Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar

Magnus is said to have immediately commissioned Sturla to write his father's saga.

Sturla rightly regarded Hákon as his most dangerous enemy, for he had steadfastly resisted the king's subjugation of Iceland to Norway, which was accomplished in 1262–1264.

Skúli Bárðarson (d. 1240), Hákon's most dangerous rival for royal power, was the maternal grandfather of Magnús, who supervised the composition of his father's biography, much as King Sverrir is said to have "sat over" Karl Jónsson as the Icelandic abbot wrote Sverrir's biography'.

[2] Sturla makes extensive use of written evidence in this text, in a manner that has been argued to correspond with contemporary European practices.

[3] The saga survives in three main redactions, preserved primarily in the manuscripts Eirspennill, Codex Frisianus, and Flateyjarbók.