Sverris saga is an Icelandic-Norwegian kings‘ saga from the early half of the 13th century that tells of the advent and glory of King Sverrir Sigurðarson (1177–1202), a man from the Faroe Islands who claimed to be the son of King Sigurðr and, unlike other fellow pretenders to the throne, successfully conquered Norway, made his Birchlegs into the dominant political entity, and became the ancestor of the dynasty that ruled Norway until 1387.
The author of Sverris saga is the Icelandic abbot Karl Jónsson who seems to have been summoned to Norway in the 1180s to compose the first half of the saga, narrating King Sverrir‘s rise to power. The prologue to the saga suggests that King Sverrir himself was heavily involved in the enterprise, although scholars have argued that Karl might have
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Citation: Jakobsson, Ármann. "Sverris Saga". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 September 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19644, accessed 21 November 2024.]
