Frederik Winkel Horn

“ The Old Norse literature found its real home in Iceland. In Norway, too, some beautiful buds were produced, but, however important these may be in other respects, they have but little value in a literary point of view as compared with the splendid blossoms that unfolded themselves in that distant island, whose inhabitants even to this day have preserved with loving tenderness the memory of their forefathers. ”

“ And yet in the midst of all the severe trials to which the Scandinavian North has been exposed in this respect in the course of time, its peculiar national life has preserved its germinating power, which has frequently given startling signs of life, and which finally in the fulness of time developed a surprising wealth of flowers that from the beginning of this century to the present day give the people in all the Scandinavian lands a literary individuality in the strictest sense their own. ”

“ The people who emigrated to Iceland were for the most part the flower of the nation. They went especially from the west coast of Norway, where the peculiar Norse spirit had been most perfectly developed. Men of the noblest birth in Norway set out with their families and followers to find a home where they might be as free and independent as their fathers had been before them. No wonder then that they took with them the cream of the ancient culture of the fatherland. ”

“ If the question be asked, of what interest it can be to foreign readers to make a special study of the literary history of the Scandinavian peoples, the first answer must be that this literature occupies a respectable and important position by the side of the literatures of the other civilized peoples. It deserves recognition not only as the intellectual product of a race to which has been assigned a prominent part in the world's history, but also on account of its own peculiar merits. ”

“ This fact becomes singularly apparent in the circumstance that the ancient literature, having its root in oral tradition, extending back to the most hoary antiquity, and losing in force and vigor exactly in proportion to the strength of foreign, external influences upon it—employs the mother tongue as its organ, and thus becomes in the truest sense of the word a popular literature, while the literature of modern times developed out of the Roman culture, which was introduced with Christianity, and in the beginning made use of the Latin language as the vehicle of its thought. ”

“ We now know that they were not only a warlike race, whose male members toward the end of the olden time, in the capacity of dreaded vikings, undertook expeditions in the North and far beyond its borders, seeking battle and booty, but that same mythology, which gives us so vivid a picture of this side of their character, also ascribes to them a high rank in intelligence and morality, and reveals a most weird and profound interpretation of the world and the things about them ”

“ The bloody feuds which were carried on toward the fall of the republic between the mighty men of Iceland, and of which the Sturlunga saga furnishes a most graphic and interesting picture, could not help giving all the conditions of life an entirely new character, and that one which was not favorable to saga-writing. The age of magnificently endowed heroes was past, violence and treachery now determined the course of events ”

“ Finally there are some, which have been preserved only in the form of ancient traditions, as for instance in Saxo's Chronicle of Denmark.
Like their kinsmen, the Germans, the inhabitants of the North have doubtless at an early age practised the art of poetry, and given expression to their memories of the past, and to that which moved the hearts of the people, in songs, which we presume were particularly heard in the courts of the kings and in the halls of the nobles. At the dawn of historical times we find the skalds practising their art everywhere in the North. ”

“ Not only in antiquity, but also far down into the middle ages, they all employed, absolutely, one and the same tongue, and even now the differences between the three principal languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are very insignificant. The written languages in Denmark and Norway are very nearly identical, though the Norwegians have recently, to a greater extent than ever before, enriched their tongue by the adoption of words from the dialects which have been preserved by the peasants, and which in many respects are closely related to the ancient common Scandinavian tongue. ”

“ The modern literature will also be treated under two heads only, instead of three, since Denmark and Norway may in fact be said to have a common literature until the political separation of these countries in 1814. Toward the close of the eighteenth century we find the first signs of efforts on the part of the Norwegians to build up a separate literature, and not before the nineteenth century can it be said of them that they have developed an important literary activity which has contributed something new in form and character to the literary life of the North. ”

“ The oldest Norwegian skalds, like Starkad and Brage the Old, are enveloped in mythic darkness, but already, in the time of Harald Fairhair (872–930) , the song-smiths of the Scandinavian North appear as thoroughly historical personages. In Iceland the art of poetry was held in high honor, and it was cultivated not only by the professional skalds, but also by others when the occasion presented itself, and many a passage is preserved, which owes its existence to the inspiration of the moment. ”

“ In regard to the literature of Iceland, it must be admitted that the priests took a conspicuous part in the intellectual development of the people and that they were in possession of no inconsiderable amount of culture for that time, but they were not the only people of culture. Toward the end of the eleventh century it is expressly stated that many of the chiefs were so learned that they with perfect propriety might have been ordained to the priesthood, and in the twelfth century there were, in addition to those to be found in the cloisters, several private libraries in the island. ”

