III.
The resemblance which we have noted between Icelandic and Irish customs seem to justify us in suggesting that they may be due in part to some influence exercised by the one people upon the other. There is in fact a certain amount of evidence which renders such influence probable. We know that Irish poets and story-tellers were welcome guests at the court of the Scandinavian kings in Ireland. In an elegy on Mathgamain, Brian’s brother,[243] one of the Munster bards, says he finds it difficult to reproach the foreigners because of his friendship with Dubhcena, Ivarr’s son.[244] And during the lifetime of Brian, Mac Liag, Brian’s chief poet, and Mac Coisse, poet and story-teller to Maelsechnaill II., visited the court of Sigtryggr and remained there for a whole year. On their departure they gave expression to their feelings of regret in a poetical dialogue:—
Mac Liag:
It is time for us to return to our homes,
We have been here a whole year;
Though short to you and me may seem
This our sojourn in Dublin,
Brian of Banba deems it too long
That he listens not to my eloquence.[245]
Another poem of Mac Liag’s, in which he addresses the Scandinavians of Dublin as “the descendants of the warriors of Norway,” was also composed in Dublin, at the court of ‘Olaf of the golden shields,’ soon after the battle of Clontarf.[246]
On the other hand Icelandic sources mention at least three skálds who made their way to Ireland during the tenth century: Thorgils Orraskáld, who was with Olaf Cuaran in Dublin,[247] and Kormak (Ir. Cormac) who fought with Harold Greycloak in Ireland (c. 961).[248] In Gunnlaugs Saga Ormstungu (ch. 8) there is a charming account of the poet’s reception in Dublin, shortly after Sigtryggr became king (c. 994): Gunnlaug went before the king and said: “I have composed a poem about you, and I would like to get a hearing for it.”
“The king answered: “No man has yet made a poem about me, and I will certainly listen to yours.”
“Then Gunnlaug recited his poem in praise of “Cuaran’s son,” and the king thanked him for it.
“Sigtryggr then called his treasurer and asked: “How shall I reward him for this poem?”
““As you will, lord,” replied the treasurer.
““Shall I give him two merchant-ships?” asked the king.
““That is too much,” said the treasurer, “other kings give, as rewards for songs, costly gifts, good swords or gold rings.”
“So the king gave Gunnlaug his own garments of new scarlet cloth, a tunic ornamented with lace, a cloak lined with choice furs, and a gold ring which weighed a mark. Gunnlaug remained for a short time there and then went to the Orkneys.”
It is to be noted, too, that among the original settlers in Iceland there were a not inconsiderable number who came from Ireland and the islands off the west coast of Scotland. These included some of the most important families in the country. We may mention especially Authr, widow of Olaf the White, king of Dublin, with her brothers Ketill the Foolish, Björn, Helgi Bjóla and all their families and dependants;[249] also Helgi the Lean who had been brought up partly in the Hebrides, partly in Ireland, Jörundr the Christian and Örlygr the Old.[250] Not a few of these were partly of Irish stock such as Helgi the Lean, Áskell Hnokkan and his brother Vilbaldr who were descendants of Cearbhall, king of Ossory (d. 877).[251] Sometimes we hear of settlers who were of pure Gaelic blood, like Kalman (Ir. Colman) from the Hebrides,[252] and Erpr, son of a Scottish earl Maeldúin,[253] and Myrgjol (Ir. Muirgheal), daughter of Gliomall, an Irish king.[254]
It has been urged[255] that the persons mentioned in the Landnámabók as coming from Ireland and Scotland form a very small percentage of the whole number of settlers. But we have to remember that by no means all the colonists are mentioned in the records and genealogies. There can be no doubt that a number of slaves and freedmen accompanied the more important settlers to Iceland, and of these probably the great majority were of Celtic blood. Their numbers, too, were being continually reinforced during the tenth century. It is difficult, however, to estimate how many they were, because in the case of thralls Icelandic names were not infrequently substituted for Irish ones. Thus, of the Irish thralls whom Hjörleifr brought to Iceland only one, Dufthakr, had a Gaelic name.
Such slaves were not always people of humble origin. Gilli (Ir. Giolla), the slave who killed Thorsteinn, son of Hallr[256] of Side, was a descendant of Cearbhall, king of Ossory. Mention is made elsewhere of Nithbjörg, daughter of the Irish king Biolan (Ir. Beollán) who was carried off from Ireland in a Viking raid;[257] also of Melkorka, King Myrkjartan’s daughter, who was bought from a slave dealer in Norway.[258] Icelandic custom did not necessarily prevent the children of slave women from becoming persons of wealth and influence; indeed Ósvifr, son of Nithbjörg and Olaf Pái, son of Melkorka, were among the leading men in Iceland in their time. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that by the end of the tenth century Irish blood had found its way into a large number of Icelandic families.
