God’s blessing rest on thee, I pray,
Throughout the everlasting day.
There are songs of the meadow and the sheep-tending, of fishing and of the hay-harvest, of returning spring and dying summer, of the happiness of home-life, of sorrow and joy and love and the whole scale of human emotions. In the midst of their poverty and toil they are a cheerful and happy race, singing at their occupations or writing songs in the saddle or at the sheep-tending. The children are taught to appreciate poetry and to write it and the result is that nearly every one makes verses and out of the many attempts there is much that is excellent. Much of the poetry is spontaneous as in the Saga days. The Sagas are replete with impromptu verses witty, ironical, boastful and descriptive. Thus Kari, when Skapti accuses him of “sneaking out of this atonement” after the famous trial of 1112 at the Althing for the burning of Njal, retorts, in part,—
“Men who skim the main on sea stag
Well in this ye showed your sense,
Making game about the Burning,
Mocking Helgi, Grim and Njal;
Now the moor round rocky Swinestye,[4]
As men run and shake their shields,
With another grunt shall rattle