfeld is called Similes and in a Swiss song a Simeliberg is again mentioned. This makes us think of the Swiss word 'Sine!,' for 'sinbel,' round. In Meier, No. 53, we find ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... were some peasant tales, whose freshness and vividness made an immediate and remarkable impression and practically ensured his future as a writer, while their success inspired him with the desire to create a kind of peasant "saga." He wrote of what he knew, and a delicate sense of style seemed inborn in him. The best known of these tales are Synnoeve Solbakken (1857) and Arne (1858). They were hailed as giving a revelation of the Norwegian character, and the first-named was translated into English as early as 1858. ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... for understanding the so-called "typical" dreams and the dreams that "repeat themselves." Dream symbolism leads us far beyond the dream; it does not belong only to dreams, but is likewise dominant in legend, myth, and saga, in wit and in folklore. It compels us to pursue the inner meaning of the dream in these productions. But we must acknowledge that symbolism is not a result of the dream work, but is a peculiarity probably of our unconscious thinking, which furnishes ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... staunchest admirers, in retrospect we can see now that no one believed more than we that he did it strictly for the dollar. It is likely there was always a small corps of starry-eyed adolescents who found the whole improbable saga entirely believable, or at least half believed it might be partly true. The attitude of the rest of us ranged from a patronizing disparagement that we thought was expected of us, through grudging admiration, to ...
— It's a Small Solar System • Allan Howard

... was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No Saga taught thee! Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse; For this I ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... modern poets, Mr. William Morris is the one best qualified by nature and by art to translate for us the marvellous epic of the wanderings of Odysseus. For he is our only true story-singer since Chaucer; if he is a Socialist, he is also a Saga-man; and there was a time when he was never wearied of telling us strange legends of gods and men, wonderful tales of chivalry and romance. Master as he is of decorative and descriptive verse, he has all the Greek's joy in the visible aspect of things, all the Greek's sense of delicate and delightful ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... and I here in the West, Under our newer skies purple and pleasant: Who shall decide which is better, attest, Saga or peasant? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... discovers the great truth that, however black things may be, there is always a way out for a man if he is bold enough to take it, even though that way leads through fire and revolution. The last part of the book, where the hero discovers his courage, is a kind of saga. We leave him in the end at peace with his own soul, wondering dimly about the hereafter, having proved his manhood, and ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... the record of that life is by a still greater interval in advance of all the common modes of narrative then known to the more fortunate or more luxurious parts of Europe. The conventional form of the Saga has none of the common medieval restrictions of view. It is accepted at once by modern readers without deduction or apology on the score of antique fashion, because it is in essentials the form with which modern readers are acquainted in modern story-telling; and more especially ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... (Scribners, New York, 1914) and is another good story of the Sepoy Rebellion. In January and July 1914, appeared two stories about the Princess Yasmini, a character that he used extensively in later novels—as the lead, with King, with Ranjoor Singh, and in the Jimgrim-Ramsden saga. The first of his sagas (Dick Anthony of Arran) was never published in book form. This series included eight novelettes and short novels, enough to fill four or five books, and appeared in successive issues of Adventure Magazine, beginning August 1914. These were very good adventure tales of a ...
— Materials Toward A Bibliography Of The Works Of Talbot Mundy • Bradford M. Day, Editor

... Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter vii, "The Saga of a Viking"; chapter viii, "Alfred the Great"; chapter ix, "William the Conqueror and the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... shambling gait of the born hill-climber that eats up the miles. For this emergency he had been schooled years back when he sat by a wood fire in a cabin of split boards and listened to his crippled-up father reciting the saga of the feud, with the tally of this one killed and that one maimed; for this he had been schooled when he practised with rifle and revolver until, even as a boy, his aim had become as near an infallible thing as anything human gets ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... five chapters, is of great value. A new edition, revised by Prof. Rasmus Anderson, was published in London in 1889. Another charming book is Sir George Dasent's Story of Burnt Njal, Edinburgh, 1861, 2 vols., translated from the Njals Saga. Both the saga itself and the translator's learned introduction give an admirable description of life in Iceland at the end of the tenth century, the time when the voyages to America were made. It is a very instructive chapter ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... Caithness and Sutherland Records.} London Viking Club. Old Lore Miscellany. } 29 Ashburnham Viking Society. Saga ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray

