narrator were above those of others. To tell a story truthfully was
what was looked for from all men in those days; but to tell it properly
and gracefully, and so to clothe the facts in fitting diction, was given
to few, and of those few the Saga teller who first threw Njala into its
present shape, was one of the first and foremost.

With the change of faith and conversion of the Icelanders to
Christianity, writing, and the materials for writing, first came into
the land, about the year 1000. There is no proof that the earlier or
Runic alphabet, which existed in heathen times, was ever used for any
other purposes than those of simple monumental inscriptions, or of short
legends on weapons or sacrificial vessels, or horns and drinking cups.
But with the Roman alphabet came not only a readier means of expressing
thought, but also a class of men who were wont thus to express
themselves.... Saga after Saga was reduced to writing, and before the
year 1200 it is reckoned that all the pieces of that kind of composition
which relate to the history of Icelanders previous to the introduction
of Christianity had passed from the oral into the written shape. Of all
those Sagas, none were so interesting as Njal, whether as regarded the
length of the story, the number and rank of the chiefs who appeared in
it as actors, and the graphic way in which the tragic tale was told. As
a rounded whole, in which each part is finely and beautifully polished,
in which the two great divisions of the story are kept in perfect
balance and counterpoise, in which each person who appears is left free
to speak in a way which stamps him with a character of his own, while
all unite in working towards a common end, no Saga had such claims on
public attention as Njala, and it is certain none would sooner have been
committed to writing. The latest period, therefore, that we can assign
as the date at which our Saga was moulded into its present shape is the
year 1200....