Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/222

 poetry; and the poorest of these compositions have, in this view, great historical interest. Many of them are, especially in the descriptions and imagery connected with the warfare of those times, highly poetical; and, under any forms of verse or language, the "Hakonarmal," chapter 33. of Hakon the Good's Saga, the "Biarkemal," chapter 220. of Saint Olaf's Saga, and many of the pieces of Sigvat the Scald and others, would he acknowledged as genuine poetry. On examining more closely these pieces of scaldic poetry, it appears, in general, that the second half of the strophe of eight lines, which their rules of versification required as the length of their poetical pieces, is but a repetition of the idea of the first half, and the second two lines hut an echo of the two first. The whole meaning—all that the scald has to say in the strophe, is very often comprehended within the two first lines, the fore line and hack line, which are connected together by the alliterative letters or syllables; and the one idea is expanded, only in other words, over the whole surface of the rest of the strophe of eight lines. The extraordinary metaphors and mythological allusions, the epithets so long-winded and obscure, the never-ending imagery of wolves glutted and ravens feasted hy the deeds of the warriors, arise evidently from the necessity imposed on the scald of finding alliteratives, and conforming to the other strict rules of their versification. The beauty of this artificial construction is lost even upon the best Icelandic scholars of our times; and it appears to have been the only beauty many of these pieces of poetry ever pretended to, for the ideas so expressed are often not in any way poetical. Grundtvig, in his translation into Danish of the Heimskringla, and some German translators of scaldic poems, have cut the loop of this difficulty. They have taken only the most poetical of the pieces of the scalds, and have freely translated,