Lastly we may observe that the Irish and Icelandic sagas bear certain resemblances to one another which are at least worthy of attention. In both cases the narrative prose is frequently interspersed with poetry, and in both the use of dialogue is a prominent feature. Nor is the subject matter dissimilar. Indeed it is possible to apply to the Irish stories a classification roughly similar to that which is adopted for the more important of the Icelandic sagas.[259] As far as the “stories of the kings” are concerned, the resemblance is most striking in the case of sagas relating to early times such as Ynglinga Saga. There are Irish stories, too, corresponding to a certain extent to the Íslendínga Sögur, though they are comparatively few in number, while many of the Fornaldar Sögur may be said to bear a certain resemblance to the Irish epic stories.
The evidence discussed above seems to afford some ground for suspecting that the saga literature of Iceland and Ireland may not be wholly unconnected, and, as we have seen, the conditions of the time, particularly the frequent intercourse between the two countries, were such as to favour the exercise of literary influence by one people upon the other. If so, one can hardly doubt that in this case the influence came to Iceland from Ireland.
We have seen[260] that the prose saga appears to have developed in Iceland in the course of the tenth century. There are indeed narratives relating both to the settlement of Iceland and to still earlier events in Norway. But these, in so far as they can be regarded as trustworthy traditions—not embellished by fiction in later times—are quite brief, and not far removed from such local or family traditions as one could find in other parts of the world. The detailed and elaborate type of story which we dealt with in Section I., and which is the distinctive feature of Icelandic literature, can hardly be traced back beyond the end of the tenth century.
The prose stories of Ireland, on the other hand, are without doubt much earlier. Although we have few MSS. of Irish prose dating from a period before the twelfth century, yet it is generally agreed that many of the forms preserved, e.g., in the Yellow Book of Lecan MS. of the Tain Bo Cualnge must be derived from an earlier MS. of not later than the seventh or early eighth century. The oral saga in Ireland is therefore of great antiquity.
It may, of course, be argued that if the prose saga arose spontaneously in Ireland, there is no reason why it should not also have arisen independently in Iceland. But the existence of this form of literature in Ireland may be due to special circumstances for which Iceland offers no parallel. The oldest Irish sagas belong to that class of literature known as the heroic epic, a class which among the Teutonic peoples—as indeed among all other European peoples—makes its first appearance in verse. The exceptional treatment of this subject in Irish is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that among the Celtic peoples the file or professional minstrel occupied a distinguished position in society. It would be strange if the professional minstrel were not primarily concerned with heroic epic poetry in Ireland as in other countries, since in the times to which our records refer the recitation of the heroic prose epics was one of the chief functions of the file.
On the other hand, we know nothing of the ancient forms of Irish poetry. The earliest poems that have come down to us have a metrical form which is not native. Earlier than these—in the fifth and sixth centuries—there is evidence for the cultivation of “rhetorics,” or metrical prose, but this too appears to be of foreign origin.[261] The unique feature in Irish literature, namely, the fact that the early epic, as it has come down to us, appears in prose instead of poetry may be due, at least in part, to the disappearance of native metrical forms before the fifth century. It may be that the prose epics originated in paraphrases of early poems such as we find, for instance, in the Völsunga Saga, which is a paraphrase of older poems dealing with the story of Sigurthr. Or the change may have been more automatic, the outcome of a process of metrical dissolution similar to that of which the beginnings may be seen in certain Anglo-Saxon and German poems. Such metrical dissolution would be favoured, if not necessitated, by the extensive phonetic changes which took place in Ireland in the fifth century. But into this question it is not necessary to enter here. It is sufficient to point out that Irish Saga literature, according to all appearances, began in the heroic epic, a form which in all other literatures, including Norse, originated in poetry.
The preservation of poetry, narrative or other, by oral tradition is a common enough phenomenon among many peoples, but the traditional prose narrative, except in such primitive forms as folk-tales, is very rare. Since we find it both in Ireland and Iceland—and apparently in no other European countries—and since we have found so many other connections between these two countries, the theory that the Icelandic Saga owes its origin, however indirectly, to the Irish Saga, seems to deserve more serious consideration from scholars than it has yet received.