[1] Kalinke summarises the saga as follows: "The work is a medieval soap opera that commences with the murder of Bevers's father, instigated by Bevers's mother, and carried out by a rival wooer who in turn is killed by Bevers.
The ensuing plot includes enslavement, imprisonment, abductions, separations, childbirth, heathen-Christian military and other encounters - Bevers marries a Muslim princess - and mass conversions.
"[2]Bevis saga survives only in Icelandic manuscripts.
It was also included in Ormsbók, a 14th-century compilation of chivalric sagas, which now only survives in paper copies from the 17th century (Papp.
[1] Kalinke and Mitchell identified the following manuscripts of the saga:[3]