saga

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A prose narrative usually written in Iceland between 1120 and 1400, dealing with the families that first settled Iceland and their descendants, with the histories of the kings of Norway, and with the myths and legends of early Germanic gods and heroes.
2. n. A modern prose narrative that resembles a saga.
3. n. A long detailed report: recounted the saga of their family problems.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An ancient Scandinavian legend or tradition of considerable length, relating either mythical or historical events; a tale; a history: as, the Völsunga saga; the Knytlinga saga.

Wiktionary

1. n. An Old Norse (Icelandic) prose narrative, especially one dealing with family or social histories and legends
2. n. Something with the qualities of such a saga; an epic, a long story.
3. n. saga.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A Scandinavian legend, or heroic or mythic tradition, among the Norsemen and kindred people; a northern European popular historical or religious tale of olden time.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a narrative telling the adventures of a hero or a family; originally (12th to 14th centuries) a story of the families that settled Iceland and their descendants but now any prose narrative that resembles such an account