Norwegian literature is literature composed in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 or by Norwegian people. The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan

Norse paganism

Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...

 Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the 9th and 10th centuries with poets such as Bragi Boddason

Bragi Boddason

In his Edda Snorri Sturluson quotes many stanzas attributed to Bragi Boddason the old , a court poet who served several Swedish kings, Ragnar Lodbrok, Östen Beli and Björn at Hauge who reigned in the first half of the ninth century...

 and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir

Eyvindr Skáldaspillir

Eyvindr Finnsson skáldaspillir was a 10th century Norwegian skald. He was the court poet of king Hákon the Good and earl Hákon of Hlaðir. His son Hárekr later became a prominent chieftain in Norway.His preserved works are:...

. The arrival of Christianity around the year 1000 brought Norway into contact with European medieval learning, hagiography and history writing. Merged with native oral tradition and Icelandic influence this was to flower into an active period of literature production in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.