Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/16

 other personages, and of the events in which they have been engaged in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, England, and other countries, from those early ages in which mythology and history are undistinguishably blended together, down to the period nearly of Snorro Sturleson's own birth, to 1178. Snorro begins with Odin and the half-fabulous tales of the Yngling dynasty, and, showing more judgment than many of the modern Saga scholars and antiquaries, passes rapidly over these as an unavoidable introduction to authentic historical times and narratives. From the middle of the 9th century, from Halfdan the Black, who reigned from about the year 841 to about 863, down to Magnus Erlingsson, who reigned from about 1162 to 1184, he gives a continuous narrative of events and incidents in public and private life, very descriptive and characteristic of the men and manners of those times,—of the deeds of bold and bloody sea-kings,—of their cruises, of their forays, of their adventures, battles, conquests in foreign lands,—and of their home fireside lives also; and he gives, every now and then, very graphic delineations of the domestic manners, way of thinking, acting, and living in those ages; very striking traits of a semi-barbarous state of mind, in which rapacity, cruelty, and bloody ferocious doings, are not unfrequently lightened up by a ray of high and generous feeling; and he gives too, every now and then, very natural touches of character, and scenes of human action, and of the working of the human mind, which are, in truth, highly dramatic. In rapid narrative of the stirring events of the wild Viking life,—of its vicissitudes, adventures, and exploits,—in extraordinary yet not improbable incidents and changes in the career of individuals,—in touches true to nature,—and in the admirable management of his story, in which episodes, apparently the most unconnected with his subject, come in by and by, at the