The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature Part 4

Arnold has exalted the Revelator of the Northern mythology, and in magnificent poetry sets forth his apocalyptic vision:

Unarm'd, inglorious; I attend the course Of ages, and my late return to light, In times less alien to a spirit mild, In new-recover'd seats, the happier day.

Far to the south, beyond the blue, there spreads Another Heaven, the boundless--no one yet Hath reach'd it; there hereafter shall arise The second Asgard, with another name.

There re-a.s.sembling we shall see emerge From the bright Ocean at our feet an earth More fresh, more verdant than the last, with fruits Self-springing, and a seed of man preserved, Who then shall live in peace, as now in war.

Here is the grandest message that the Old Norse religion had to give, and Matthew Arnold concerned himself with that alone. It is a far cry from Regner Lodbrog to this. There is a fine touch in the introduction of Regner into the lamentation of Balder. Arnold makes the old warrior say of the ruder skalds:

But they harp ever on one string, and wake Remembrance in our souls of war alone, Such as on earth we valiantly have waged, And blood, and ringing blows, and violent death.

But when thou sangest, Balder, thou didst strike Another note, and, like a bird in spring, Thy voice of joyance minded us, and youth, And wife, and children, and our ancient home.

Here is a human Norseman, a figure not often presented in the versions of the old stories that English poets and romancers have given us.

Arnold did a good service to Icelandic literature when he put into Regner's mouth mild sentiments and a love for home and family. The note is not lacking in the ancient literature, but it took Englishmen three centuries to find it. It was the scholar, Matthew Arnold, who first repeated the gentler strain in the rude music of the North, as it was the scholar, Thomas Gray, who first echoed the "dreadful songs" of that old psalmody. Gray has all the culture of his age, when it was still possible to compa.s.s all knowledge in one lifetime; Arnold had all the literary culture of his fuller century when multiplied sciences force a scholar to be content with one segment of human knowledge. The former had music and architecture and other sciences among his accomplishments; the latter spread out in literature, as "Sohrab and Rustum," "Empedocles on Etna," "Tristram and Iseult," as well as "Balder Dead" attest. The quatrain prefixed to the volume containing the narrative and elegiac poems be-tokens what joy Arnold had in his literary work, and indicates why these poems cannot fail to live:

What poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating, The world in its turn will not take Pleasure in contemplating.

Balder is the creation of Old Norse poetry that is most popular with contemporary English writers, and Matthew Arnold first made him so. As Bugge points out, no deed of his is "celebrated in song or story. His personality only is described; of his activity in life almost no external trait is recorded. All the stress is laid upon his death; and, like Christ, Baldr dies in his youth."[21]

SIR GEORGE WEBBE DASENT (1820-1896).

Among the scholars who have labored to give England the benefit of a fuller and truer knowledge of Norse matters, none will be remembered more gratefully than Sir George Webbe Dasent. Known to the reading public most widely by his translations of the folk-tales of Asbjornsen and Moe, he has still a claim upon the attention of the students of Icelandic. As we have seen, he gave out a translation of the _Younger Edda_ in 1842, and during the half century and more that followed he wrote other works of history and literature connected with our subject.

Two saga translations were published in 1861 and 1866, _The Story of Burnt Njal_, and _The Story of Gisli the Outlaw_, which will always rank high in this cla.s.s of literature. _Njala_ especially is an excellent piece of work, a cla.s.sic among translations. The "Prolegomena" is rich in information, and very little of it has been superseded by later scholarship. In 1887 and 1894 he translated for the Master of the Rolls, _The Orkney Saga_ and _The Saga of Hakon_, the texts of which Vigfusson had printed in the same series some years before. The interest of the government in Icelandic annals connected with English history is indicated in these last publications, and England is fortunate to have had such enthusiastic scholars as Vigfusson and Dasent to do the work.

These men had been collaborators on the Cleasby Dictionary, and in this work as in all others Dasent displayed an eagerness to have his countrymen know how significant England's relationship to Iceland was.

He was as certain as Laing had been before him of the preeminence of this literature among the mediaeval writings. Like Laing, too, he would have the general reader turn to this body of work "which for its beauty and richness is worthy of being known to the greatest possible number of readers."[22]

To mark the progress away from the old conception of unmitigated brutality these words of Dasent stand here:[23] "The faults of these Nors.e.m.e.n were the faults of their time; their virtues they possessed in larger measure than the rest of their age, and thus when Christianity had tamed their fury, they became the torch-bearers of civilization; and though the plowshare of Destiny, when it planted them in Europe, uprooted along its furrow many a pretty flower of feeling in the lands which felt the fury of these Northern conquerers, their energy and endurance gave a lasting temper to the West, and more especially to England, which will wear so long as the world wears, and at the same time implanted principles of freedom which shall never be rooted out.

Such results are a compensation for many bygone sorrows."

CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-1875).

In 1874, Charles Kingsley visited America and delivered some lectures.

