Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/129

Rh much higher degree of lyric character, is in many essential and important respects analogous to that of the old poetry. Precisely as in the latter, the action in the ballad is developed in bold and mighty strokes, and there is manifestly an effort to make it as strong and effective as possible. For this reason only the most important facts are presented, and these are given in short, striking sentences which throw a strong light on the characters and situations described. Whatever does not concern the main action or does not essentially contribute toward awakening the sentiment which the poet wishes to produce is either wholly omitted or merely alluded to. Hence the rapidity with which the theme is developed both in the ballad and in the ancient songs, and hence also the great array of stereotyped phrases for the same thought and the same situation, which the ballad has produced and still continues to employ.

The language in which we possess the ballads is, upon the whole, younger than the songs themselves, since the latter had long been preserved by oral tradition before they were put in writing. None of the collections extant date back beyond the sixteenth century, and but very few of them belong to this period. Not before the seventeenth century was there any extensive work done in recording the old songs, which, up to this time, had lived only on the lips of the people. The natural inference is that these songs, both as regards form, substance and language, had undergone various changes. Of a great number of them we have several widely different versions, so that it is exceedingly difficult to form even an approximately correct idea of the original aspect of the ballad. But however corrupted they may be, they still have retained enough of beauty to charm any one who has taste for poetry. Even their language, despite the barbaric style in which they were put in writing by the noble ladies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, remains full of interest, because it has preserved so many old words and forms which we could not otherwise have known. They frequently, it is