THE POLITICAL SAGAS

saga, Orkneyinga and Fcereyinga saga, all dating from the early thirteenth century, are historical works devoted to small settlements in Norway's sphere of influence: Jomsborg, the Orkney Islands, and the Faroe Islands.1 In each saga, Norwegian power proves too much for the young colony, which loses its independence. Despite their similar subject matter and date, these sagas have never been discussed as a group; nor do we have any analysis of their narrative features or their connection to the family which appear so soon afterward. Scholars have instead classed them with the kings' for which they are important sources, even though they are not histories of Norwegian kings.2 The traditional label, by obscuring common elements, dooms the three sagas to be discussed only as historical sources.3 For them I would like to suggest the term sagas, because they are dominated by issues of independence and struggle for leadership in other words, issues of political power. I am not asserting that saga was necessarily a recognized, native Icelandic form, but simply that it is a category or sub-genre useful to us today. The term may help rescue these sagas from neglect and allow us to assess their importance to the history of Icelandic literature, especially the development of the family saga. To some extent, of course, kings' sagas are political too, since they record Norway's changing political power in the North. Some, like Heimskringla, are especially acute in their analyses of Norwegian monarchs and of power struggles within Norway. But the resemblance is only superficial, and the political sagas differ from kings' sagas in three distinct areas: settings, characters, and issues. Political sagas are not placed exclusively in Norway, but in outlying settlements, and they have a wider geographical range than kings' sagas. Most important, major characters in political sagas include not only kings but powerful, ambitious men, often vikings.4 Their conflicts with rulers set up the central questions of political which focus on political power and its users, and on the movement from independence to domination. This analysis of a settlement's relationship to a major power, and of a retainer's to his overlord, takes place in a broad setting and perspective. Scene shifts frequently from one land to another as the sagas progress, and events acquire their meaning in an international context; Norway is