Page:The Prose Edda (1916 translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur).pdf/129

 "But now one thing must be said to young skalds, to such as yearn to attain to the craft of poesy and to increase their store of figures with traditional metaphors; or to those who crave to acquire the faculty of discerning what is said in hidden phrase: let such an one, then, interpret this book to his instruction and pleasure. Yet one is not so to forget or discredit these traditions as to remove from poesy those ancient metaphors with which it has pleased Chief Skalds to be content; nor, on the other hand, ought Christian men to believe in heathen gods, nor in the truth of these tales otherwise than precisely as one may find here in the beginning of the book.

II. Now you may hear examples of the way in which Chief Skalds have held it becoming to compose, making use of these simple terms and periphrases: as when Arnórr Earls' Skald says that Odin is called Allfather:


 * Now I'll tell men the virtue
 * Of the terrible Jarl;
 * Allfather's Song-Surf streams;
 * Late my sorrows lighten,

Here, moreover, he calls poesy the Song-Surf of Allfather. Hávardr the Halt sang thus:


 * Now is the flight of eagles
 * Over the field; the sailors
 * Of the sea-horses hie them
 * To the Hanged-God's gifts and feasting.