Page:Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples.djvu/9



N preparing this edition I have set before myself a threefold aim; in the first place, to supply a sound, conservative text with all the necessary apparatus, prolegomena, translation, bibliography and notes both critical and exegetical; in the second, to make use of the archaeological method which Professor Ridgeway has applied so brilliantly to the study of the Homeric poems; and in the third, to emphasise the essential unity of the old Teutonic languages in 'matter' as in poetic diction. How far it has been accomplished I cannot say: I can at least plead with Marryat's nurse in Mr Midshipman Easy that my book is 'such a little one.'

It cannot be claimed that the Runic poems are of any great literary value; they are exactly parallel, indeed to the old nursery rhyme:

But they are of certain interest to the student of social history and of supreme importance in the early history of the English language, a fact most unfortunately neglected in two of the most recent and otherwise the best of English historical grammars.

The Anglo-Saxon poem last appeared in England in 1840; the Norwegian is only available in Vigfússon and