Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/49

Rh When the Icelander had arrived at the age of maturity, he longed to travel in foreign lands. As a skald he would then visit foreign kings and other noblemen, where he would receive a most hearty welcome. He became their follower, and was liberally rewarded for the songs which he sang in their praise. The skalds especially resorted to Norway, but they also came to Denmark and Sweden; and, even to England; nay, to wherever the "dönsk tunga" was understood, and they everywhere found a cordial welcome and attentive ears.

These Icelandic skalds became a very significant factor in the literary development of the North during the greater part of the middle ages. For the skald it was necessary to possess a full knowledge of the achievements of the chieftains who were to be celebrated in his songs. Not unfrefrequentlyunfrequently [sic] he had himself had a share in the deeds, but at all events he was obliged to secure reliable information, for, as Are Thorgilsson says in his preface to his Book of Kings (Konanga-bók) in defence of the authority of the poems as sources of history: "We admit that it was customary for the skalds to praise him in whose presence they recited their poems, but no one would venture to ascribe to him to his face the honor of deeds performed, if those present, and especially himself, knew it to be mere falsehood and flattery. This would be mockery and not praise." The most of the sagas accordingly give frequent quotations from the skalds in support of the narration, and doubtless many facts owe their preservation solely to the circumstance that the memory had the aid of such poems. And thus the step from the skald to the saga-teller was a short one. When these Icelanders, who were at once poets and warriors, and who had visited so many foreign lands, returned to their native island again, what stories must they not have had to tell! And with what eagerness must not their recitals of their own experi-