“ They became the leaders in all directions, not only in war and politics, but also in art and literature. A general spirit of migration had taken possession of the inhabitants of the North. While the Danes especially directed their expeditions to England and France, where they at once founded cities and kingdoms, the Norwegians went chiefly to Ireland, Scotland, and to the islands north of Great Britain. But the country, which above all attracted them, when they abandoned Norway to found new homes, was Iceland. ”

“ The Edda-songs are as a rule noble and simple in style, but even here, especially in the youngest of them, those artificial tendencies begin to show themselves, which are so conspicuous and common in the compositions of the skalds, that they, considered as a whole, constitute one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of literature. The fundamental principle of this abnormity is found in all poetry. The poets of all lands and ages have striven to ornament and elevate their style by the use of figurative expressions ”

“ Educated Danes and Swedes, for instance, mutually understand each other more easily than they do one of their own countrymen in the narrower sense of the word, who speaks a popular dialect of the same language, and the difficulties that a Dane has to overcome in order to be able to appropriate the treasures of Swedish literature, or the obstacles that stand in the way of the Swede in reference to Danish books, are very slight indeed. With the language spoken in Iceland the case is a very different one. ”

“ This assumption is also supported by the fact that according to the incontrovertible testimony of Northern antiquities, there existed in the middle iron age a rich and varied culture in Denmark, in that very time to which doubtless the bloom of Norse poetry is to be referred. Denmark is, upon the whole, throughout antiquity the one of northern countries, which seems to have acted the most conspicuous part at least in the field of culture, since the waves and movements that passed over the North proceeded from Denmark, or at least reached this country first. ”

“ In this field, in which obscure and confused recollections of antiquity naturally, yet lingered for some time, there was still life, after literature had ceased to be produced, and all the northern lands, but especially Norway, are rich in folk-lore tales in which are found reminiscences of the olden time. The creation of folk-lore extends in the North as elsewhere into the remotest antiquity, into a time when there is not a single trace of the literary productions described in this work. ”

“ When we, therefore, consider that within the group of Edda-poems itself it is easy to point out, relatively speaking, older and younger lays, poems, on the one hand, which by their very spirit and accent betray the fact that they belong to the restless, bloody age of the vikings, and poems, on the other hand, which bear testimony of an earlier and more refined culture ”

“ The literature of the modern peoples of the North—including the Icelanders—might easily have been described collectively, and certainly an author might be tempted to follow this plan, since by that method the important idea of the essential unity of the intellectual products of the northern peoples could be far more clearly expressed and vindicated than when each literary field is considered by itself. ”

“ In the same manner as in the Scandinavian languages, we can trace a national unity in the literature of the North from the most ancient times down to the present. A very natural division is one into two literary epochs, that of ancient, and that of modern times. ”

“ Without their aid the major part of that which the songs and sagas tell of the real antiquities of the North would scarcely have come down to us. The art of the skalds was a very difficult one, even though it could be practised with considerable success by persons who were not born poets, and if the best effect was to be produced, a vast amount of special education was necessary. Now it fortunately so happened that the principal part of their education consisted in a knowledge of the old mythology, and of the old heroic traditions. ”

“ Like the poetry, these materials were handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, and when at length the conditions for a real literary activity were at hand a most remarkable literature was produced out of these traditions. ”

“ Though it can not be demonstrated with absolute certainty that Saxo knew and used especially old Danish songs, still the probability of this is very great. It is also more than probable, that the poetry of which we have fragments in the Elder Edda, was not confined to Norway and Iceland, but also known in Denmark and Sweden, where we find it, precisely as in Norway, cropping out in the popular literature of the middle ages, in a Christian and romantic garb it is true, but with unmistakable marks of its heathen origin. ”

“ There have been times when the independent intellectual life of the North has become nearly smothered by a too strong and one-sided influence from the leading nation of the Teutonic race, and this is especially true of Denmark, because this country has stood and still stands in so near a relation to Germany. ”

“ The history of the Scandinavian countries does not really begin before the time when Christianity, with steadily increasing power, found its way beyond the borders of the North, that is to say, about the beginning of the ninth century. ”

“ A remarkable blending of history and myths is the Nornagests Saga, which pretends to belong to the age of Olaf Trygvason and seeks in a truly masterly manner to make historical characters of Sigurd, the Slayer of Father, Starkad and others. ”

“ But the question becomes a widely different one, when we, as we of necessity must, look upon them as a link of a great chain. Then the form in which they were written down, becomes a merely accidental circumstance, while the main fact remains, that the songs, of which the Edda-poems give us a few fragments, are the true expression of the popular spirit of the North, which revealed itself around the lakes of Sweden and on the flat fields of Denmark, in the same manner as among the mountains of Norway. ”