saga

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The Word of the Day for October 3 is:

saga   \SAH-guh\   noun
     1 : a prose narrative recorded in Iceland in the 12th and 
13th centuries of historic or legendary figures and events of 
the heroic age of Norway and Iceland
     2 : a modern heroic narrative resembling the Icelandic saga
    *3 : a long detailed account 

Example sentence:
     The author's latest book is a saga about four hikers 
trapped atop a snowy mountain for six days.

Did you know?
     The original sagas were prose narratives that were roughly 
analogous to modern historical novels. They were penned in 
Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries and blended fact and 
fiction to tell the tales of famous rulers, legendary heroes, or 
even plain folks. And they were aptly named; "saga" traces back 
to an Old Norse root that means "what is said or told." When 
English speakers borrowed the term back in the early 1700s, they 
used it to describe those first Icelandic stories. Later, "saga" 
was broadened to cover anything that resembled such a story, and 
eventually it was further generalized to cover any long, 
complicated scenario.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.