Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/44

26 Like their kinsmen, the Germans, the inhabitants of the North have doubtless at an early age practised the art of poetry, and given expression to their memories of the past, and to that which moved the hearts of the people, in songs, which we presume were particularly heard in the courts of the kings and in the halls of the nobles. At the dawn of historical times we find the skalds practising their art everywhere in the North. Wherever the "dönsk tunga" was spoken, they were received with great friendship and honor. Many ancient traditions, in regard to which there can be no doubt that they formed the subject of songs in remote prehistoric times, have been rediscovered not only in Iceland, or in Norway, but also in other parts of the North. Thus we have, for instance, distinct evidence that Volsung traditions were known in Sweden, in the deeply interesting pictorial representations of it on two characteristic Swedish runic monuments, which date from the close of the tenth or from the first half of the eleventh century. Many traditions of this kind are also preserved by Saxo in his Chronicle of Denmark, some of which are purely Danish, connected with Danish localities, and found only in that country; while others differ in the manner in which they are related from the form in which they have been recorded in Iceland. But in this connection we must bear in mind, that since many Icelandic manuscripts have doubtless been lost, and as those which we possess frequently have numerous discrepancies, there is a possibility that old traditions, which now are found only in Saxo, or which have been preserved in his chronicle in a special variation, may have been recorded in Iceland in manuscripts which have been lost, and even in the same form in which we read them in Saxo's work. Though it can not be demonstrated with absolute certainty that Saxo knew and used especially old Danish songs, still the probability of this