saga

saga - n., a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage or family; a modern prose narrative that resembles a saga, esp. a novel in which the members or generations of a family or social group are chronicled in a long and leisurely narrative.


From Old Norse saga, saga, story, cognate with English say -- or more properly, with Old English sagu, a saying. Used in Icelandic in derivative forms to also mean history.

---L.