Abstract
The style of the Old Norse saga genres is sometimes reduced to two elements: litotes, taken as an embodiment of the traditional family sagas, and superlative, symbolizing the main feature of the late chivalric and lying sagas. This scheme is useful only to some extent, as an auxiliary criterion for describing tendencies of the genre development.
However, the litotes-superlative generalization eliminates much of the stylistic variation. Further analyses should be based on more elements; both their functions in the text and their usefulness to the respective ideology should be considered.
Family sagas tend to use litotes and various forms of indirect assessment, with hardly flawless heroes, so the audience has to create their own opinion based on established phrases. The role of the audience of the chivalric and lying sagas is more passive, the heroes' qualities are stated directly, often as a hyperbole, making strict difference between pure good and evil, and guiding the readers to the right values.