ICELANDIC LITERATURE. Iceland has always borne a high renown for song, but has never produced a poet of the highest order, the qualities which in other lands were most sought for and admired in poetry being in Iceland lavished on the saga, a prose epic, while Icelandic poetry is to be rated very high for the one quality which its authors have ever aimed at—melody of sound. To these generalizations there are few exceptions, though Icelandic literature includes a group of poems which possess qualities of high imagination, deep pathos, fresh love of nature, passionate dramatic power, and noble simplicity of language which Icelandic poetry lacks. The solution is that these poems do not belong to Iceland at all. They are the poetry of the "Western islands." The Western Isles School.—It was from among the Scandi navian colonists of the British coasts that in the first generations coming after the colonization of Iceland a magnificent school of poetry arose, to which we owe works that for power and beauty can be paralleled in no Teutonic language till centuries after their date. To this school, which is totally distinct from the Icelandic, and which ran its own course and perished before the 13th century, the following works belong. Of their authors we have scarcely a name or two; their dates can be rarely exactly fixed, but they lie between the beginning of the 9th and the end of the loth centuries. The poems are classified into groups:— (a) The Helgi trilogy (last third lost save a few verses, but preserved in prose in Hromund Gripssoh's Saga), the Raising of Anganty and Death of Hialmar (in Hervarar Saga), the fragments of a Volsung Lay (VolsungakviYa) (part inter polated in earlier poems, part underlying the prose in Volsunga Saga), all by one poet, to whom Dr. Vigfusson would also ascribe Volusptl, Vegtamskvaa, Grotta Song and Volun darkviJa.
(b) The Dramatic Poems :—Flyting of Loki, the For Skirnis, the Hdrbar&sljot' and several fragments, all one man's work, to whose school belong, probably, the Lay underlying the story of Ivar's death in Skjoldunga Saga.
(c) The Didactic Poetry:—Grimnismdl, Vafpru8rismdl, Alvi's smdl, etc.
(d) The Genealogical and Mythological Poems :—Hyndlul jtil', written for one of the Haurda-Kari family, so famous in the Orkneys; Ynglingatal and Haustlong, by Thiodolf of Hvin; Rig's Thal, etc.
(e) The Dirges and Battle Songs—such as that on Hafur-firth Battle Hrafnsmdl, by Thiodolf of Hvin or Thorbjorn Hornklofi, shortly after 87o; Eirik's Dirge (Eiriksmdl) between 95o and 969; the Dart-Lay on Clontarf Battle (1014) ; Bjarka-mdl (frag ments of which we have, and paraphrase of more is found in Hrolf Kraki's Saga and in Saxo).
There are also fragments of poems in Half's Saga, Asmund Kappa-Bands Saga, in the Latin verses of Saxo, and the Shield Lays (Ragnarsdrdpa) by Bragi, etc., of this school, which closes with the Sun-Song, a powerful Christian Dantesque poem, recall ing some of the early compositions of the Irish Church, and with the 12th century Lay of Ragnar, Lay of Starkad, The Proverb Song (Hdvamdl) and Krdkumdl, to which we may add those singular Gloss-poems, the pulur, which also belong to the Western Isles.
To Greenland, Iceland's farthest colony, founded in the loth century, we owe the two Lays of Atli, and probably HymiskviJa, which, though of a weirder, harsher cast, yet belong to the Western isles school and not to Iceland.
The characteristics of this Western school are no doubt the result of the contact of Scandinavian colonists of the viking-tide, living lives of the wildest adventure, with an imaginative and civilized race, that exercised upon them a very strong and lasting influence (the effects of which were also felt in Iceland, but in a different way) . The frequent intermarriages which mingled the best families of either race are sufficient proof of the close communion of Northmen and Celts in the 9th and loth centuries, while there are in the poems themselves traces of Celtic myth ology, language and manners.
Many of these poems were Englished in prose by the trans lator of Mallet, by B. Thorpe in his Saemund's Edda, and two or three by Messrs. Morris and Magnusson, as appendices to their translation of Volsunga Saga. Earlier translations in verse are those in Dryden's Miscellany (vol. vi.), A. Cottle's Edda, Mathias's Translations, and W. Herbert's Old Icelandic Poetry. Gray's ver sions of Darra f ar-1 job and V egtamskvia'a are well known.
When one turns to the early poetry of the Scandinavian continent, preserved in the rune-staves on the memorial stones of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, in the didactic Hdvamdl, the Great Volsung Lay (i.e., Sigurd II., Fafnis's Lay, Sigrdrifa's Lay) and Hamlsmdl, all continental, and all entirely consonant to the remains of Old English poetry in metre, feeling and treatment, one can see that it is with this school that the Icelandic "makers" are in sympathy, and that from it their verse naturally descends. While shrewdness, plain straightforwardness, and a certain stern way of looking at life are common to both, the Icelandic school adds a complexity of structure and ornament, an elaborate mythological and enigmatical phraseology and a regularity of rhyme, assonance, luxuriance, quantity and syllabification, which it caught from the Latin and Celtic poets, and adapted with exquisite ingenuity to its own main object, that of securing the greatest possible beauty of sound.
G. Vigf usson first promulgated the idea that the Eddic poems originated in the British isles, whether in the Northern and Western isles, or, as he later thought, in the Channel islands. Sophus Bugge, in The Home of the Eddic Poems, has attempted to show from internal evidence "that the oldest, and, indeed, the great majority of both the mythological and heroic poems were composed by Norwegians in the British isles, the greater number perhaps in northern England, but some, it may be, in Ireland, in Scotland, or in the Scottish isles." Finnur Jonsson holds that the great majority of the poems were composed in Norway, while Bjorn M. Olsen claims that most of them were composed by Icelanders. But, wherever the poems may have had their origin, they were evidently the work of men who were in contact with the civilizations of England and Ireland and were strongly influenced by the English and Irish literatures.
Such men were Egil, the foe of Eirik Bloodaxe and the friend of Aethelstan; Kormak, the hot-headed champion; Eyvind, King Haakon's poet, called Skaldaspillir, because he copied in his dirge over that king the older and finer Eiriksmal; Gunnlaug, who sang at Aethelred's court, and fell at the hands of a brother bard, Hraf n ; Hallf red, Olaf Tryggvason's poet, who lies in Iona by the side of Macbeth; Sighvat, St. Olaf's henchman, most prolific of all his comrades; Thormod, Coalbrow's poet, who died singing after Sticklestad battle; Ref, Ottar the Black, Arnor the earls' poet, and, of those whose poetry was almost confined to Iceland, Gretti, Biorn the Hitdale champion, and the two model Ice landic masters, Einar Skulason and Markus the Lawman, both of the 12th century.
