Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/10

iv held the supreme government of the country. It is doing good service in the fields of literature to place the English reader in a position to judge for himself of the influence which the social arrangements and spirit of these Northmen may have had on the national character, and free institutions which have grown up among us from elements planted by them, or by the Anglo-Saxons. This translation of Snorro Sturleson's Chronicle of the Kings of Norway will place the English reader in this position. He will see what sort of people these Northmen were who conquered and colonised the kingdoms of Northumberland, East Anglia, and other districts, equal to one third of all England at that time, and who lived under their own laws in that portion of England; and he will see what their institutions and social spirit were at home, whether these bear any analogy to what sprung up in England afterwards, and whether to them or to the Anglo-Saxon race we are most indebted for our national character and free constitution of government. The translator of Snorro Sturleson's Chronicle hopes, too, that his labour will be of good service in the fields of literature, by bringing before the English public a work of great literary merit,—one which the poet, or the reader for amusement, may place in his library, as well as the antiquary and reader of English history.

The translator can lay claim to no considerable knowledge of or great familiarity with the Icelandic. To get at the meaning and spirit of the text in any way was his main object; and where he met difficulties, which generally lay only in his own ignorance, he