THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881).
First in order of time was the work of Thomas Carlyle. It will not seem strange to the student of English literature to find that this writer came under the influence of the old skalds and sagaman and spoke appreciative words concerning them. His German studies had to take cognizance of the Old Norse treasuries of poetry, and he became a diligent reader of Icelandic literature in what translations he could get at, German and English. The strongest utterance on the subject that he left behind him is in "Lecture I" of the series "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History," dated May, 1840. This is a treatment of Scandinavian mythology, rugged and thorough, like all of this man's work. Carlyle evinces a scholar's instinct in more than one place, as, for instance, when he doubts the grandmother etymology of Edda, an etymology repeated until a much later day by scholars of a less sure sense. [[17]] But this lecture "On Heroes" is also a glorification of the literature with which we are dealing, and in this regard it is worthy of special note here.
In the first place, Carlyle with true critical instinct caught the essence of it; to him it seemed to have "a rude childlike way of recognizing the divineness of Nature, the divineness of Man." For him Scandinavian mythology was superior in sincerity to the Grecian, though it lacked the grace of the latter. "Sincerity, I think, is better than grace. I feel that these old Northmen were looking into Nature with open eye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike; with a great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving, admiring, unfearing way. A right valiant, true old race of men." This is a truer appreciation than Gray and Walpole had, eighty years before. In the second place, Carlyle was not misled into thinking that valor in war was the only characteristic of the rude Norseman, and skill in drinking his only household virtue. "Beautiful traits of pity, too, and honest pity." Then he tells of Baldur and Nanna, in his rugged prose account anticipating Matthew Arnold. Other qualities of the literature appeal to him. "I like much their robust simplicity; their veracity, directness of conception. Thor 'draws down his brows' in a veritable Norse rage; 'grasps his hammer till the knuckles grow white." Again; "A great broad Brobdignag grin of true humor is this Skrymir; mirth resting on earnestness and sadness, as the rainbow on the black tempest: only a right valiant heart is capable of that." Still again: "This law of mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost thought, has been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in their rude style."
Thomas Carlyle, seeking to explain the worship of a pagan divinity, chose Odin as the noblest example of such a hero. The picture of Odin he drew from the prose Edda, mainly, and his purpose required that he paint the picture in the most attractive colors. So it happened that our English literature got its first complete view of Old Norse ethics and art. The memory of Gray's "dreadful songs" had ruled for almost a century, and ordinary readers might be pardoned for thinking that Old Norse literature, like Old Norse history, was written in blood. We have seen that Gray's imitators perpetuated the old idea, and that even Scott sanctioned it, and now we see England's emancipation from it. The grouty old Scotchman of Craigenputtoch knew no more Icelandic than most of his fellow countrymen (be it noted that he said: "From the Humber upwards, all over Scotland, the speech of the common people is still in a singular degree Icelandic, its Germanism has still a peculiar Norse tinge"); but he saw far more deeply into the heart of Icelandic literature than anybody before him. His emphasis of its many sidedness, of its sincerity, its humanity, its simplicity, its directness, its humor and its wisdom, was the signal for a change in the popular estimation of its worth to our modern art. Since his day we have had Morris and Arnold and a host of minor singers, and the nineteenth century revival of interest in Old Norse literature.
The other work by Carlyle dealing directly with Old Norse material is The Early Kings of Norway. Here he digests Heimskringla, which was obtainable through Laing's translation, in a way to stir the blood. The story, as he tells it, is breathlessly interesting, and it is a pity that readers of Carlyle so often stop short of this work. As in the Hero-Worship, he shows this Teutonic bias, and the religious training that minified Greek literature.
Snorri's work elicits from him repeated applause. Here, for instance, in Chap. X: "It has, all of it, the description (and we see clearly the fact itself had), a kind of pathetic grandeur, simplicity, and rude nobleness; something Epic or Homeric, without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, reverence for what is ever high in this universe, than meets us in those old Greek Ballad-mongers."
SAMUEL LAING (1780-1868).
It was the work of Samuel Laing that gave Carlyle the material for this last-mentioned book. [[18]] Laing's translation of Heimskringla bears the date 1844, and although Mr. Dasent's quaint version of the Prose Edda preceded it by two years, The Sagas of the Norse Kings was the "epoch-making" book. It is true that a later version has superseded it in literary and scholarly finish, but Laing's work was a pioneer of sterling intrinsic value, and many there be that do it homage still. Laing had the laudable ambition—so seldom found in these days—"to give a plain, faithful translation into English of the Heimskringla, unencumbered with antiquarian research, and suited to the plain English reader." [[19]] With this work, then, Icelandic lore passes out of the hands of the antiquarian into the hands of common readers. It matters little that the audience is even still fit and few; from this time on he that runs may read.