It is impossible to do more here than mention the names of the most famous of the long roll of poets which are noted in the works of Snorri and in the two Skdlda-tal. They range from the rough and noble pathos of Egil, the mystic obscurity of Kormak, the pride and grief of Hallf red, and the marvellous fluency of Sighvat, to the florid intricacy of Einar and Markus.
The art of poetry stood for the Icelanders in lieu of music ; scarcely any prominent man but knew how to turn a mocking or laudatory stanza, and down to the fall of the commonwealth the accomplishment was in high request. In the literary age the chief poets belong to the great Sturlung family, Snorri and his two nephews, Sturla and Olaf, the White Poet, being the most famous "makers" of their day. Indeed, it is in Snorri's Edda, a poetic grammar of a very perfect kind, that the best examples of the whole of northern poetry are to be found. The last part, Hdttatal, a treatise on metre, was written for Earl Skuli about 1222, in imitation of Earl Rognvald and Hall's Hdttalykill (Clavis metrica) of 115o. The second part, Skdld skapar-mdl, a gradus of synonyms and epithets, which contains over 24o quotations from 65 poets, and ten anonymous lays- a treasury of verse—was composed c. 123o. The first part, an exquisite sketch of northern mythology, Gyl f a-ginning, was probably prefixed to the whole later. There is some of Sturla's poetry in his Islendinga Saga, and verses of Snorri occur in the Grammatical Treatise on figures of speech, etc., of Olaf, which contains about 140 quotations from various authors, and was written about 125o.
Besides those sources, the Kings' Lives of Snorri and later authors contain a great deal of verse by Icelandic poets. King Harold Sigurdsson, who fell at Stamford Bridge 1066, was both a good critic and composed himself. Many tales are told of him and his poet visitors and henchmen. The Icelandic sagas also comprise much verse which is partly genuine, partly the work of the 12th and 13th century editors. Thus there are genuine pieces in Nial's Saga (chaps. 34, 78, 103, 126, 146), in Eyrbyggja, Laxdcela, Egil's Saga (part only), Grettla (two and a half stanzas, cf. Landndma bok) , Biorn's Saga, Gunnlaug's Saga, Havard's Saga, Korrnak's Saga, Viga-Glum's Saga, Erik the Red's Saga and Fostbrcea'ra Saga. In Nial's, Gisli's and Droplaug's Sons' Sagas there is good verse of a later poet, and in many sagas worthless rubbish foisted in as ornamental.
To these may be added two or three works of a semi-literary kind, composed by learned men, not by heroes and warriors. Such are Konunga-tal, Hugsvinnsmal (a paraphrase of Cato's Distichs), Merlin's Prophecy (paraphrased from Geoffrey of Monmouth by Gunnlaug the monk), Jomsvikinga-drapa (by Bishop Ketil), and the Islendinga-drdpa, which has preserved brief notices of several lost sagas concerning Icelandic worthies, with which Gua'mundar-drdpa, though of the 14th century, may be also placed.
The introduction of the danz, ballads (or fornkvaedi, as they are now called) for singing, with a burden, usually relating to a love-tale, which were immensely popular with the people and performed by whole companies at weddings, yule feasts and the like, had relegated the regular Icelandic poetry to more serious events or to the more cultivated of the chiefs. But these "jigs," as the Elizabethans would have called them, dissatisfied the popu lar ear in one way: they were, like old English ballads, which they closely resembled, in rhyme, but void of alliteration, and accord , ingly they were modified and replaced by the rimer, the staple literary product of the i 5th century. These were rhymed but also alliterative, in regular form, with prologue or mansong (often the prettiest part of the whole), main portion telling the tale (mostly derived in early days from the French romances of the Carlovingian, Arthurian or Alexandrian cycles, or from the mythic or skrok-sogur), and epilogue. Their chief value to us lies in their having preserved versions of several French poems now lost, and in their evidence as to the feelings and bent of Ice landers in the "Dark Age" of the island's history. The ring and melody which they all possess is their chief beauty.
Of the earliest, Old f srima, by Einar Gilsson (c. 135o), and the best, the Aristophanic Skiaa-rima (c. 143o), by Einar Fostri, the names may be given. Rimur on sacred subjects were called diktur; of these, on the legends of the saints' lives, many remain. The most notable of its class is the Lilja of Eystein Asgrimsson, a monk of Holyfell (c. 135o), a most "sweet sounding song." Later the poems of the famous Jon Arason (b. 1484), last Cath olic bishop of Holar (c. 153o), Lj6mur ("gleams") and Pislar grdtr ("passion-tears"), deserve mention. Arason is also celebrated as having introduced printing into Iceland.
Taste has sunk since the old days ; but still this rimur poetry is popular and genuine. Moreover, the very prosaic and artificial verse of Sturla and the last of the old school deserved the oblivion which came over them, as a casual perusal of the stanzas scattered through Islendinga will prove. It is interesting to notice that a certain number of kenningar (poetical paraphrases) have survived from the old school even to the present day, though the mass of them have happily perished. The change in the plionesis of the language is well illustrated by the new metres as compared with the old Icelandic dr6tt-kvaedi in its varied forms. Most of the older rimur and diktur are as yet unprinted. Many of the fornkvaedi are printed in a volume of the old Nordiske Litteratur Sam f und.
The effect of the Reformation was deeply felt in Icelandic literature, both prose and verse. The name of Hallgrim Peturs son, whose Passion-hymns, "the flower of all Icelandic poetry," have been the most popular composition in the language, is fore most of all writers since the second change of faith. The gentle sweetness of thought, and the exquisite harmony of wording in his poems, more than justify the popular verdict. His Hymns were finished in 166o and published in 1666, two great Protestant poets thus being contemporaries. A collection of Reformation hymns, adapted, many of them, from the German, the Holar book, had preceded them in 1619. There was a good deal of verse writing of a secular kind, far inferior in every way, during this period. In spite of the many physical distresses that weighed upon the island, ballads (fornkvaedi) were still written, ceasing about 175o, rimur composed, and more elaborate compositions published.