... and contains two thousand four hundred and fifty-nine stanzas of four lines each. The action covers a period of about thirty years and is based on materials taken from the Frankish, Burgundian, Austro-Gothic, and Hunnish saga cycles. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... that the house was built by one Hund, 'a maker of runes' (one of the old saga writers, no doubt), who lived here with his young wife. All went peacefully until, unfortunately for him, a certain maiden stationed at a neighbouring saeter grew ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... mail. (4) "Noisy ogre's namesake," an allusion to the name of Skarp hedinn's axe, "the ogress of war." (5) Twelve ells, about twenty-four feet (the Norse ell being something more than two feet), a good jump, but not beyond the power of man. Comp. "Orkn. Saga", ch. 113, new ed., vol. i., 457, where Earl Harold leaps nine ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... may we see that thou art a woman, for thou usest many words. To what end? If Thorolf is slain, then is his saga over. ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen

... details with the version of the Book of Leinster. Such a record is unique in the history of oral tradition, outside Ireland, where, however, it is quite a customary experience in the study of the Finn-saga. It is now recognised that Macpherson had, or could have had, ample material for his rechauffe of the Finn or "Fingal" saga. His "Darthula" is a similar cobbling of our present story. I leave to Celtic specialists the task of settling the exact relations of these various texts. I content myself ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... the loom Olafsson saw with the description in the Nial Saga, he concludes this sort of loom was in use A.D. 1014, in ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth

... knighted in 1876. His principal writings have to do with Scandinavian language, mythology, and folk-lore, and include an Icelandic Grammar, The Prose or Younger Edda (1842), Popular Tales from the Norse (1859), The Saga of Burnt Njal (1861), and The Story of Gisli the Outlaw (1866), mostly translated from the Norwegian of Asbjoernsen. He also translated the Orkney and Hacon Sagas for the Rolls Series, and wrote four novels, Annals of an Eventful Life, Three to One, Half a Life, and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... idolised Robin Hood will be found to have been men who were themselves in revolt against oppressive law, or who, finding law powerless to prevent tyranny, glorified the lawless punishment of wrongs and the bold denunciation of perverted justice. The warriors who listened to the saga of Beowulf looked on physical prowess as the best of all heroic qualities, and the Normans who admired Roland saw in him the ideal of feudal loyalty. To every age, and to every nation, there is a peculiar ideal of heroism, and in the popular ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... into the officers, some spirit into the troops. But he had no one to encourage and support him. Such counselors as he had were all for flight. He stepped into his motor-car, set off for Cintra and Mafra, and is henceforth out of the saga. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... to think that it is in English literature we possess the first sketch of that mighty saga [the Volsunga Saga Wlsinges gewin] which has for so many centuries engaged all the arts, and at last in the hands of Wagner the art of music."—Br., p. 63. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... having for subjects wonderful adventures, and the praise of heroism and beauty; but from this resemblance it cannot be concluded that the Anglo-Norman poets have borrowed their fictions from the Norman skalds. We have not a single proof that they were acquainted with any saga or any skaldic composition. All remembrance of their national poetry was as completely obliterated among the posterity of the Northmen in France, as if, in traversing the ocean, they had drank of the water of Lethe. This total ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... invasion. Parts of the material, such as the dragon-fights, are purely mythical. They relate to Beowa, a superman, of whom many legends were told by Scandinavian minstrels. The Grendel legend, for example, appears in the Icelandic saga of Gretti, who slays the dragon Glam. Other parts of Beowulf are old battle songs; and still others, relating to King Hygelac and his nephew, have some historical foundation. So little is known about the epic that one cannot safely make any positive statement as to its origin. ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... number. One was a foreign prince from the North. One was a foreign prince from the South: and one was a native hero of the land. Harald Hardrada, the strongest and the most chivalric of the kings of Norway, was the first; [See in Snerre the Saga of Harald Hardrada.] Duke William of Normandy was the second; and the Saxon Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, was the third. Never was a nobler prize sought by nobler champions, or striven for more gallantly. ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... have in arrangement!" he cried. "Scott, Tolstoi, Meredith, an odd volume of a Saga library, an odd volume of the Corpus Boreale, some Irish reprints, Stevenson's poems, Virgil and the Pilgrim's Progress, and a French Gazetteer of Mountains wedged above them. And then an odd Badminton volume, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... Macbeth when, as a matter of fact, I don't. I am very fond of simple epics and of ballad poetry, from the Nibelungenlied and the Roland song through "Chevy Chase" and "Patrick Spens" and "Twa Corbies" to Scott's poems and Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf" and "Othere." On the other hand, I don't care to read dramas as a rule; I cannot read them with enjoyment unless they appeal to me very strongly. They must almost be AEschylus or Euripides, Goethe or Moliere, in order that I may not feel after finishing them ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... dust', see Arago, in the 'Annuaire' for 1832, p. 254. I haave very recently endeavored to show, in another work ('Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 408). how the Scythian saga of the sacred gold, which fell burning from heaven, and remained in the possession of the Golden Horde of the Paralat¾ (Herod., iv., 5-7), probably originated in the vague recollection of the fall of an a‘rolite. The ancients had also some ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... "Fridthjof's Saga," has been printed in Sweden in many large editions and in almost every possible style. It has been illustrated, and it has been set to music. It has been translated into nearly all the modern European languages. Moreover ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... contained in this collection, with the possible exception of the short extract from the Glenn Masain "Deirdre," is in the actual form that we have it, older than the Norman Conquest of Ireland, older than the Norse Sagas. Its manuscript authority is older than that of the Volsunga Saga; its present form precedes the birth of Chretien de Troyes, the first considerable name in French literature, and, in a form not much unlike that in which we have it, it is probably centuries older than its actual manuscript date. The whole thing stands at the very beginning of the ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... this-a-way," began Tom Osby, the morning after Curly's osteopathic horse saga; "I've got to go on up to Vegas after a load of stuff, and I'll be gone a couple of weeks. Now, you know, from what we heard down at Sky Top about this railroad, a heap of things can happen in two weeks. Them fellers ain't showin' their hands any, but for all we know their ingineers ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... Siegfried, the noble child, That song-and-saga wonder, Who, when his fabled sword was forged, His anvil cleft ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... it, that poor thing of mine— Old as a saga, young as the year— Drank in the similes (flattering wine!), Then gave her verdict, "You are a dear; Surely no girl ever had such a song Written for her; I will treasure it long; It's so original—clever—and strong; How could you know ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton

