Strengleikar (English:
Stringed Instruments) is a collection of twenty-one
Old Norse prose tales based on the
Old French Lais of
Marie de France. It is one of the literary works commissioned by King
Haakon IV of Norway (r. 1217-1263) for the
Norwegian court, and is counted among the Old Norse
Chivalric sagas. The collection is anonymous. It has been attributed to
Brother Robert, a cleric who adapted several French works into Norse under Haakon, the best known of which is
Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar (a Norse version of the
Tristan and Iseult legend), but there is also reason to think that the collection may be a gathering of the work of several different translators. Unlike many medieval translations, the
Strengleikar are generally extremely close in sense to the Old French originals; the text which differs most is
Milun, which is abridged to half its original length.