Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/60

42 drowned in the Borgarfjord. Bowed down by grief, the father was about to put an end to his life by hunger, but his daughter persuaded him to give up this purpose, representing to him that no lay would be composed to commemorate his son unless it was done by the father himself. Thus Egil was induced to compose his famous poem, which glows through and through with fierceness and ungovernable defiance, but is at the same time tuned to the tenderest tones of genuine poetry. The sorrow of this poet does not resemble the sorrow of other people. There is no trace of weakness, but it contains a defiant expression of wrath and indignation that his proud race is approaching its extinction, and a bitter regret that he is not able to revenge himself on the gods as he would have done on men, had they caused him this loss. It is not so much paternal love as it is family pride that finds expression in this poem, and intimately connected therewith, and forming as it were the background to the whole poem, we see Egil's consciousness of his strength and his determination to vindicate his own personality. The latter is especially apparent in his words on Odin, whom he looks upon as the real cause of his affliction. Toward this god he assumes the attitude of one freeman toward another. Heretofore their mutual relations have been friendly; henceforth they are hostile; but when he remembers that Odin, how much so ever he has taken from him, still has bestowed on him a choice gift, that of poetry, the most magnificent of all human blessings, "and a mind with which I am able quietly to turn a false friend into an open enemy," he is reconciled; he resolves to live, and proudly takes the high seat again.

Among the Icelandic poets should also be mentioned and  (Serpent-tongue, so called on account of his stinging satire). We have the lives of both told in sagas, in which a large number of their poems are preserved, especially of Kormak's love songs, a kind of poetry which has a very strange look when presented in the rigid versification of the skalds, and loaded down with the meta-