 Saxo's history of the Danes was compiled from sources that are of questionable historical value but were to him the only ones extant.He drew on oral tales of the Icelanders, ancient volumes, letters carved on rocks and stone, and the statements of his patron Absalon concerning the history of which the Archbishop had been a part.Saxo's work was not strictly a history or a simple record of old tales, rather it was, in the parlance of Friis-Jensen, "a product of Saxo's own mind and times,"; Westergaard writes that Saxo combines the history and mythology of the heroic age of Denmark and reworks it into his own story that exemplifies the past of the Danes.