Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xliv. ( 1 899), A^^. %. 



II. On the question of Irish Influence on Early 

 Icelandic Literature, illustrated from the Irish 

 MSS. in the Bodleian Library. 



By Winifred Faraday, B.A., 



Late Scholar and Fellow of the Victoria University. 



Communicated hy F, J. Faraday, F.L.S. 



Received and read October 31 st, rSgg. 



The theory of an Irish influence on early Icelandic 

 literature forms such a convenient and obvious explanation 

 of the early maturity of that branch of the Scandinavian 

 race, that there is a general tendency to take it for granted. 

 It would explain not only why the Icelanders alone so 

 early developed the Germanic myths into literary form, 

 but also how their classical literature came to flourish at a 

 time when the work produced by other Germanic races 

 was scanty or experimental. It is argued with some 

 reason that the union of the German, slow to begin and 

 slow to reach maturity, but having the classical qualities 

 which make work enduring, with the Celt, possessing the 

 inventive impulse and every talent except these essential 

 qualities of stability and sense of form, may well have 

 produced the same results in Icelandic as in English 

 literature. There is interest also in the possibility that 

 the Celt, who, however fruitful his legends have proved in 

 other hands, has produced no classical work, should have 

 directly inspired the most magnificent work of the youth 

 of the Germanic race, which has despised its more unstable 

 rival. 



The later champions of Irish influence do not take the 

 line of attributing the whole of classical Norse literature, 



February 2jrd, igoo. 



