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 Volsung and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. The first saga is an Icelandic saga representing oral traditions dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries, when Attila the Hun fought on the northern fringes of the Roman Empire; the latter is an Icelandic saga representing 1000 years of oral traditions before 1300 when it was written. An unknown author wrote The Volsung Saga in the 13th century, basing his story on much older Norse poetry. Iceland was colonized by the Vikings around 870-930, who brought the famous laymen of Sigurd and the Volsung to that land. 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 mythical or heroic poetry that developed before the year 1000 in the oral folk culture of ancient Scandinavia. The Icelandic skald is the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon scop. He was a storyteller. The Icelandic material is based on a long oral tradition just like the Anglo-Saxon one. The Skaldi remained in the royal courts of Scandinavia like their southern counterparts. In the Volsung Saga 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 'Bear of the Bear' type of folk tale (especially as we find it in Scandinavia) and the 'fighting myth' . . . .” (286). The “myth of combat” is probably what this saga represents. When Sigurd was born, he was the grandson of Ki......middle of paper......the Celandic sagas, The Song of the Volsung and The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, contain notable similarities between their main characters and The main character of Beowulf; they are simply too surprising to be dismissed as mere coincidences. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chickering, Howell D.. Beowulf A dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. Clark, George. "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 Volsung Saga, 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 G. P. Putnam, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000.