The most notable names are those of the improvisatore Stephen the Blind ; Thorlak Gudbrandsson, author of Ul f ar-Rimur, d. 1707; John Magnusson, who wrote Hrista fla, a didactic poem., Stefan Olafsson, composer of psalms, rimur, etc., d. 1688 ; Gun nar Palsson, the author of Gunnarslag, often printed with the Eddic poems, c. 1791 ; and Eggert Olafsson, traveller, naturalist and patriot, whose untimely death in 1768 was a great loss to his country. His Biinaar-bdlkur, a Georgic written, like Tusser's Points, with a practical view of raising the state of agriculture, has always been much prized. Paul Vidalin's ditties are very naive and clever.
Of later poets, down to more recent times, perhaps the best was Sigurd of Broadfirth, many of whose prettiest poems were composed in Greenland like those of Jon Biarnisson before him, c. 175o; John Thorlaksson's translation of Milton's great epic into Eddic verse is praiseworthy in intention, but, as may be imagined, falls far short of its aim. He also turned Pope's Essay on Man and Klopstock's Messiah into Icelandic. Benedikt Gron dal tried the same experiment with Homer in his Ilion's Kvaedi, c. 1825. There is a fine prose translation of the Odyssey by Sveinbjorn Egilson, the lexicographer, both faithful and poetic in high degree.
When the saga had been fixed by a generation or two of oral reciters, it was written down ; and this stereotyped the form, so that afterwards when literary works were composed by learned men (such as Abbot Karl's Swerri's Saga and Sturia's Islendinga) the same style was adopted.
Taking first the sagas relating to Icelanders, of which some 35 or 4o remain out of thrice that number, they were first written down on separate scrolls, no doubt mainly for the reciter's con venience, between 114o and 1220, in the generation which suc ceeded Ari, and felt the impulse his books had given to writing. They then went through the different phases which such popular compositions have to pass in all lands—editing and compounding (122o-6o), padding and amplifying (1260-1300), and finally collection in large mss. (14th century). Sagas exist showing all these phases, some primitive and rough, some refined and beau tified, some diluted and weakened, according as their copyists have been faithful, artistic or foolish; for the first generation of mss. have all perished. We have also complex sagas put together in the 13th century out of the scrolls relating to a given locality, such a group as still exists untouched in Vdpnfirainga being fused into such a saga as Nidla or Laxdcela. Of the authors nothing is known ; we can only guess that some belong to the Sturlung school. According to subject they fall into two classes, those relating to the older generation before Christianity and those telling of St. Olaf's contemporaries; only two fall into a third generation.
Beginning with the sagas of the west, most perfect in style and form, the earliest in subject is that of Gold-Tliori (c. 930), whose adventurous career it relates ; Haensa-porissaga tells of the burning of Blund-Ketil, a noble chief, an event which led to Thord Gelli's reforms next year (c. 964) ; Gislasaga (96o-98o) tells of the career and death of that ill-fated outlaw ; it is beauti fully written, and the verses by the editor (13th century) are good and appropriate; Hord's Saga (98o) is the life of a band of outlaws on Whalesfirth, and especially of their leader Hord. Of later subject are the sagas of Havard and his revenge for his son, murdered by a neighbouring chief ; of the HeiYarvigasaga (99o–Ior5), a typical tale of a great blood feud, written in the most primitive prose; of Gunnlaug and Hrafn (Gunnlaugssaga Ormstungu, 980-1008), the rival poets and their ill-starred love. The verse in this saga is important and interest.
ing. To the west also belong the three great complex sagas Egla, Eyrbyggja and Laxdaela. The first (870-980), after noticing the migration of the father and grandfather of the hero poet Egil, and the origin of the feud between them and the kings of Norway, treats fully of Egil's career, his enmity with Eirik Bloodaxe, his service with Aethelstan, and finally, after many adventures abroad, of his latter days in Iceland at Borg, illus trating very clearly what manner of men those great settlers and their descendants were, and the feelings of pride and freedom which led them to Iceland. The style is that of Snorri, who had himself dwelt at Borg. Eyrbyggja (89o-1o31) is the saga of politics, the most loosely woven of all the compound stories. It includes a mass of information on the law, religion, traditions, etc., of the heathen days in Iceland, and the lives of Eric, the real discoverer of Greenland, Biorn of Broadwick, a famous chief, and Snorri, the greatest statesman of his day. Dr. Vigfusson would ascribe its editing and completion to Sturla the Lawman, c. 125o. Laxdaela (910-1026) is the saga of Romance. Its heroine Gudrun is the most famous of all Icelandic ladies. Her love for Kiartan the poet, and his career abroad, his betrayal by his friend Bolli, the sad death of Kiartan at his hands, the revenge taken for him on Bolli, whose slayers are themselves afterwards put to death, and the end of Gudrun, who becomes an anchorite after her stormy life, make up the pith of the story. The contrast of the characters, the rich style and fine dialogue which are so remarkable in this saga, have much in common with the best works of the Sturlung school.
Of the north there are the sagas of Korsndk (930-96o), most primitive of all, a tale of a wild poet's love and feuds, containing many notices of the heathen times; of Vatzdaelasaga (89o–g8o), relating to the settlement and the chief family in Waterdale; of Hall f red the poet (996-1014) , narrating his fortune at King Olaf's court, his love affairs in Iceland, and finally his death and burial at Iona; of Reyk-daela (99o) , which preserves the lives of Askell and his son Viga-Skuti; of Svar f -daela (980-99o), a cruel, coarse story of the old days, with some good scenes in it, unfortunately imperfect. chapters 1–IO being forged; of Viga Glum (97o-99o), a fine story of a heathen hero, brave, crafty and cruel. To the north also belong the sagas of Gretti the Strong (I o 10-31) , the life and death of the most famous of Icelandic outlaws, the real story of whose career is mixed up with the mythical adventures of Beowulf, here put down to Gretti, and with the late romantic episodes and fabulous folk-tales (Dr. Vigf usson would ascribe the best parts of this saga to Sturla ; its last editor, whose additions would be better away, must have touched it up about 13oo), and the stories of the Ljosvetnin gasaga (I o09-60) . Gudmund the Mighty and his family and neighbours are the heroes of these tales, which form a little cycle. The Banda-mannia saga (1050-6o) , the only comedy among the sagas, is also a northern tale ; it relates the struggles of a plebeian who gets a chieftancy against the old families of the neighbourhood, whom he successfully outwits ; Ol-ko f ra pcittr is a later imitation of it in the same humorous strain. The sagas of the north are rougher and coarser than those of the west, but have a good deal of individual character.
