“ The climate, as well as the isolated position of the island, had also much to do with it. In the long evenings of a long winter, an intelligent people would naturally have recourse to literature; and as soon as the introduction of Christianity brought with it the knowledge and use of the Latin alphabet, the earliest employment of the new gift was in writing out the pagan songs which had been orally transmitted from one generation to another. ”

“ This list (and it contains but a few of the published sagas) shows the attention paid to the culture of letters in a remote corner of the world, at a time when the whole continent of Europe was sunk in barbarism and ignorance.—The second or modern period of Icelandic literature by no means commences with the termination of the old literature; a long time of utter mental inactivity followed, and the 15th and 16th centuries produced scarcely anything but a few unimportant religious books. In the 17th century the knowledge of the ancient literature and glory of the island began to revive. ”

“ Icelandic is a daughter of the old Norse proper, the dialect spoken as late as the 11th century in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the adjacent islands, and a sister of the old Norse dialect which is the parent of modern Swedish and Danish. ”