There sighs the wind and wails the surge
As ’twere of living things the dirge.”
In these old heathen days, be it remembered, where all were sea-rovers there were good and bad among them. For a fine description of the best type of the Viking and his code of honour, see Tegner’s beautiful northern poem, “The Frithjof Saga.”
[51]. The “Lay of the Vikings,” translated into Icelandic verse by the Rev. Olaf Pálsson. It is in the free metre of the old sagas—the same as that which Thorláksson adopted in his translation of “Paradise Lost.” The following is the translation of Delta’s lines:
Þar sem um Hjaltlands
Heimkynni þögul
Norðurhafs öldur
Stynja þar stormar,
Stúra brimboðar,