Old Icelandic in the context of Icelandic saga

The sagas of Icelanders (Icelandic: Íslendingasögur, modern Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈislɛndiŋkaˌsœːɣʏr̥]), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries, during the Saga Age. They were written in Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse, primarily on calfskin. They are the best-known specimens of Icelandic literature.

They are focused on history, especially genealogical and family history. They reflect the struggle and conflict that arose within the societies of the early generations of Icelandic settlers. The Icelandic sagas are valuable and unique historical sources about medieval Scandinavian societies and kingdoms, in particular regarding pre-Christian religion and culture and the heroic age.

The Bjarkey laws (Old Swedish: biærköa rætter, Old Icelandic: bjarkeyjar-rettr, Norwegian: bjarkøretten, Danish: bjærkeret, birkeret) were the laws and privileges of medieval Scandinavian merchant towns (birks).

In Norway, the Bjarkey laws concerned all the merchant towns and also every location with trade, such as fishing villages and market locations. There are two versions, an early and a late Bjarkey law, of which the early one only remains as fragments and concerned the merchant town of Nidaros. The later Bjarkey law was created primarily for the merchant town of Bergen and only the most necessary amendments were made for other merchant towns. The extant manuscripts are very much in agreement, even when they explicitly concern different merchant towns. The late law was accepted at a ting in Bergen in 1276, and is divided into nine sections of which the last one, the Farmannalög is a kind of sea law. This was the first of the revised City Laws of Magnus VI of Norway (1238-1280), known as Magnus Lagabøtes bylov, and integrated into the national Magnus Lagabøtes landslov.

Torgny the Lawspeaker (Old Icelandic: Þorgnýr lögmaðr [ˈθorˌɡnyːr ˈlɵɣˌmɑðr], Swedish: Torgny Lagman) is the name of one of at least three generations of lawspeakers by the name Þorgnýr, who appear in the Heimskringla by the Icelandic scholar and chieftain Snorri Sturluson, and in the less known Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa and Hróa þáttr heimska. They were the lawspeakers of Tiundaland, and all lawspeakers in the Swedish kingdom were their subordinates.

The one who is the most famous is reported by the Heimskringla to have lived in the time of Olof Skötkonung and Olav the Holy, and there is an extensive account on him in this source. This Þorgnýr is held to have historic basis, but Snorri's account is doubted by modern Swedish historians, who lack native Swedish documentation on the Tiundaland lawspeakers of this time.