90 Norzuay and the Norivegians 



to speak of them respectively as the Edda and the 

 Saga literature ; for these names have long been in use. 

 The rest of the present chapter we will devote to the 

 poetic or Edda literature. 



From times i'ar more remote than we can exactly 

 determine, the ancestors of all the Teutonic races must 

 have fixed upon a certain form of poetry, which differs 

 in most essential particulars from the forms of poetry 

 which the classical nations affected ; whether we take 

 the hexameter metre which Homer made classical, or 

 whether we take those early Latin metres, such as 

 the Saturnian, which went out of fashion among the 

 Eomans when the Greek forms of poetry came in. 

 The poetry of the Teutonic nations had little resem- 

 blance to any of these. On the other hand, there is a 

 remarkable likeness in the form of the earliest German, 

 Emrlish, or Scandinavian verse. 



Let us take, for example, this little fragment, which 

 is one of the very few relics we possess of verse com- 

 posed in Germany while the Germans were still 

 heathens. The fragment is now called ' Hildebrand and 

 Hadubrand.' Its plot seems to be the same as that of 

 the Persian legend of Sohrab and Paistem, which Mr. 

 Matthew Arnold has enshrined in the most beautiful of 

 his poems — a son unwittingly slain by his father. 

 This is the passage where Hildebrand mourns over the 

 son he has slain by his own hand. I mark by italics 

 the letters on which the alliteration hangs : — 



ICelaga nu icaltant got zt-ewurt skihit. 



Ih woUota sumaro enti wiutro .sehstic ur lante, 



Dar man mih eo scerita in folc sceotantero ; 



So man mir at ?*urg enigeru ianun ni gefasta. 



Nu seal mill »/(asat ohiud 6?/ertu liauwan. 



