Hrólfs saga kraka, the Saga of King Hrólf kraki, is a colourful and dramatic prose account of legendary events in and around Denmark that was composed in Iceland in the later Middle Ages. Characters and plot elements are shared with a number of other texts that survive from medieval Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England, including Beowulf and Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum (Hrólfr kraki himself, for example, corresponds to Hroþulf in Beowulf and Roluo Krake in Saxo, and there are intriguing similarities between Beowulf and Böðvarr Bjarki, one of Hrólfr's champions in the saga). On the basis of comparison with these and other texts the events of the saga may be dated to the late fifth and the …
1377 words
Citation: Phelpstead, Carl. "Hrólfs saga kraka". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13133, accessed 31 October 2024.]