The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue naturally contains many elements common to the Icelandic sagas. Gunnlaug, the protagonist of the saga, is skilled at fighting, just as the main characters of the sagas tend to be. Elements such as the protagonist's skill with poetry and blood revenge make an appearance in Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue’s Saga just as they do frequently in such sagas as Njal' s Saga and Egil 's Saga. However, a number of foreign elements make an appearance in Gunnlaug’s Saga as well. These foreign elements are all tied with the love theme, which is a theme not often encountered in the Icelandic sagas. They include a tragic ending, an exceedingly beautiful woman, a love symbol, battle for love and the existence of romantic love. These are all thematic elements found frequently throughout Greek mythological stories in which the central theme is love, and it is very unusual for such elements to appear in the Icelandic sagas. In addition to the Greek thematic elements, Gunnlaug’s Saga contains interesting parallels to events in the Greek myths. In the Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent- Tongue, there exists a significant Greek presence illustrated by the unusual elements of the love theme and events not normally found in the Icelandic sagas.

The central theme of the saga is the love between Gunnlaug and Helga. Although love themes certainly exist in the sagas, they are often not a central theme and do not cause controversy between the characters. Greek mythology, however, usually does centralize love in a story. In Gunnlaug’s Saga, love for the same woman causes a deadly competition between the two leading male characters, leading to the prevailing Greek element of tragedy. The immortalization of love through symbols is a prevailing element in Greek romantic tragedies. After the tragedy, the love between Gunnlaug and Helga continues through the existence of Helga's cloak. Helga is described as an exceedingly beautiful woman; the sagas are usually rather modest when speaking of the beauty of a woman, but Greek myths are often quick to describe their women as the "most beautiful of all." Finally, love in Gunnlaug’s Saga is unlike love in other sagas because the intimacy and infatuation between Gunnlaug and Helga is not only clearly described, but its proportions extend to match the ideals of Greek romantic love.

Love in the Icelandic sagas usually begins with a man's interest in a woman and ends in his betrothal to her within a small period of time, with or without her personal consent. In the context of Greek love stories, this can hardly be called love. The love that develops between Gunnlaug and Helga in Gunnlaug’s Saga is a genuine romantic love that reflects the ideals of Greek love. In Greek mythology, love grows between characters through time and acquaintance; this is such in the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe:  "Living so near, they came to know one another, and a friendship was begun; in time, love grew up between them" (1. 58-60, Pyramus and Thisbe). Similarly, Gunnlaug and Helga "quickly took a liking to each other, as events later bore out" (p. 566, Icelanders). Gunnlaug and Helga's relationship is very deep and meaningful, and the presence of this romantic love shows that the story relates to a typical Greek myth about romantic love.

In addition to the development of love found in this saga, another parallel to romantic love in Greek mythology exists. This is one in which eye imagery is used to describe the extent of intimacy between lovers. In Pyramus and Thisbe, a fault in the wall "had gone unnoticed for long years, and the lovers were the first to find it: nothing can escape a lover's eyes!" (1. 66-68, Pyramus and Thisbe). Like the Greek tragedy, Gunnlaug’s Saga also displays eye imagery in order to show the love between Gunnlaug and Helga: "She often cast her eyes in Gunnlaug's direction, and so it was proved that, as the saying goes, 'if a woman loves a man, her eyes won't hide it"' (p. 583, Icelanders).

In this saga, Helga is described as being "so beautiful that learned men say she is the most beautiful woman there has ever been in Iceland ...it was thought that there was no equal to Helga the Fair" (p. 566, Icelanders). Describing a woman's beauty in such a manner as though she holds a monopoly of beauty over all other women is rare in the sagas. Helga's description mirrors the description of Helen of Troy in the Greek epic the Iliad ; she is described as the most beautiful woman in the world. Women of extreme beauty appear in countless other Greek myths. Thisbe is described as the "fairest beauty of the East" (1. 57-58, Pyramus and Thisbe) and Galatea is described as "lovelier than any woman born" (1. 48-49, Pygmalion and Galatea). The manner of description of Helga's beauty in Gunnlaug’s Saga is no doubt analogous to the manner in which women of Greek mythology are described.

The love story between Gunnlaug and Helga is complicated by the third figure Hrafn. Hrafn represents Gunnlaug's competition since he also asks for Helga's hand in marriage. This unusual battle for love in Gunnlaug’s Saga closely mirrors that in the Iliad , in which many suitors compete for Helen of Troy's hand in marriage. The competition ultimately ends in the Trojan War, a devastating event that ends the lives of many characters who all fight over Helen. Gunnlaug’s Saga also ends devastatingly when both Gunnlaug and Hrafn mutually annihilate each other. In the sagas, characters usually battle to uphold honor or to settle a hostile situation, but never for love. In both Gunnlaug’s Saga and the Iliad, the devastating beauty of the women is explained in the narrative. Christopher Marlowe describes Helen's face as the "face that launched a thousand ships" (Dr. Faustus), which carries the implication of the destruction that results from Helen's beauty. Similarly, Gunnlaug says in a verse that "the woman (Helga) was meant to bring war between men" (p. 587, Icelanders). This further substantiates the parallel between Helen and Helga, and consequently the parallel between the love theme elements in Gunnlaug’s Saga and Greek mythology.

Gunnlaug and Hrafn's love for the same woman ultimately leads to another, arguably the most important element in the story: the tragedy. In Greek literature, the element of tragedy is found everywhere, especially in love stories. It is rare to find a Greek love story whose characters live "happily ever after." Pyramus and Thisbe both die tragically in the end of their tale, Orpheus loses his wife forever to Hades, and Orion is tragically killed by Artemis' jealous brother Apollo. In all of these Greek myths, the tragedy is intimately connected to the love theme. The tragedy that befalls Gunnlaug and Hrafn is a foreign element because it is simply not very common for an Icelandic saga to include a tragic ending in the context of a love theme.

When Gunnlaug dies, his lover Helga keeps his cloak as a memento: "Helga's greatest pleasure was to unfold the cloak which Gunnlaug had given her and stare at it for a long time" (p. 594, Icelanders). This idea of keeping a symbol as a reminder of one's lover is found frequently throughout Greek mythology. In the story of Daphne and Apollo, Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne prevails forever as his love for the tree she became: "Nothing of her was left, except her shining loveliness. Even as a tree, Phoebus (Apollo) loved her" (1. 553-554, Daphne and Apollo ). Similarly, in the story of Artemis and Orion's affair, the jealous Apollo tricks his sister Artemis into killing her own lover Orion. She regrets this so much that she places the hunter's body in the night sky as a constellation, so that a symbol of him always exists to remind her of their love.