10 Faraday, IrisJi Influence on Icelandic Litcrat7irc. 



Sagas and other historical sources. Professor Bugge and 

 the Corpus Poeticum editors have not proved that Ice- 

 landers learnt to understand the speech of the Irish or 

 Scottish Gaels ; they have not adduced a single instance 

 of the re-appearance of Gaelic legend in Norse literature ; 

 while the theory that the poems were composed by settlers 

 in the Isles, and there heard by Icelanders who carried 

 them home when they returned, is mere hypothesis. No 

 trace of them has been found outside Iceland ; and while 

 we know that the Icelanders were a literary race, furnish- 

 ing most of the skalds to Norway, we have no grounds 

 for attributing literary skill to the island settlers. 



Professor Bugge tries to show^ that one native Irish 

 story influenced the Helgi poems ; this story, the Catli 

 Ruis na Rigr is a late composition of the nth century, 

 itself influenced by the events of the Norse and Danish 

 occupation. Further, none of the peculiar and distinctive 

 elements in the story reappear in Hclgi, such as the 

 resounding of the Three Waves of Ireland and the shields 

 of the Ultonian host, in answer to the moan of Conchobur's 

 shield,'' nor the marching of the army under oak branches*; 

 the so-called influence is shown in ex[)ressions which may 

 indeed be parallel, but which in a large number of cases 

 are simple statements of facts that might have occurred a 

 dozen times in the actual experience of either Irish or 

 Norsemen. Such are : " Sendi aru allvaldr ):a^an''" (the 

 king sent messengers thence), by the Irish " faitte dano 

 fessa ocus techta uad'"' (then were heralds and messengers 

 sent out from him) ; or " fa'San bei'S fengill unz finig 



1 He/gedigtene, pp. 37—55- 



- Calk Kuis na A'/g, ed. Ilogan (Dublin, 1S92). 



" Cath Kuis na Rig, ch. 35. 



* lb., ch. 37. 



'•' Helgi Hundingsbani, I. 21. 



* Cath Ruis na Rig, ch. 8. 