Of tales relating to the east there survive the Weapon-firth cycle—the tales of Thorstein the White (c. goo), of Thorstein the Staffsmitten (c. 985), of Gunnar Thidrand's Bane (I 000-08) and of the Weapon-firth Men (–o), all relating to the family of Hof and their friends and kin for several generations—and the story of Hra f nkell Frey's Priest (c. 96o), the most idyllic of sagas and best of the eastern tales. Of later times there are Droplaug's Sons' Saga (99 7-100 7) , written probably about I'm, and preserved in the uncouth style of the original (a brother's revenge for his brother's death is the substance of it ; Brand krossa pdttr is an appendix to it), and the tales of Thorstein Hall o' Side's Son (c. 1014) and his brother Thidrandi (c. 996), which belong to the cycle of Hall o' Side's Saga, unhappily lost ; they are weird tales of bloodshed. and magic, with idyllic and pathetic episodes.
Relating partly to Iceland, but mostly to Greenland and Vin land (N. America) , are the Floamannasaga (98 5-99o) , a good story of the adventures of Thorgils and of the struggles of ship wrecked colonists in Greenland, a graphic and terrible picture; and Eirikssaga raui a (99o-1000), two versions, one northern (Flatey-book), one western, the better (in Hawk's Book, and AM. 557), the story of the discovery of Greenland and Vinland (America) by the Icelanders at the end of the 9th century. Later is the Fostbraelrasaga (1015-30), a very interesting story, told in a quaint romantic style, of Thorgeir, the reckless henchman of King Olaf, and how his death was revenged in Greenland by his sworn brother the true-hearted Thormod Coalbrow's poet, who afterward dies at Sticklestad. The tale of Einar Sokkason (c. 1I25) may also be noticed. The lost saga of Poet Helgi, of which only fragments remain, was also laid in Greenland.
Besides complete sagas there are embedded in the Heims kringla numerous small ]2aettir or episodes, small tales of Ice landers' adventures, often relating to poets and their lives at the kings' courts; one or two of these seem to be fragments of sagas now lost. Among the more notable are those of Orm Storol f sson, Ogmund Dijtt, Halldor Snorrason, Thorstein Oxfoot, Hromund Halt, Thorwald Tasaldi, Svadi and Arnor Herlingar-ne f , Audunn of W est firth, Sneglu-Halli, Hra f n of Hrutfiord, Hreidar Heimski, Gisli Illugison, Ivar the poet, Gull-Aesu Thord, Einar Skulason the poet, Mani the poet, etc.
The forged Icelandic sagas appear as early as the 13th century. They are very poor, and either worked up on hints given in genuine stories or altogether apocryphal.
History.—About the year of the battle of Hastings was born Ari Frobi Thorgilsson (1067-1148), one of the blood of Queen Aud, who founded the famous historical school of Iceland, and himself produced its greatest monument in a work which can be compared for value with the English Domesday Book. Nearly all that we know of the heathen commonwealth may be traced to the collections of Ari. It was he too that fixed the style in which history should be composed in Iceland. It was he that secured and put into order the vast mass of fragmentary tradition that was already dying out in his day. And perhaps it is the highest praise of all to him that he wrote in his own "Danish tongue," and so ensured the use of that tongue by the cultured of after generations. Ari's great work is Konungabok, or The Book of Kings, relating the history of the kings of Norway from the rise of the Yngling dynasty down to the death of Harald Sigurds son in the year of his own birth. This book he composed from the dictation of old men such as Odd Kolsson, from the genea logical poems, and from the various dirges, battle-songs and eulogia of the poets. It is most probable that he also compiled shorter Kings' Books relating to Denmark and perhaps to Eng land. The Konungabok is preserved under the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson, parts of it almost as they came from Ari's hands, for example Ynglinga and Harald Fairliair's Saga, and the prefaces stating the plan and critical foundations of the work, parts of it only used as a framework for the magnificent super structure of the lives of the two Olafs, and of Harald Hardrada and his nephew Magnus the Good. The best text of Ari's Konun gabok (Ynglinga, and the sagas down to but not including Olaf Tryggvason's) is that of Frisbok.
The Book of Settlements (Landndmab6k) is a wonderful per formance, both in its scheme and carrying out. It is divided into five parts, the first of which contains a brief account of the discovery of the island ; the other four, one by one taking a quarter of the land, describe the name, pedigree and history of each settler in geographical order, notice the most important facts in the history of his descendants, the names of their home steads, their courts and temples, thus including mention of 4,000 persons, one-third of whom are women, and 2,000 places. The mass of information contained in so small a space, the clearness and accuracy of the details, the immense amount of life which is breathed into the whole, astonish the reader, when he reflects that this colossal task was accomplished by one man, for his collaborator Kolsegg merely filled up his plan with regard to part of the east coast, a district with which Ari in his western home at Stad was little familiar. Landndmabok has reached us in two complete editions, one edited by Sturla, who brought down the genealogies to his own grandfather and grandmother, Sturla and Gudny, and one by Hawk, who traces the pedigrees still later to himself.
Ari also wrote a Book of Icelanders (Islendingabok, c. 1127), which has perished as a whole, but fragments of it are embedded in many sagas and Kings' Lives; it seems to have been a com plete epitome of his earlier works, together with an account of the constitutional history, ecclesiastical and civil, of Iceland. An abridgement of the latter part of it, the little Libellus Islan dorum (to which the title of the bigger Liber—Islendingabok is often given), was made by the historian for his friends Bishops Ketil and Thorlak, for whom he wrote the Liber (c. 1137). This charming little book is, with the much later collections of laws, our sole authority for the Icelandic constitution of the common wealth, but, "much as it tells, the lost Liber would have been of still greater importance." Kristni-Saga, the story of the christening of Iceland, is also a work of Ari's, "overlaid" by a later editor, but often preserving Ari's very words. This saga, together with several scattered tales of early Christians in Ice land before the change of faith (Ioo2), may have made up a section of the lost Liber. Of the author of these works little is known. He lived in quiet days a quiet life ; but he shows himself in his works, as Snorri describes him, "a man wise, of good memory and a speaker of the truth." If Thucydides is justly accounted the first political historian, Ari may be fitly styled the first of scientific historians.
A famous contemporary and friend of Ari is Saemund (Io56 1 131), a great churchman, whose learning so impressed his age that he got the reputation of a magician. He was the friend of Bishop John, the founder of the great Odd-Verjar family, and the author of a Book of Kings from Harald Fairhair to Magnus the Good, in which he seems to have fixed the exact chronology of each reign. It is most probable that he wrote in Latin. The idea that he had anything to do with the poetic Edda in general, or the Sun's Song in particular, is unsupported by evidence.
