Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/205

 Revieivs. 195

in the spirit and liveliness of the diction, part of which is probably due to Sverri's own manner of speech. To render racy and idiomatic Icelandic of this type into good English is no easy task, but Mr. Sephton has come well out of it, and it is probably as much the fault of modern English as of the translator if the simplicity and directness of the original sometimes disappear in the translation. Even at this cost, we think Mr. Sephton's style preferable to the more literal and archaic manner affected by some translators, an easy method whereby natural Icelandic is con- verted into altogether unnatural English. In very few cases can serious objection be taken to Mr. Sephton's renderings of Ice- landic words : examples are, however, the use of " cabin " for rihn (p. 71), or "a twenty-five cabined vessel" for hdlf\ritugt skip, a ship of fifty oars, or " village " for byg^, an inhabited district (p. 104; it consisted of 100 farms in a dale of consider- able length). The one point in which Mr. Sephton has fallen below his usual level is that in which translators of sagas seem to have agreed to fail, viz. in rendering the verses. There are few of them in Sverris Saga, and these not very remarkable, but they lose even what merit they have when their metrical elaboration disappears ; a primitive type of blank verse is not the natural equivalent of drbttkvsett or hrynhend. In proper names Mr. Seph- ton has adhered in most cases to the original form ; it might have been still better had he retained the modern Icelandic fashion of marking the long vowels with an acute accent, and thus enabled the reader to distinguish between such forms as Sfad, Karl, Hall, and Hdkon, Grdgds, Kdri.

To the saga is appended a translation of the Anecdofon Sverreri in which King Sverri's position is defended against the clergy. Then come the Notes referred to above, and a very full General Index, which seems to contain everything the reader is likely to look for. In the list of " Proverbs," on p. 282, it is hardly correct to insert " The stronger rules the roast," which will not be found on the page referred to. Very useful are the eight maps given at the end of the volume, especially the smaller ones; in the general map of Norway (No. 8) the antique style has rendered many of the names almost indecipherable.

Of matters which have some bearing on folklore, the following may be pointed out. Fairy tales are implied in the words on p. 7 : " His condition most resembled that of royal children in o 2