SOURCE: Kuhn, Hans. “Fabulous Childhoods, Adventures, Incidents: Folktale Patterns within the Saga Structure of Heimskringla.” Fabula: Zeitschrift fur Erzahlforschhung / Journal of Folktale Studies 41, no. 1-2 (2000): 76-86.

In the following essay, Kuhn discusses the role of folktale elements in the narratgive and structure of Heimskringla.

Introduction

At the conference of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research in Innsbruck in 1992, I gave a paper entitled The Supernatural Turned Natural: Icelandic Folk-Tales between Fairytale, Legend and Saga. My point of departure was the observation that the usual genre divisions of folktales seem to be blurred in Iceland. What elsewhere could be labelled ‘supernatural’ might for an Icelander be unusual but still a phenomenon to be reckoned with as part of the natural world, e. g. huldufólk, the invisible people, or a poltergeist in the house. Fairytales, normally taking place in a world of fantasy beyond time and space, were...