The flame which Ari had kindled was fed by his successors in the I2th century. Eirik Oddsson (c. I15o) wrote the lives of Sigurd Evil-deacon and the sons of Harold Gille, in his Hryggjar-Stykki (Sheldrake), of which parts remain in the mss. collections of Kings' Lives, Morkin-skinna, etc. Karl Jonsson, abbot of Thingore, the Benedictine minster, wrote (c. 1184) Sverrissaga from the lips of that great king, a fine racy biography, with a style and spirit of its own. Boglunga-Sogur tell the story of the civil wars which followed Sverri's death. They are prob ably by a contemporary.
The Latin Lives of St. Olaf, Odd's in Latin (c. I 1 7 5) , compiled from original authorities, and the Legendary Life, by another monk whose name is lost, are of the mediaeval Latin school of Saemund to which Gunnlaug belonged.
These works were indebted for their facts to Ari's labours, and to sagas written since Ari's death; but the style and treatment of them are Snorri's own. The fine Thucydidean speeches, the dramatic power of grasping character, and the pathos and poetry that run through the stories, along with a humour such as is shown in the Edda, and a varied grace of style that never flags or palls, make Snorri one of the greatest of historians.
Here it should be noticed that Heimskringla and its class of mss. (Eirspennil, Jo fraskinna, Gullinskinna, Fris-bok and Kringla) do not give the full text of Snorri's works. They are abridgements made in Norway by Icelanders for their Norwegian patrons, the Life of St. Olaf alone being preserved intact, for the great interest of the Norwegians lay in him, but all the other Kings' Lives being more or less mutilated, so that they cannot be trusted for historic purposes ; nor do they give a fair idea of Snorri's style.
Agrip is a 12th-century compendium of the Kings' Lives from Harald Fairhair to Sverri, by a scholastic writer of the school of Saemund. As the only Icelandic abridgement of Norwegian his tory taken not from Snorri but sources now lost, it is of worth. Its real title is Konunga-tal.
Noregs Konunga-tal, now called Fagrskinna, is a Norse com pendium of the Kings' Lives from Halfdan the Black to Sverri's accession, probably written for King Haakon, to whom it was read on his death-bed. It is an original work, and contains much not found elsewhere. As non-Icelandic it is only noticed here for completeness.
Styrmi Karason, a contemporary of Snorri's, dying in was a distinguished churchman (lawman twice) and scholar. He wrote a Life of St. Olaf, now lost ; his authority is cited. He also copied out Landndmabok and Sverri's Life from his mss., of which surviving copies were taken.
Sturla, Snorri's nephew, wrote the Hdkonssaga and Magnussaga at the request of King Magnus, finishing the first c. 1265, the latter c. 1280. King Haakon's Life is preserved in full; of the other only fragments remain. These are the last of the series of historic works which Ari's labours began, from which the history of Norway for Soo years must be gathered.
A few books relating the history of other Scandinavian realms will complete this survey. In Sk joldunga-bok was told the history of the early kings of Denmark, perhaps derived from Ari's col lections, and running parallel to Ynglinga. The earlier part of it has perished save a fragment Sogu-brot, and citations and para phrases in Saxo, and the mythical Ragnar Lodbrok's and Gongu Hrol f's Sagas; the latter part, Lives of Harold Bluetooth and the Kings down to Sveyn II., is still in existence and known as Sk joldunga.
The Knictssaga is of later origin and separate authorships, parallel to Snorri's Heimskringla, but earlier in date. The Lives of King Valdemar and his Son, written c. I185, by a contemporary of Abbot Karl's, are the last of this series. The whole were edited and compiled into one book, often quoted as Sk joldunga, by a 13th century editor, possibly Olaf, the White Poet, Sturla's brother, guest and friend of King Valdemar II. Jomsvikinga Saga, the history of the pirates of Jom, down to Knut the Great's days, also relates to Danish history.
The complex work now known as Orkneyinga is made up of the Earls' Saga, lives of the first great earls, Turf-Einar, Thorfinn, etc. ; the Life of St. Magnus, founded partly on Abbot Robert's Latin life of him (c. an Orkney work, partly on Norse or Icelandic biographies ; a Miracle-book of the same saint ; the Lives of Earl Rognwald and Sveyn, the last of the vikings, and a few episodes such as the Burning of Bishop Adam. A scholastic sketch of the rise of the Scandinavian empire, the Foundation of Norway, dating c. 1120, is prefixed to the whole.
Faereyinga tells the tale of the conversion of the Faereys or Faroes, and the lives of its chiefs Sigmund and Leif, composed in the 13th century from their separate sagas by an Icelander of the Sturlung school.
These biographies are more literary and mediaeval and less poetic than the Icelandic sagas and kings' lives; their simplicity, truth, realism and purity of style are the same. They run in two parallel streams, some being concerned with chiefs and champions, some with bishops. The former are mostly found em bedded in the complex mass of stories known as Sturlunga, from which Dr. Vigf usson extricated them, and for the first time set them in order. Among them are the sagas of Thorgils and Haflidi (1118-2I), the feud and peacemaking of two great chiefs, con temporaries of Ari; of Sturla (1150-83), the founder of the great Sturlung family, down to the settlement of his great lawsuit by Jon Loptsson, who thereupon took his son Snorri the historian to fosterage—a humorous story but with traces of decadence about it, and glimpses of the evil days that were to come; of the Onundar-brennusaga (1185-120o), a tale of feud and fire-raising in the north of the island, the hero of which, Gudmund Dyri, goes at last into a cloister ; of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 019o 1213), the noblest Icelander of his day, warrior, leech, seaman, craftsman, poet and chief, whose life at home, travels and pil grimages abroad (Hrafn was one of the first to visit Becket's shrine), and death at the hands of a foe whom he had twice spared, are recounted by a loving friend in pious memory of his virtues, C. 1220; of Aron Hjorleifsson (1200-55), a man whose strength, courage and adventures befit rather a henchman of Olaf Tryggvason than one of King Haakon's thanes (the beginning of the feuds that rise round Bishop Gudmund are told here), of the Svine f ell-men a pitiful story of a family feud in the far east of Iceland.
