Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

The Prose or Younger Edda was the work of Snorre Sturleson (1178-1241), who was born of a distinguished Icelandic family, and, after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice supreme magistrate of the republic, was at last assassinated. The younger Edda repeats in prose the sublime poetry of the elder Edda, mixed with many extravagances and absurdities; and in point of literary and philosophical value it bears no comparison with it. It marks the transition from the art of the Scalds to the prose relation of the Sagaman. This work concludes with a treatise on the poetic phraseology of the Scalds, and a system of versification by Snorre.

The Bard, or Scald (literally smoothers of language, from scaldre, to polish), formed an important feature of the courts of the princes and more powerful nobles. They often acted, at the same time, as bard, councilor, and warrior. Until the twelfth century, when the monks and the art of writing put an end to the Scaldic art, this race of poets continued to issue from Iceland, and to travel from country to country, welcomed as the honored guests of kings, and receiving in return for their songs, rings and jewels of great value, but never money. There is preserved a list of two hundred and thirty scalds, who had distinguished themselves from the time of Ragnor Lodbrok to that of Vladimir II., or from the latter end of the eighth, to the beginning of the thirteenth century. Ragnor Lodbrok was a Danish king, who, in one of his predatory excursions, was taken prisoner in England and thrown into a dungeon, to be stung to death by serpents. His celebrated death song is said to have been composed during his torments. The best of the scaldic lays, however, are greatly inferior to the Eddaic poems. Alliteration is the chief characteristic of the versification.

The word Saga means literally a tale or narrative, and is used in Iceland to denote every species of tradition, whether fabulous or true. In amount, the Saga literature of ancient Scandinavia is surprisingly extensive, consisting of more than two hundred volumes. The Sagas are, for the most part, unconnected biographies or narratives of greater or less length, principally describing events which took place from the ninth to the thirteenth century. They are historical, mythic, heroic, and romantic.

The first annalist of Iceland of whom we have any remains was Ari the Wise (b. 1067), the contemporary of Samund, and his annals, for the most part, have been lost. Snorre Sturleson, already spoken of as the collector of the Prose Edda, was the author of a great original work, the "Heimskringla," or Home-Circle, so called from the first word of the manuscript, a most admirable history of a great portion of northern Europe from the period of the Christian Era to 1177, including every species of Saga composition. It traces Odin and his followers from the East, from Asaland and Asgard, its chief city, to their settlement in Scandinavia. It narrates the contests of the kings, the establishment of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the Viking expeditions, the discovery and settlement of Iceland and Greenland, the discovery of America, and the conquests of England and Normandy. The stories are told with a life and freshness that belong only to true genius, and a picture is given of human life in all its reality, genuine, vivid, and true. Some of the Sagas of the "Heimskringla" are grand romances, full of brilliant adventures, while at the same time they lie so completely within the range of history that they may be regarded as authentic. That of Harold Haardrada narrates his expedition to the East, his brilliant exploits in Constantinople, Syria, and Sicily, his scaldic accomplishments, and his battles in England against Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, where he fell only a few days before Godwin's son himself fell at the battle of Hastings. This Saga is a splendid epic in prose, and is particularly interesting to the English race. The first part of the "Heimskringla" is necessarily derived from tradition; as it advances fable and fact all curiously intermingle, and it terminates in authentic history.

Among the most celebrated Sagas of the remaining divisions are the "Sagas of Erik the Wanderer," who went in search of the Island of Immortality; "Frithiof's Saga," made the subject of Tegnér's great poem; the Saga of Ragnor Lodbrok, of Dietrich of Bern, and the Volsunga Saga, relating to the ancestors of Sigurd or Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied. There are, besides, Sagas of all imaginable fictions of heroes, saints, magicians, conquerors, and fair women. Almost every leading family of Iceland had its written saga. The Sagamen, like the Scalds, traveled over all Scandinavia, visited the courts and treasured up and transmitted to posterity the whole history of the North. This wonderful activity of the Scandinavian mind from the ninth to the thirteenth century, both in amount and originality, throws completely into the shade the literary achievements of the Anglo-Saxons during the same period.

When Christianity superseded the ancient religion, the spirit and traditions of the old mythology remained in the minds of the people, and became their fireside literature under the name of "Folk Sagas." Their legends and nursery tales are diffused over modern Scandinavia, and appear, with many variations, through all the literature of Europe. Among them are found the originals of "Jack the Giant Killer," "Cinderella," "Blue Beard," the "Little Old Woman Cut Shorter," "The Giant who smelt the Blood of an Englishman," and many others.

The Folk Sagas have only recently been collected, but they are the true productions of ancient Scandinavians.

The art of the Scald and Sagaman, which was extinguished with the introduction of Christianity, revived after a time in the Romances of Chivalry and the popular ballads. These ballads are classified as heroic, supernatural, historic, and ballads of love and romance; they successively describe all the changes in the life and opinions of society, and closely resemble those of England, Scotland, and Germany. They are the common expression of the life and feelings of a common race, under the prevailing influences of the same period, and the same stories often inspired the nameless bards of both countries. They are composed in the same form and possess the same curious characteristic of the refrain or chorus which distinguishes this poetry in its transition from the epic to the lyric form. They express a peculiar poetic feeling which is sought for in vain in the epic age—a sentiment which, without art and without name, wanders on until it is caught up by fresh lips, and becomes the regular interpreter of the same feelings. Thus this simple voice of song travels onward from mouth to month, from heart to heart, the language of the general sorrows, hopes, and memories; strange, and yet near to every one, centuries old, yet never growing older, since the human heart, whose history it relates in so many changing images and notes, remains forever the same.

Though the great majority of the popular ballads of Scandinavia are attributed to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the composition of them by no means ceased then. This voice of the people continued more or less to find expression down to the close of the last century, when it became the means of leading back its admirers to truth and genuine feeling, and, more than anything else, contributed to the revival of a new era in literature.

5. DANISH LITERATURE—In taking leave of the splendid ancient literature of Scandinavia, we find before us a waste of nearly four centuries from the thirteenth, which presents scarcely a trace of intellectual cultivation. The ballads and tales, indeed, lingered in the popular memory and heart; fresh notes of genuine music were from time to time added to them, and they form the connecting link between the ancient and modern literature. Saxo Grammaticus and Theodoric the monk, in the thirteenth century, adopted the Latin language in their chronicles of Denmark and Norway, and from that time it usurped the place of the native tongue among the educated. In the sixteenth century the spirit of the Reformation began to exert an influence, and the Bible was translated into the popular tongue. New fields of thought were opened, a passion for literature was excited, and translations, chiefly from the German, were multiplied; a knowledge of the classics was cultivated, and, in time, a noble harvest of literature followed.