Snorri Sturluson

1179–1241

Icelandic chieftain, lawspeaker, poet and historian, the greatest prose writer of the medieval North. His Heimskringla traces the kings of Norway from the legendary Ynglings to 1177 in Samuel Laing's translation, and Egil's saga — the life of the Viking poet Egill Skallagrímsson — is generally believed to be his as well (W. C. Green's translation).