But the most important works of this class are the Islendinga Saga and Thorgils Saga of Lawman Sturla. Sturla and his brother Olaf were the sons of Thord Sturluson and his mistress Thora. Sturla was born and brought up in prosperous times, but his man hood was passed in the midst of strife, in which his family fell one by one, and he himself, though a peaceful man who cared little for politics, was more than once forced to fly for his life. While in refuge with King Magnus, in Norway, he wrote his two sagas of that king and his father. After his first stay in Norway he came back in 1271, with the new Norse law-book, and served a second time as lawman. The Islendinga must have been the work of his later years, composed at Fairey in Broadfirth, where he died, July 30, 1284, aged about 7o years. The saga of Thorgils Skardi (1252-61) seems to have been the first of his works on Icelandic contemporary history ; it deals with the life of his own nephew, especially his career in Iceland from 1252 to 1258. The second part of Islendinga (1242-62), which relates to the second part of the civil war, telling of the careers of Thord Kakali, Kol bein the Young, Earl Gizur and Hrafn Oddsson. The end is im perfect, there being a blank of some years before the fragmentary ending to which an editor has affixed a notice of the author's death. The first part of Islendinga (1202-42) tells of the beginning and first part of the civil wars, the lives of Snorri and Sighvat, Sturla's uncles, of his cousin and namesake Sturla Sighvatsson, of Bishop Gudmund, and Thorwald Gizursson,--the fall of the Sturlungs, and with them the last hopes of the great houses to maintain the commonwealth, being the climax of the story.
Sturla's power lies in his faithfulness to nature, minute ob servance of detail and purity of style. The great extent of his subject, and the difficulty of dealing with it in the saga form, are most skilfully overcome ; nor does he allow prejudice or favour to stand in the way of the truth. He ranks below Ari in value and below Snorri in power; but no one else can dispute his place in the first rank of Icelandic writers.
Of the ecclesiastical biographers, an anonymous Skalholt clerk is the best. He wrote Hungrvaka, lives of the first five bishops of Skalholt, and biographies of his patron Bishop Paul (Pcilssaga) and also of St. Thorlak (Thorlakssaga). They are full of inter esting notices of social and church life. Thorlak was a learned man, and had studied at Paris and Lincoln, which he left in i r 61. These lives cover the years 1056-1193. The life of St. John, a great reformer, a contemporary of Thorodd, whom he employed to build a church for him, is by another author (1052-1121). The life of Gudmund (Gui rnundar Saga Go Ya), a priest, recounts the early life of this Icelandic Becket till his election as bishop (116o-1202) ; his after career must be sought out in Islendinga. It is written by a friend and contemporary. A later life by Arngrim, abbot of Thingore, written c. 1350, as evidence of his subject's sanctity, tells a good deal about Icelandic life, etc. The lives of Bishops Arni and Lawrence bring down our knowledge of Icelandic history into the 14th century. The former work, Arna Saga Biskups, is imperfect ; it is the record of the struggles of church and State over patronage rights and glebes, written c. 1315; it now covers only the years 1269-91; a great many docu ments are given in it, after the modern fashion. The latter, Ldrenzius Saga Biskups, by his disciple, priest Einar Haflidason, is a charming biography of a good and pious man, whose chequered career in Norway and Iceland is picturesquely told (1324-31). It is the last of the sagas. Bishop Jon's Table-Talk (1325-39) is also worth noticing; it contains many popular stories which the good bishop, who had studied at Bologna and Paris, was wont to tell to his friends.
The Annals are now almost the sole material for Icelandic history; they had begun earlier, but after 1331 they got fuller and richer, till they end in 1430. The best are Annales Regii, ending 1306, Einar Haflidason's Annals, known as "Lawman's Annals," reaching to 1392, and preserved with others in Flatey book, and the New Annals, last of all. The Diplomatarium Islandicurn, edited by Jon Sigurdsson, contains what remains of deeds, inventories, letters, etc., from the old days, completing our scanty material for this dark period of the island's history.
The Norwegian kings, Haakon Haakonson (c. 1225), and Haakon V. (c. 1305), employed Icelanders at their courts in trans lating the French romances of the Alexander, Arthur and Char lemagne cycles. Some 40 or 5o of these Riddara-Sogur (Ro mances of Chivalry) remain. They reached Iceland and were eagerly read, many rimur being founded on them. Norse versions of Mary of Brittany's Lays, the stories of Brutus and of Troy, and part of the Pharsalia translated are also found. The Speculum Regale, with its interesting geographical and social information, is also Norse, written c. 1240, by a Halogalander. The compu tistic and arithmetical treatises of Stiorn-Odd, Biarni the Number skilled (d. 1173), and Hauk Erlendsson the Lawman (d. and the geography of Ivar Bardsson, a Norwegian (c. 1340), are of course of foreign origin. A few tracts on geography, etc., in Hauk's book, and a Guide to the Holy Land, by Nicholas, abbot of Thwera (d. 1158), complete the list of scientific works.
The stories which contain the last lees of the old mythology and pre-history seem to be also non-Icelandic, but amplified by Icelandic editors, who probably got the plots from the Western islands. Volsunga Saga and Hervarar Saga contain quotations and paraphrases of lays by the Helgi poet, and Half's, Ragnar's and Asmund Kappabana's Sagas all have bits of western poetry in them. Hrolf Kraki's Saga paraphrases part of Bjarkamdl; Hro mund Gripsson's gives the story of Helgi and Kara (the lost third of the Helgi trilogy), Gautrek's, Arrow Odd's, Frithiof'sSa gas contain shreds of true tradition amidst a mass of later fictitious matter of no worth. With the Riddara-Sogur they enjoyed great popularity in the 15th century, and gave matter for many rimer. Thidrik's Saga, a late version of the Volsung story, is of Norse composition (c. 123o), from north German sources. The mediaeval religious literature of western Europe also in fluenced Iceland, and the Homilies (like the Laws) were, accord ing to Thorodd, the earliest books written in the vernacular, ante dating even Ari's histories. The lives of the Virgin, the Apostles and the Saints fill many mss. (edited in four large volumes by Prof. Unger), and are the works of many authors, chiefly of the 13th and 14th centuries; amongst them are the lives of SS. Ed ward the Confessor, Oswald of Northumbria, Dunstan and Thomas of Canterbury. Of the authors we know Priest Berg Gunsteinsson (d. 121 I) ; Kygri-Biorn, bishop-elect (d. 1237) ; Bishop Brand (d. 1264) ; Abbot Runolf (d. 13o 7) ; Bishop Lawrence's son Arni (c. 133o) ; Abbot Berg (c. 134o), etc. A paraphrase of the his torical books of the Bible was made by Bishop Brand (d. 1264), called Gyl'inga Sogur. About 131 o King Haakon V. ordered a commentary on the Bible to be made, which was completed down to Exodus xix. To this Brand's work was afterwards affixed, and the whole is known as Stjorn. The Norse version of the famous Barlaam and Josaphat, made for Prince Haakon (c. 124o), must not be forgotten.
