Origin of Scandinavian Literature 89 



i'rom the rest of their brother Scandinavians, and to 

 take on the habits and thoughts and speech of their 

 French neighbours. 



It is this Second Viking age which is the great era of 

 naval battles. Most of the Christian nations during the 

 foregone century liad possessed no navies. Our King 

 Alfred was almost the only Christian ruler who had dared 

 to meet the Northmen on their own element. Therefore, 

 during the earlier Viking Age, naval engagements were 

 very rare ; the earlier Viking ships were almost exclu- 

 sively vessels of transport. But when one seafaring 

 nation began to turn its arms against another sea- 

 faring nation, then began the great age of naval battles, 

 such as we find described in the Sagas, and the com- 

 plete Viking war-ship sprang into existence. It is to 

 this age that vessels such as that which lies in the 

 Christiania Museum properly belong. 



It might have been foretold that the effects of this 

 great stir among the people of the north would not be 

 exhausted by their conquests alone, nor by the change 

 in the character of the populations of many countries 

 which those conquests effected. For us the most speak- 

 ing memorial of this age of change and adventure lies 

 in the literature which it created. That is to say, the 

 political effects of this era have been transmuted and 

 absorbed in the passage of ages ; but the remains of the 

 literature which it created or awoke to new life are still 

 with us undimmed by time. 



The Scandinavian literature of the heroic aoe takes 

 two forms, — poetic and prose; each one is very distinct 

 from the other, more so even, I mean, than prose and 

 poetry necessarily are. It is convenient as a distinction 



