Þáttr

The Þáttr ( pl. þættir; literally Taustrang ) in a figurative sense, a " short story" and is a term for a literary genre in the Norse literature, which is a form of short prose in which mostly the story of an Icelander is told. Another form of Þáttr is the name of a section in the sagas, which has a larger amount of text in content and in which that is a next acting element of the plot.

The þættir appear, alongside the great Icelandic sagas, in other genera of the saga literature as in the King Sagas or for example in the Bischoff sagas ( " Biskupasögur "). Unlike the þættir the Icelandic sagas, in which the actors usually come from noble families, the protagonists come in the þættir the saga regardless traditional short stories from wider society. The transitions, respectively, the generic conformal boundary between Þáttr and Saga are often blurred, recognizable feature is resistant to the Sagas of simpler construction. Þáttr be further significantly determined by a motif of the journey. This motif is characterized such that an Icelander mostly travels to Norway, there stands by different situations or proved itself in challenges and returns to Iceland.