The most notable theological work Iceland ever produced is the Postil-Book of Bishop John Vidalin (1666-172o), whose bold homely style and stirring eloquence made "John's Book," as it is lovingly called, a favourite in every household, till in the 19th century it was replaced for the worse by the more sentimental and polished Danish tracts and sermons. Theological literature is very popular, and many works on this subject, chiefly translations, will be found in the lists of Icelandic bibliographers.
The first modern scientific work is the Iter per patriam of Eggert Olafsson and Biarni Paulsson, which gives an account of the physical peculiarities—fauna, flora, etc.—of the island as far as could be done at the date of its appearance, 1772. The island was first made known to "the world" by this book and by the sketch of Unno von Troil, a Swede, who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to Iceland in 1772, and afterwards wrote a series of "let ters" on the land and its literature, etc. This tour was the fore runner of an endless series of "travels," of which those of Sir W. J. Hooker, Sir G. S. Mackenzie (I 81o) , Ebenezer Henderson (1818), Joseph Paul Gaimard (1838-43), Paijkull (1867), and, lastly, that of Sir Richard Burton, an excellent account of the land and people, full of information (18 7 ). are the hest Iceland is emphatically a land of proverbs, while of folk-tales, those other keys to the people's heart, there is plentiful store. Early work in this direction was done by Jon Gudmundsson, Olaf the Old and John Olafsson in the 17th century, who all put tra ditions on paper, and their labours were completed by the mag nificent collection of Jon Arnason (1862-64), who was inspired by the example of the Grimms. Many tales are but weak echoes of the sagas; many were family legends, many are old fairy tales in a garb suited to their new northern home ; but besides all these, there are a number of traditions and superstitions of indigenous origin.
The Renaissance of Iceland dates from the beginning of the I7th century, when a school of antiquaries arose. Arngrim Jons son's Brevis Commentarius , and Crymogaea (1609), were the first-fruits of this movement, of which Bishops Odd, Thorlak and Bryniulf (worthy parallels to Parker and Laud) were the wise and earnest supporters. The first (d. 163o) collected much material for church history. The second (d. 1656) saved Stur lunge and the Bishops' Lives, encouraged John Egilsson to write his New Hungerwaker, lives of the bishops of the Dark Ages and Reformation, and helped Biorn of Skardsa (d. 1655), a bold and patriotic antiquary (whose Annals continue Einar's), in his re searches. The last (d. 1675) collected a fine library of mss., and employed the famous copyist John Erlendsson, to whom and the bishop's brother, John Gizurarson (d. 1648), we are indebted for transcripts of many lost mss.
Torfaeus (1636-1719) and Bartholin, a Dane (d. 169o), roused the taste for northern literature in Europe, a taste which has never since flagged; and soon after them Arni Magnusson (1663 1730) transferred all that remained of vellum and good paper mss. in Iceland to Denmark, and laid the foundations of the famous library and bequest, for which all Icelandic students are so much beholden. For over 4o years Arni stuck to his task, rescuing every scrap he could lay hands on from the risks of the Icelandic cli mate and carelessness, and when he died only one good mss. re mained in the island. Besides his magnificent collection, there are a few mss. of great value at Upsala, at Stockholm, and in the old royal collection at Copenhagen. Those in the university library in the latter city perished in the fire of 1728. Sagas were printed at TJpsala and Copenhagen in the 17th century, and the Arnamag naean fund has been working since 1772. In that year appeared also the first volume of Bishop Finn Jonsson's Historia Ecclesi astica Islandiae, a work of high value and much erudition, contain ing not only ecclesiastical but civil and literary history, illustrated by a well-chosen mass of documents, 87o-174o. It has been con tinued by Bishop P. Peterson to modern times, 1740-184o. The results, however, of modern observers and scholars must be sought for in the periodicals, Sa f n, Felagsrit, Ny Felagsrit and others. John Espolin's Islands Arboekur is very good up to its date, 1832. A brilliant sketch of Icelandic classic literature is given by Dr. Gudbrandr Vigfusson in the Prolegomena to Sturlunga Saga 0879). It replaces much earlier work, especially the Sciagraphia of Halfdan Einarsson (1777), and the Saga-Bibliotek of Muller. The numerous editions of the classics by the Icelandic societies, the Danish Societe des Antiquites, Nordisk Litteratur Samfund, and the new Gammel Nordisk Litteratur Samfund, the splendid Norwegian editions of Unger, the labours of the Icelanders Sigurdsson and Gislason, and of those foreign scholars in Scandinavia and Germany who have thrown themselves into the work of illustrating, publishing and editing the sagas and poems (men like P. A. Munch, S. Bugge, F. W. Bergmann, Th. Mobius and K. von Maurer, to name only a few), can only be referred to here. See also Finnur Jonsson, Den Oldnorske og Oldislanske Litteraturs Historie (1893-19o0) ; R. B. Anderson's translation (Chicago, 1884) of Winkel Horn's History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North; and W. Morris and E. Magnpsson's Saga Library. (F. Y. P.; R. P. Co.) The recent literature of Iceland has been in a more flourishing state than ever before since the 13th century. Lyrical poetry is by far the largest and most interesting portion of it. The great influence of Jonas Hallgrimsson (1807-45) is still felt, and his school was the reigning one up to the end of the 19th century, although then a change seemed to be in sight. The most success ful poet of this school is Steingrimr Thorsteinsson (1830-1913).
He is specially famous for his splendid descriptions of scenery (The Song of Gilsbakki), his love-songs and his sarcastic epi grams. As a translator he has enriched the literature with The Arabian Nights, Sakuntala, King Lear and several other master pieces of foreign literature. Equal in fame is Matthias Jochums son, who, following another of Jonas Hallgrimsson's many ways, has successfully revived the old metres of the classical Icelandic poets, whom he resembles in his majestic, but sometimes too gor geous, language. As an artist he is inferior to Steingrimr Thor steinsson, but surpasses him in bold flight of imagination. He has successfully treated subjects from Icelandic history Grettisljdl', a series of poems about the famous outlaw Grettir. His chief fault is a certain carelessness in writing ; he can never write a bad poem, but rarely a poem absolutely flawless. He has trans lated Tegner's Frithiofs Saga, several plays of Shakespeare and some other foreign masterpieces. The great religious poet of Ice land, Hallgrimr Petursson, has found a worthy successor in Vald emar Briem (b. 1848), whose Songs of the Bible are deservedly popular. He is like Matthias Jochumsson in the copious flow of his rhetoric ; some of his poems are perfect both as regards form and content, but he sometimes neglects the latter while polishing the former. An interesting position is occupied by Benedict Gron dal, whose travesties of the old romantic stories, e.g., "The Battle of the Plains of Death," a burlesque on the battle of Solferino, and his Aristophanic drama Gandreiain ("The Magic Ride") about contemporary events, are among the best satirical and hu morous productions of Icelandic literature.
