Oral Tradition and Saga Writing deals with the cultural and intellectual background of Icelandic saga writing.
Hermann Pálsson, in this succinct study, draws a picture of the oral and written material available to the authors of the early Islendinga sögur, and lists both all the oral informants mentioned in early texts as well as their family ties with the heroes of the saga age and the Icelandic chieftains of the high Middle Ages.
He also investigates the influences of these writers, which ranged from family lore to mythological models and quotes numerous passages illucidating the mental processes culminating in one of world literatures most famous genres.