viii FOREWORD 



we come to the kingdom of intellect the story is a 

 totally different one. The literary annals of Europe 

 in the nineteenth century give prominence to a 

 series of (notahle_gcandinavian writersWho not only 

 achieved recognition in their own lands but found 

 a place in the competition for leadership in the 

 world at large. The productivity of the Northern 

 mind is not of recent origin, however; the literatures 

 of Scandinavia have a history that leads back into 

 the days of heathen worship more than a thousand 

 years ago. 



Perhaps the most effective illustration of vhat a 

 fruitful intellect can accomplish even when placed 

 in the most unpromising environment is medieval 

 IcelandLJ Along the western and southwestern 

 coasts of the island lay a straggling settlement of 

 Norwegian immigrants whose lives were spent 

 chiefly in a struggle to force the merest subsistence 

 from a niggardly soil. And yet, in the later middle 

 ages and even earlier, there was a literary activity 

 on these Arctic shores which, in output as well as 

 in quality, compares favorably with that of any part 

 of contemporary Europe. {Evidently intellectual 

 greatness bears but slight relation to economic ad- 

 vantages or political powerj What was true of Ice- 

 land was also true of Norway, though in a lesser 

 degree. In that country, too, life was in great 

 measure a continuous struggle with the soil and 

 the sea. Still, even in that land and age, the spirits 



