Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/58

40 himself a skald, gathered round him the most famous poets of his time, and in his great deeds they found ample materials for their songs. The most celebrated among them are and. From the former we have, besides an important historical-genealogical poem, the so-called "Ynglingatal," which furnished the basis of the Ynglingasaga in Snorre's Heimskringla, also fragments of a mythic drapa called "Haustlöng," which treats of the god Thor. In him we find the preference for obscure metaphors, and also that complicated and heavy versification already fully developed. From the latter, Thorbjorn, we have a few important fragments and some songs on Harald Fairhair's achievements, and on the life at his court. These songs give evidence of genuine poetic talent; one of them is especially noteworthy on account of its poetical arrangement and for breathing a spirit not unlike that of the poems in the Elder Edda. Of still greater importance was, called Skaldapillir (obscurer of skalds), unquestionably one of the most excellent Norwegian skalds, who lived in the time of King Hakon, the foster son of King Athelstane, of England. The poet celebrated Hakon's memory in his lay called Hakonar-mal, one of the finest songs handed down from the past. In it he describes the last battle of the valiant king, his death and reception in Valhal, in glowing yet simple and noble passages. It is composed in the simple form of the old poetry, in which both the Fornyrðalag and Ljoðaháttr alternate in harmony with the thought with splendid effect. In the same simple and elevated style is composed the somewhat older Eiriksmál, which at the request of queen Gunhild was chanted at the funeral of her husband, Erik Bloodaxe, and which Eyvind seems to have taken as a model for his lay on Hakon.