Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/50

32 ences, and of what they had heard abroad, have been listened to by their attentive hearers, of whom many knew the persons and circumstances described! The new reports were faithfully stored away in their memories, and thus the skalds contributed much to increase the historical materials which gradually were collected and embodied in the written sagas.

In another respect, also, the skalds are entitled to our gratitude. Without their aid the major part of that which the songs and sagas tell of the real antiquities of the North would scarcely have come down to us. The art of the skalds was a very difficult one, even though it could be practised with considerable success by persons who were not born poets, and if the best effect was to be produced, a vast amount of special education was necessary. Now it fortunately so happened that the principal part of their education consisted in a knowledge of the old mythology, and of the old heroic traditions. Among the many rules which fettered the poetry in the skaldic age was one which called for the use of artificial paraphrases, and the material for these was to a great extent taken from the old heathen sagas and songs.

Christianity wrought no change in this respect, for the skaldic art was so to speak perfectly developed, before the former was introduced, and had to that degree become a part of the whole culture of the people, that the idea of giving it up or changing its form and character could not be thought of. Hence we see the skalds to the very last applying metaphors and figures borrowed from heathen fields of thought, even to Christian productions, and it was, therefore, absolutely necessary to preserve the memory of the heathen traditions. It is not at all improbable that the Elder Edda was collected in part for this purpose, and of the Younger Edda, which furnishes important contributions especially to the knowledge of mythology, this can be affirmed with certainty.

The Younger Edda, or Snorre's Edda (Edda Snorra Sturlasonar), as it is also called, because its authorship has been ascribed to Snorre Sturlason, is a work composed at different