Namesakes in Icelandic sagas: on a possible mechanism of creation of saga characters

In this paper, using several examples from the Icelandic kings’ sagas, the author tries to figure out how the images of saga characters were formed, namely those with whom the main characters intersected and contacted in the other countries, like the Russian princes, Polish and Swedish kings, Norman and Saxon dukes. Along with the well-known rulers, such as, say, Yaroslav the Wise and Olav Skjotkonung, there appear in the sagas characters whose images are collective and represent a combination of features of different, related and unrelated, historical persons. This kind of transformation of saga characters took place not only during the long oral transmission, but also in the process of creation of a written text. Lack of information in the source material and a desire to introduce - in accordance with the saga tradition - the names and patronyms of their characters, often led to the fact that saga authors “endowed” their heroes with non-existent kinship. Quite often saga authors were misled by the similarity of names of historical figures. Of the two carriers of the same name (grandfather and grandson, father and son, just namesakes), saga authors, as a rule, opted for a later one, who was closer to them in time and could still be heard at the time when sagas were being created (told or written down). They mistakenly rethought the information that had come down to them on the basis of that knowledge which was closer to them chronologically, as if “pressing” the historical time within the framework of their retrospective narration.