“Old Irish Saga”: In Search of a Definition

Abstract

Using the term saga in Russian and European criticism is studied. The term denotes Old Irish epic tales. The relation between oral and written narrative traditions is described. Under investigation is the semantic content of the Russian term with the following: 1. the English (saga) and the German (die Sage) scholarly texts describing the same denotates 2. the Icelandic notion saga having a much wider semantic field in the original tradition (though not in mediaeval studies) 3. the semantic field of the original term scél having tale or story as one of its meanings. The work also states the recursive semantic shift tale, story → an event worthy of making a tale of, a piece of news. The shift is also evident in the semantic evolution of the Russian term istoriya. The conclusion points out the relativity of the frame of the term saga as a mediaeval literature’s genre and the necessity to appeal to a scholar’s intuition.