Beowulf and the Icelandic SagasThere are many similarities between the hero of the poem Beowulf and the heroes of the two Icelandic sagas, The Saga of the Volsungs and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. The first saga is an Icelandic saga representing oral traditions dating back to the fourth and fifth centuries, when Attila the Hun fought on the northern edges of the Roman Empire; the latter is an Icelandic saga representing 1000 years of oral traditions predating the 1300s when it was written. An unknown author wrote The Saga of the Volsungs in the 13th century, basing its story on much older Norse poetry. Iceland was settled by the Vikings around 870-930, who brought the famous lay of Sigurd and the Volsungs to these lands. Native Icelandic poets loved the story of Sigurd and the Huns, Goths, Burgundians, with whom this hero interacted. This prose story is based on traditional Norse verse called Eddic poetry, a form of mythic or heroic secular that developed before A.D. 1000 in the oral folk culture of Old Scandinavia. The Icelandic skald is the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon scop. He was a storyteller. Icelandic material draws on a long oral tradition, as does Anglo-Saxon. The skalds stayed in the royal courts of Scandinavia like their southern counterparts. In The Saga of the Volsungs, the hero Sigurd is the one who best corresponds to the hero Beowulf in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. George Clark in "The Hero and Theme" mentions: "The form of Beowulf taken as a whole suggests both the 'Son of the Bear' type of folk tale (especially as we find it in Scandinavia) and the “combat myth”. . . .” (286). The “combat myth” is probably what this saga is. When Sigurd was born, he was the grandson of Ki...... middle of paper ......the Celandic sagas, The Song of the Volsungs and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, contain remarkable similarities between their main characters and The main character of Beowulf; they are simply too astonishing to be dismissed as mere coincidences.BIBLIOGRAPHYChickering, Howell D. Beowulf A bilingual edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. Clark, Gorge. “The hero and the theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. The Saga of the Volsungs, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: Sons of GP Putnam, 1907-1921; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000.