ABSTRACT
Snorri Sturluson is the first major writer of Old Icelandic prose from whom we have a large body of extant writing, including some poetry, and whose life is, in outline, well documented. Unlike most earlier writers of prose, he was not a cleric, but an aristocratic layman, and nearly all he wrote is on secular topics. The main sources for his life besides annals are the nearly contemporary Íslendinga saga and the saga of Hákon Hákonarson (king of Norway 1217–63), both by Snorri’s nephew Sturla Þórðarson; and the sagas of Guðmundr Arason (bishop at Hólar in northern Iceland 1203–37).
