92 No7^way and the Norwegians 



In these translations I have imitated as closely as I 

 could, though necessarily but roughly, the form and 

 cadence of the originals. The peculiarities of the verse 

 consist in the facts that it is not rhymed ; that its 

 cadence is nevertheless not measured by feet, but by 

 beats or accents as in our English rhymed ballad metre 

 of a much later date ; and thirdly, that instead of by 

 rhymes a certain satisfaction is produced to the ear by 

 alliteration. 



This form of verse, no doubt, was in use in Scandi- 

 navia at a pretty early period. It can hardly be, for 

 instance, but that our Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, 

 had for its prototype another poem which was sung in 

 Denmark or Sweden. Some of the Poetry which is 

 classed under the head of Edda Poetry may belong to 

 an age before the Viking expeditions began. But 

 whatever may have existed before, it is quite certain 

 that the writing of this verse amongj the Scandinavians 

 took a great start about the end of that period which 

 we have spoken of as the first or the Great Viking Age. 



The scene of this new development of northern verse 

 was not in any of the Scandinavian countries them- 

 selves, but rather in some one of those settlements which 

 the Vikings made in the British Isles. Nay, we may 

 say, almost for certain, that it had its origin either in 

 the Scottish or Irish settlements. For it was amonir 

 the Norsemen, and not among the Danes, that this new 

 poetry began. We may attribute it in large measure to 

 the contact of the Norsemen with the Celts, who were 

 a poetic race, and had already their bards and poet- 

 asters forming a regular brotherhood among them, and 

 whose verse had a form very closely resembling the 



