A load of lead to bear,
Burnt are all the castles
Were builded new and fair.”
(This was sung by the Icelander Thord Andresson when treacherously captured by Gissur the Earl, 1264.)
A list of Icelandic Dance-Burdens is given in the Corpus Poeticum Boreale.
The beginning of the thirteenth century inaugurated a new fashion. Narrative poetry—originally a separate art—was combined with the dance-lyric. Fables, for instance, were borrowed from the Troubadours, the Minnesingers, and the various foreign minstrels attached to the Danish court. The lyrics were sometimes retained as introductory stanzas, sometimes broken up into Burdens. Thus the song:
“The King he rules the castle
And over all the land,
And over many a warrior bold
With shining sword in hand,”