ABSTRACT
Saga is an Icelandic word borrowed into English to designate an Old Norse prose narrative. The oldest sagas are postola sógur (“apostles’ sagas”) and heilagra manna sógur (“saints’ lives”), anonymous translations of Latin biographies of apostles and saints, the earliest from about 1150. Turville-Petre (1953) stressed the importance of these works, over 100 of which are extant, as models for later subgenres.