Influenced by Jonas Hallgrimsson with regard to language and poetic diction, but keeping unbroken the traditions of Icelandic mediaeval poetry maintained by Sigur6r Breibf jorb (1798-1846), is another school of poets, very unlike the first. In the middle of the 19th century this school was best represented by Hjalmar Jonsson from Bola (1796-1875), a poor farmer with little educa tion but endowed with great poetical talents, and the author of satirical verses not inferior to those of Juvenal both in force and coarseness. In the last decades of the 19th century this school produced two poets of a very high order, both distinctly original and Icelandic. One is Pall Olafsson (1827-1906). His songs are mostly written in the mediaeval quatrains (ferskeytla), and are generally of a humorous and satirical character; his con vivial songs are known by heart by every modern Icelander; and although some of the poets of the present day are more admired, there is none who is more loved by the people. The other is por steinn Erlingsson (1858-1914). His exquisite satirical songs, in an easy and elegant but still manly and splendid language, have raised much discussion. Of his poems may be mentioned The Oath, a series of most beautiful ballads, with a tragical love-story of the 17th century as their base, but with many and happy satir ical allusions to modern life; Jorundr, a long poem about the convict king, the Danish pirate Jorgensen, who nearly succeeded in making himself the master of Iceland, and The Fate of the Gods and The Men of the West (the Americans), two poems which, with anti-clerical and half-socialistic tendencies, have caused strong protests from orthodox Lutheran clergy. Near to this school, but standing apart, is Grimur Thomsen (182o-1896).
In the beginning of the '8os a new school arose—having its origin in the colony of Icelandic students at the University of Copenhagen. They had all attended the lectures of Georg Brandes, the great reformer of Scandinavian literature, and, influenced by his literary theories, they chose their models in the realistic school. This school is very dissimilar from the half-romantic school of Jonas Hallgrimsson ; it is nearer the national Icelandic school rep resented by Pall Olafsson and porsteinn Elingsson, but differs trom those writers by introducing foreign elements hitherto unknown in Icelandic literature, and—especially in the case of the prose-writers—by imitating closely the style and manner of some of the great Norwegian novelists. Their influence brought the Icelandic literature into new roads, and it is interesting to see how the tough Icelandic element gradually assimilates the foreign. Of the lyrical poets, Hannes Hafsteinn (1861-1922) is by far the most important. In his splendid ballad, The Death of Skarphe dinn, and in his beautiful series of songs describing a voyage through some of the most picturesque parts of Iceland, he is en tirely original ; but in his love-songs, beautiful as many of them are, a strong foreign influence can be observed. Among the inno vations of this poet we may note a predilection for new metres, sometimes adopted from foreign languages, sometimes invented by himself, a thing practised rarely and generally with small suc cess by the Icelandic poets. Among the many later lyrical poets Einar Benediktsson and Stephan Guomundsson Stephansson (1853– ), resident in Canada, deserve special mention, both rather heavy in style, but rich in ideas and weighty in thought. Lighter and more elegant in style are David Stefansson, Stefan fra Hvitadal and Hulda (pseudonym of Unnur Bjarklind). No Icelandic novelist has as yet equalled Jon Thoroddsen (1819-68) . The influence of the realistic school has of late been predominant. The most distinguished writer of that school has been Gestur Palsson (185 2-91) , whose short stories with their sharp and biting satire have produced many imitations in Iceland. The best are A Home of Love and Captain Sigurd. Jonas Jonas son (1856-1918), a clergyman of northern Iceland, in a series of novels and short stories, gave accurate, but somewhat dry, descriptions of the more gloomy sides of Icelandic country life. His best novel is RandiJr i Hvassa f elli, an historical novel of the middle ages. Besides these we may mention Torfhildur Holm, one of the few women who have distinguished themselves in Icelandic literature. Her novels are mostly historical. Of the other novel ists the best are Einar H. Kvaran (1859– ), Jonas Gudlaugs son and Gunnar Gunnarsson. Gudmundur Fridjonsson (1869 ), Jon Trausti (1873-1918) (pseudonym of Gudmundur Magnusson) and Gudmundur G. Hagalin portray folk life with skill. J. M. Bjarnason and Laura Salverson both reside in Canada and depict the life of the Icelandic settlers there, the latter writing in English, e.g., The Viking Heart. In the last decade of the 19th century a theatre was built at Reykjavik, the precursor of the National Theatre of Iceland, founded and endowed by the Althing early in the third decade of the present century. The poet Matthias Jochumsson wrote several dramas, but their chief merits are lyrical. The most popular of Icelandic dramatists as yet is Indri6i Einarsson, whose plays, chiefly historical, in spite of excessive rhetoric, possess a true dramatic value. Johann Sigurjonsson wrote one of the most powerful of modern dramas, Fjalla-Eyvindur, while Gudmundur Kamban's plays achieved a great success at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. The drama, The Mother-in-Law, by an Icelandic countrywoman, Kristin Sig fusdottir, was produced at Reykjavik and Winnipeg, and is much admired.
In geography and geology porvaldr Thoroddsen has acquired a European fame for his researches and travels in Iceland, especially in the rarely-visited interior. Of his numerous writings in Icelandic, Danish and German, the History of Icelandic Geog raphy is a monumental work. In history Pall Melsteb's (1812 chief work, the large History of the World, belongs to this period, and its pure style has had a beneficial influence upon modern Icelandic prose.
See J. C. Poestion, Islandische Dichter der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1897) ; C. Kuchler, Geschichte der islandischen Dichtung der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1896) ; Ph. Schweitzer, Island; Land and Leute (Leipzig, 1885) ; Alexander Baumgartner, Island and die Faroer (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889) ; Halldor Hermannsson, Islandica, vol. 6 (16 vol., 1908-24) ; Icelandic Authors of To-day (1913) ; Sigurdur Nordal, Islenzk Lestrarbok (t924) ; Edmund Gosse and W. A. Craigie, The Oxford Book of Scandinavian Verse (1925) . (S. BL. ; R. P. Co.)