Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/128

110 The popular ballads of the North may in one sense be regarded as a continuation of the Old Norse popular poetry, with which we are acquainted from the mythic and heroic songs of the Edda. Even their form points to this old poetry. Notwithstanding the great differences, which can easily be pointed out, and according to which one would, at a first glance, be inclined to regard the metric form and the rhymes generally used during the middle age as essentially different from those employed in the Edda songs and as based on totally different principles; still a closer investigation seems fully to establish the fact that the younger is really a product of the older poetical form. A characteristic feature of the ballad is the strophe, consisting of two or four lines, in which the final rhyme has taken the place of the alliterative rhyme. This and the refrain are the essential facts upon which the theory is based that the Edda lays and the middle-age ballads are not child and parent. But both things also occur in the old poetry, though only sporadically. They can, however, be distinctly pointed out, and thus it is not possible to maintain that these elements in the popular ballad are something entirely new, something that did not exist before. We are compelled to acknowledge that they were developed out of preexisting principles, and that in this evolution the lyrical character predominating in the ballads gave their development an altogether peculiar direction. Already in the skaldic poetry we encounter these elements, although developed in a very different and far less pregnant manner. From a rhythmical point of view both the leading forms which occur in the ballad, the strophe of two and that of four lines with regular accent but irregular syllabic measure, are manifestly built on the same fundamental plan as the strophe of the fornyrðalag and Ljdóðaháttr.

If we consider the poetical style of the ballad we are also forced to admit its near kinship to the poetry of antiquity. The entire treatment of the ballad, in spite of the romantic stamp which is peculiar to it, and which accords with its