Fornforsögn

Fornforsögn is a Swedish term used to describe the study, collection, and interpretation of ancient tales, legends, and other remnants of Nordic oral and textual tradition. Historically it has been employed for research into sagas, myths, runic inscriptions, toponymy, and related forms of knowledge about the premodern past. The concept sits at the intersection of folklore studies, philology, archaeology, and ethnology, and has often functioned as a bridge between written sources and oral tradition in Nordic antiquarian scholarship.

Scholars of fornforsögn typically analyze literary texts such as sagas and mythological narratives, examine place-names and landscape features, and compare oral traditions with material remains to reconstruct belief systems, rituals, and social structures. The field has also involved cataloguing and interpreting traditional knowledge with the aim of understanding historical identities, collective memory, and cultural continuity in Nordic regions.

In contemporary usage, the term is largely historical and less common in ongoing academic discourse, having been largely superseded by more precise disciplines such as folklore studies, history, archaeology, and runology. Nevertheless, fornforsögn appears in historical bibliographies and in discussions of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship, where it often framed nation-building narratives. Related subjects include Norse mythology, saga literature, runic studies, and toponymy.