... of thy Vinland, The youngest of the world's high peers, O land of steel, and song, and saga, To ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... a chant the saga-singer's tale of the king killing all the colts save one that it might have the nursing of the twelve. His eye sparkled and glowed; his colour mounted; his soul was so stirred with the story that his spirit could fill the gaps where his memory failed. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... capsizes, and she'll burst long before she'll carry away." So they ran before it largely till the bows were pressed right under, and it was no human poser that saved the gybe. They went tearing and foaming before it, singing a Saga as befitted the place and time. For it was their habit to sing in every place its proper song—in Italy a Ritornella, in Spain a Segeduilla, in Provence a Pastourou, in Sussex a Glee, but an the great North Sea a Saga. And they rolled at last into Orford ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... spirits, revelling in arrangements and directions. But the wind was taken out of his sails by the two young men, who were engaged in enacting a bewildering kind of drama, a saga, of which the venerable Mr. Redmayne appeared to be the hero. Guthrie, who was in almost overpowering spirits, took the part of Mr. Redmayne, whom he imitated with amazing fidelity. He had become, it seemed, a man of low and degrading tastes—'Erb ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... him; Bill sat with almost closed eyes, glorying in the saga of small-town life; Saxton and Gilson did not conceal ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... back. It was like a silent scene on a stage. The snow-white clearing, with long-drawn tracks across it where the snow-shoes had passed, the still trees, the brilliant sun, and the blue depths of the forest behind; while Paul, like the hero of some grim Arctic saga, a huge fur-clad Northern giant, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... wept, exhausted, broken-hearted weeping it was. And Prosper's face was drawn by pity of her. That story of her life and love, it was a sort of saga, something as moving as an old ballad most beautifully sung. He half-guessed then that she had genius; at least, he admitted that it was something more than just her beauty and her sorrow that so greatly stirred ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... struck our port side, and carried away a part of our bulwarks, swamping our decks with a huge mass of water; this time nearly washing overboard all of us who were on deck. Looking at the havoc the wave had wrought, I remembered the saga which tells of the storm the celebrated Viking Fridthjof encountered at ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... by some Skrellings, and in 1867, a tomb was exhumed, bearing a runic inscription, and containing bones, and some articles of the toilet, which are now preserved in the museum at Washington. This discovery was made at the exact spot indicated in the Saga which related these events, and which was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... wholly impossible collection of animals met by that worthy family as they ambled inland from the wreck. Even in poetry it was the relation of adventures that most appealed to me as a boy. At a pretty early age I began to read certain books of poetry, notably Longfellow's poem, "The Saga of King Olaf," which absorbed me. This introduced me to Scandinavian literature; and I have never lost my interest in and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Saga, you mean. He laughed only at the end, I think, when the great roof-beam burned through and the hall fell in. But my castle tumbled about my ears in the beginning, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. Que voulez-vous? Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... a song of beauty, sung of old, Or saga of the dead heroic days, And not a blossom laughing by the ways, Or wind of April blowing on the wold But in my heart shall have the power to stir The shy communion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... the unpathwayed seas, Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands The first rune in the Saga of the West. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... I have left the Saga era of the North untouched, I would say that I have preferred to deal here only with downright historic figures. For valuable aid rendered in insuring accuracy I am indebted to the services of Dr. P.A. Rydberg, Dr. J. Emile Blomen, Gustaf ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... distribution of the legend, and the variety of forms in which it appears, make it difficult to know where we must seek its origin. The northern version is in many respects older and simpler in form than the German, but still it is probable that Norway was not the home of the saga, but that it took its rise in Germany along the banks of the Rhine among the ancient tribe of the Franks, as is shown by the many geographical names that are reminiscent of the characters of the story, such as a Siegfried "spring" in ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... search for the lost hero: note too how the mass of Odysseus' seafaring adventures is condensed into a reported speech—a traveller's tale at the court of Alcinoues. Virgil borrowed this trick, you remember; and I dare to swear that had it fallen to Homer to attempt the impossible saga of Nelson's pursuit after Villeneuve he would have achieved it triumphantly—by means of a tale told in the first person by a survivor to Lady Hamilton. Note, again, how boldly (being free to deal with an itinerary of which his audience knew ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... Nibelungen Ring bears some resemblance to the ancient German epic, it is a wholly independent composition and was derived from various old songs and sagas, which the dramatist wove into one great harmonious story. The principal source was the Volsunga Saga, while lesser parts were taken from the Elder Edda and the Younger Edda, and others from the Nibelungen Lied, the Ecklenlied, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... a frank critic, "hates the very name of a Saga." The general reader, in that case, is to be pitied, and, if possible, converted. But, just as Pascal admits that the sceptic can only become religious by living as if he were religious—by stupefying ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... plots of not only AEschylus but also Sophocles and Euripides, and a host of other writers whose plays are lost to us, are taken. The new wine that was poured into the old bottles of the dromena at the Spring Festival was the heroic saga. We know as an historical fact, the name of the man who was mainly responsible for this inpouring—the great democratic tyrant Peisistratos. We must look for a moment at what Peisistratos found, and then pass to what ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... of a king did not yet exist, and while treason to the kin was punished by death, the slaying of a king could be recouped by the payment of compensation: a king simply was valued so much more than a freeman.(11) And when King Knu (or Canute) had killed one man of his own schola, the saga represents him convoking his comrades to a thing where he stood on his knees imploring pardon. He was pardoned, but not till he had agreed to pay nine times the regular composition, of which one-third ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... myths and folk-lore interpret? And what are the interpretations? This is a vast question and can be answered only briefly with the full consciousness that there is much lumping of dissimilar material with resulting injustices and superficiality. Also there is no attempt to use the words "myth," "saga" and "folk-lore" in technical senses.[A] I have merely taken the dominant characteristic of any piece of ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... assassinations, with its code of honour making vengeance a pious duty, its tariff of blood money, and its council for adjusting civil and criminal wrongs, has a close resemblance to everyday life among the free Afghan tribes beyond the North-West Frontier of India. But the Saga writers flourished, I understand, when this state of things had passed or was passing away; while the Afghans are still a rude illiterate folk who have only songs, recited by the professional bards. The best collection of these popular ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... in William's feat of shooting the apple from his son's head. This is inevitably associated with the legend of William Tell, which is told in the White Book of Obwalden, written about 1470; but similar stories can be found in the Icelandic Saga of Dietrich of Bern (about 1250) and in Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote his Danish History about the year 1200. Three or four other versions of the story are to be found in German and Scandinavian literature before the date of our ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick

... the Norwegians, as early as the ninth century, discovered a great tract of land to the west of Iceland, which they called Grand Iceland; but this has been pronounced a fabulous tradition. The most plausible account is one given by Snorro Sturleson, in his Saga or Chronicle of King Olaus. According to this writer, one Biorn of Iceland, sailing to Greenland in search of his father, from whom he had been separated by a storm, was driven by tempestuous weather far to the southwest, until he came in sight of a low country, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... think of this?" I said one evening, as soon as I understood the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could expostulate read him the whole of "The Saga of King Olaf!" ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... in human institutions, in the temperament of races, and in the creations of ideal art; but only in the last is it immortal. Custom and law are for an age: race after race is pushed to the sea, and dies; only epic and saga and psalm have one date with man, one destiny with the breath of his lips, one silence at the last with them. Least of all does the past survive in the living memories of men. Here and there the earth cherishes a coin or a statue, the desert embalms some solitary city, a few leagues of rainless air ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... shout, The ships swing about. The yards are all hoisted, The sails flutter out." The Saga of King Olaf. ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... collaborator with the learned historian, Erik Gustaf Geijer, in the great collection of Swedish folk-songs, Svenske folkirsor fran forntiden, 3 vols. (Stockholm, 1814-1816). He published also translations of the Samunder Edda and Herwara-Saga, and a history of Sweden to Charles XII. (of which a German translation was published in 1842), as well ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... point introduces one of those quaint sagas, which, however mythical in themselves, are true enough to the peculiar mode of thought of the Mongols to make them very instructive. The saga runs thus: ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... the maiden knight, Galahad, the son of the great Launcelot, who in the romances had taken the place of Modred in Geoffrey's history, as the paramour of Queen Guenever. In like manner the love-story of Tristan and Isolde was joined by other romancers to the Arthur-Saga. This came probably from Brittany or Cornwall. Thus there grew up a great epic cycle of Arthurian romance, with a fixed shape and a unity and vitality which have prolonged it to our own day and rendered it capable of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... came to the booth of Snorri Godi how Thorgils was slain. Snorri said, "You must be mistaken; it must be that Thorgils Hallason has slain some one." The man replied, "Why, the head flew off his trunk." "Then perhaps it is time," said Snorri. This manslaughter was peacefully atoned, as is told in the Saga of ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... remains but one explanation. The various bodies of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier or later, as they came into the island with the various races to which they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Finn Saga would indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him henceforth, as the ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... charmed sword, and buried both its edges in the rock; but the dwarfs escaped into their recesses.[A] This enchanted sword emitted rays like the sun, dazzling all against whom it was brandished; it divided steel like water, and was never unsheathed without slaying a man—Hervarar Saga, p. 9. Similar to this was the enchanted sword, Skoffhung, which was taken by a pirate out of the tomb of a Norwegian monarch. Many such tales are narrated in the Sagas; but the most distinct account of the -duergar, or elves, and their ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... of Etzel or Attila. To say nothing of the probability of anachronism, geographical conditions are not a little outraged in the adoption of this incident, but the question arose who was to worst the mighty Hagen, whose sombre figure dominates in its gloomy grandeur the latter part of the saga. It would not do for any Hunnish champion to vie successfully with the Burgundian hero, but it would be no disgrace for him to be beaten by Dietrich, the greatest champion of antiquity, who, in fact, is ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... in the East and I here in the West, Under our newer skies purple and pleasant: Who shall decide which is better—attest, Saga or peasant? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the goddesses? Har answered: Frigg is the first; she possesses the right lordly dwelling which is called Fensaler. The second is Saga, who dwells in Sokvabek, and this is a large dwelling. The third is Eir, who is the best leech. The fourth is Gefjun, who is a may, and those who die maids become her hand-maidens. The fifth is Fulla, ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre

... generations a tale among humble folk in England, who knew nothing of the deeds of the King's armies. By cottage fires they wove stories about it and made simple songs, the echo of which may still be traced by curious scholars. There is something of it in the great saga of Robin Hood, and long after the fens were drained women hushed their babies with snatches about the Crane and the Falcon, and fairy tales of a certain John of the Shaws, who became one with Jack the Giant-killer and all the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... pieces, Halbert and Hob reads like a fragment from some Scandinavian saga telling of the life of forlorn and monstrous creatures, cave-dwellers, who are less men than beasts. Yet father and son are indeed men; the remorse which checks the last outrage against paternity is the touch of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will find the poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did the German Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers long before that. And for the same thing sighed the early prophets and the philosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts, the world has been getting worse and worse ever since it was created. All I can say is that it must have been a remarkably delightful ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... valiant in war, but they held that a lie was not justifiable under any pressure of an emergency. Their Valhalla heaven was the home of those who had fought bravely; but there was no place for liars in it. A fine illustration of their conception of the unvarying duty of truthfulness is given in the saga of Fridthjof. Fridthjof, heroic son of Thorstein, loved Ingeborg, daughter of his father's friend, King Bele. Ingeborg's brother Helge, successor to his father's throne, opposed the match, and shut her up within the sacred ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull

... laid aside the instrument, saying: "Ah, how bold! I did not know I was among proficients," and continued, "From olden time the soh-koto was peculiarly adopted by female musicians. The fifth daughter of the Emperor Saga, from whom she had received the secret, was a celebrated performer, but no one of equal skill succeeded her. Of course there are several players, but these merely strike or strum on the instrument; but in this ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... the din and clash of shouting and of steel rose the voice of Sigvat the saga-man, or song-man of the young viking, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... explorers let us remind ourselves of the old saga so graphic in its description of their ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... impress upon the Bagobo mythical romance. Against a Malay background, and blended with native pagan elements, are presented chains of episodes, characteristic personalities, methods for securing a magical control of the situation, that suggest vividly parallel literary forms in the Sanscrit saga. Still more, one is conscious of a prevailing Indian atmosphere, that may sometimes elude analysis, yet none the less fails not to make itself felt. But as to the line of ethnic contacts which has transfused this peculiar literary quality into Malay myth,—whether it is to be traced solely to the ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... lies when they said that he first entrapped the Danes with his song and then overcame them with his armies, but we know very well that it is not of us that such lies are told. There may be myths clustering about each of our personalities; local saga-men and chroniclers have very likely circulated the story that we are addicted to drink, or that we ferociously ill-use our wives. But they do not commonly lie to the effect that we have shed our blood to save all the ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... observes that one is a middle-aged man, well-dressed, with a lined and sunken face; the other a mere boy who is chiefly eyes and overcoat. Disguising well the tedium begotten by many repetitions, the server of drinks begins to chant the sanitary saga of Santone. "Rather a moist night, gentlemen, for our town. A little fog from our river, but ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... partly veiled, lost in profound revery, sits a female form, in whose lofty, intellectual features we recognise the impersonation of the traditional source of all early poetry; it is the impersonation of the Saga or Myth. She recalls those sybils who came from Asia to Greece to proclaim the oracles of the gods. In her hand the helm is still resting, in token that her guidance has brought Homer to Greece. A group of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... alcohol and kept out at the lone ranch cabin all that winter. In the spring it was sent down to Salt Lake City and buried there. As that was a prominent point on the overland trail, the tourists did the rest. The saga of Slade as a bad ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough



Words linked to "Saga" :   adventure story, heroic tale



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