POETRY OE SCALDSHIP, MUSIC AND MENTAL EXERCISES. 



it lasted as long as Yule. The thirteenth day the king said : 

 ' Art thou not curious to know, Icelander, how I like the saga ? ' 

 He answered : ' I arn afraid to hear, lord.' The king said : ' I 

 think it very well told, and nowhere is the truth deviated from ; 

 but who taught thee ? ' He answered : ' I used in Iceland to 

 go to the Thing every summer, and every summer I learnt a 

 part of the saga which was told by Haldor Snorrason.' The 

 king said : ' It is not strange that thou knowest it well, as thou 

 hast learnt it from him, and this saga shall be of use to thee ; 

 thou art welcome to stay with me as long as thou wilt.' He 

 stayed with the king that winter, and in the spring the king 

 gave him some good wares to trade in, and he became a thriving 

 man " (Harald Hardradi, c. 6). 



Saga-telling seems to have taken place also in England. 



" Then Jatvard the good (Edward Confessor), son of King 

 Adalrad (Ethelred), was chosen king in England. He remem- 

 bered the friendship of his father Adalrad with King Olaf 

 Tryggvason. He adopted the custom of telling on the first 

 Easter-day the Saga of King Olaf Tryggvason to his chiefs and 

 hirdmen " (Flateyjarbok, i. 50(5 (Olaf Tryggvason's Saga). 1 



Some poets used poetry as their mode of speech. 



" Sigvat scald had been a long time with King Olaf, who 

 had made him his marshal. Sigvat was not quick of speech 

 in unbound words (prose), but poetry was so easy to him that 

 song flowed from his tongue as fast as he talked ; he had made 

 journeys to Valland, and during these he had come to England 

 and met Knut the powerful " (St. Olaf's Saga (Heimskringla), 

 ch. 170). 



There were two well-known forms of poetry. 



The Drapa, a heroic laudatory poem, generally written in 

 memory of a deceased man, and Flokk, a shorter poem. 



The memory of some men was extraordinary ; the blind 

 scald Stuf recited before King Harald Hardradi in one evening 

 thirty songs ; in answer to a question he said that he knew at 

 least half as many more longer drapas. 



An Icelander, named Stuf, went to Norway, and stayed with 

 a bondi in Upplond. To him came King Harald Hardradi on 

 a visit, and sat talking to Stuf. 



"Then the bondi came into the stofa, and said the king 



4 Cf. FlateyjarbtfK, iii. 



