flourished 12th centuryearly 13th century
Danish historian.
Little is known of Saxo's life except that he was from Sjælland, born to a family of warriors, and probably served as clerk to the archbishop of Lund. His 16-volume Gesta Danorum ("Story of the Danes") is the first important work on the history of Denmark and the first Danish contribution to world literature. A panorama of his country's antiquity and traditions, it inspired many 19th-century Danish Romantic poets and was the original source of the story of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet . Saxo's brilliant, ornate Latin earned him the name "Grammaticus" in the 14th century.