Between truth and fiction or historiæ mediæ, sive vero falsoque mixtæ

Legendary sagas and their reception in eighteenth-century Denmark

Abstract

This article discusses the scholarly reception of saga literature in eighteenth-century Scandinavia taking as its point of departure the paratextual features of manuscript AM 395 fol., held in the Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavík. It focuses on the additions made by subsequent owners of this manuscript, especially the table of contents which classifies the sagas included in this manuscript into subgroups based on the criteria of their historical value. It suggests who the author of the table of contents was and discusses the possible sources of the classification applied in the table of contents.