Where the saga, as this one of the Volsungs is founded upon the
debris of songs and poems, even then very old, tales of
mythological heroes, of men quite removed from the personal
knowledge of the narrator, yet the story is so inwound with the
tradition of his race, is so much a part of his thought-life,
that every actor in it has for him a real existence. At the
feast or gathering, or by the fireside, as men made nets and
women spun, these tales were told over; in their frequent
repetition by men who believed them, though incident or sequence
underwent no change, they would become closer knit, more
coherent, and each an organic whole. Gradually they would take a
regular and accepted form, which would ease the strain upon the
reciter's memory and leave his mind free to adorn the story with
fair devices, that again gave help in the making it easier to
remember, and thus aided in its preservation. After a couple of
generations had rounded and polished the sagas by their telling
and retelling, they were written down for the most part between
1141 and 1220, and so much was their form impressed upon the mind
of the folk, that when learned and literary works appeared, they
were written in the same style; hence we have histories alike of
kingdoms, or families, or miracles, lives of saints, kings, or
bishops in saga-form, as well as subjects that seem at first
sight even less hopeful.
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