Although they have some basis in fact, Viking sagas were primarily designed to provide
entertaining stories for long winter evenings. The stories were passed on and embellished
for several hundred years before they were written down in the 14th century. No character
or activity in the Sagas can be assumed to be 'real' without corroborative evidence and
some of the more unusual activities should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt.
An important sourcebook which I have not yet read is Landnamabok; the history of the
settlers of Iceland.
--- Landnamabok, Ellwood, Thomas (tr):Wales: Llanerch Press
--- "Landnamabok" in Origines Islandicae, Vigfusson, Gudbrand and Powell, F. York (ed.):n.l.:
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.
--- Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements) , Palsson, Hermann; and Edwards, Paul (tr),
University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies, 1972 (Books Demand UMI), ISBN=0835773426 All the sagas on CDROM
Viking Sagas