Among these was one ent.i.tled "The First Discovery of America." This interests us here because it displays an appreciation, if not a deep knowledge, of Icelandic literature. In it the lecturer commended to Longfellow's attention a ballad sung in the Faroes, begging him to translate it some day, "as none but he can translate it." "It is so sad, that no tenderness less exquisite than his can prevent its being painful; and at least in its _denouement_, so naive, that no purity less exquisite than his can prevent its being dreadful."[24] Later in the lecture he commends to his hearers the _Heimskringla_ of Snorri Sturluson, the "Homer of the North."[25]

Speaking of the elements that mingled to produce the British character, Kingsley says: "In manners as well as in religion, the Norse were humanized and civilized by their contact with the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland. Both peoples had valor, intellect, imagination: but the Celt had that which the burly, angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tenderness, grace, rapidity, playfulness; just the qualities, combining with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements of character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland, two schools of lyric poetry second to none in the world."[26] Over the page, Kingsley has this to say: "For they were a sad people, those old Norse forefathers of ours."[27] Humorous and sad are not inconsistent words in these sentences; the Norseman had a sense of the ludicrous, and could jest grimly in the face of death. Of the sadness of his life, no one needs to be told who has read a saga or two. Kingsley says: "There is, in the old sagas, none of that enjoyment of life which shines out everywhere in Greek poetry, even through its deepest tragedies. Not in complacency with Nature's beauty, but in the fierce struggle with her wrath, does the Norseman feel pleasure."[28]

This lecture shows a deeper acquaintance with Old Norse literature than Kingsley was willing to acknowledge. Not only are the stories well chosen which he uses throughout, but the intuitions are sound, and the inferences based upon them. He antic.i.p.ated the work of this investigation in the last words of the address. He has been telling the fine story of Thormod at Sticklestead:

"I shall not insult your intelligence by any comment or even epithet of my own. I shall but ask you, Was not this man your kinsman? Does not the story sound, allowing for all change of manners as well as of time and place, like a scene out of your own Bret Harte or Colonel John Hay's writings; a scene of the dry humor, the rough heroism of your own far West? Yes, as long as you have your _Jem Bludsos_ and _Tom Flynns of Virginia City_, the old Norse blood is surely not extinct, the old Norse spirit is not dead."[29]

EDMUND GOSSE (1849-).

Among contemporary English poets who have taught the world of readers that things Norse are worthy of attention, is Edmund Gosse. He has been more intimately connected with the popularization of modern Norwegian literature, notably of Ibsen, but he has also found in Old Norse story themes for poetic treatment. We mention "The Death of Arnkel," found in the volume _Firdausi in Exile_, more because it shows that our poets are turning to _the gesta islandicorum_ for themes, than because it is a remarkable poem. More pretentious is _King Erik, a Tragedy_, London, 1876. Here is a n.o.ble drama which displays an intimate acquaintance with the literature that gave it its themes and inspiration. The author dedicates it to Robert Browning, calling it:

... this lyric symbol of my labour, This antique light that led my dreams so long, This battered hull of a barbaric tabor, Beaten to runic song.

I have often thought that fate was very unkind to keep Browning so persistently in the south of Europe, when, in Iceland and Norway, were mines that he could have worked in to such supreme advantage. To be sure his method clashes with the simplicity of the Old Norse manner, but from him we should have had men and women superb in stature and virility, and perhaps the Arctic influence would have killed the troublesome tropicality of his language.

This drama by Gosse is not strictly Icelandic in motive. Jealousy was not the pa.s.sion to loosen the tongue of the sagaman, and in so far as that is the theme of "King Erik," the play is not Old Norse in origin.

Christian material, too, has been introduced that gives a modern tinge to the drama, but there is enough of the genuine saga spirit to warrant attention to it here. Something more than the names is Icelandic. Here is a woman, Botilda, with strength of character enough to recall a Brynhild or a Bergthora. Gisli is the foster-brother that takes up the blood-feud for Grimur. Adalbjorg and Svanhilda are the whisperers of slander and the workers of ill. Marcus is the skald who is making a poem about the king. Here are customs and beliefs distinctly Norse:

I loved him from the first, And so the second midnight to the cliff We went. I mind me how the round moon rose, And how a great whale in the offing plunged, Dark on the golden circle. There we cut A s.p.a.ce of turf, and lifted it, and ran Our knife-points sharp into our arms, and drew Blood that dripped into the warm mould and mixed.

So there under the turf our plighted faith Starts in the dew of gra.s.ses.

(Act. IV, Sc. II.)

But all day long I hear amid the crowds,

A voice that murmurs in a monotone, Strange, warning words that scarcely miss the ear, Yet miss it altogether.

_Botilda_.

Oh! G.o.d grant, You be not fey, nor truly near your end!

(Act. IV, Sc. III.)

Although this work is dramatic in form, it is not so in spirit. The true dramatist would have put such an incident as the swearing of brotherhood into a scene, instead of into a speech. This effort is, however, the nearest approach to a drama in English founded on saga material. It is curious that our poets have inclined to every form but the drama in reproducing Old Norse literature. It is not that saga-stuff is not dramatic in possibilities. Ewald and Oehlenschlager have used this material to excellent effect in Danish dramas. Had the sagas been accessible to Englishmen in Shakespeare's time, we should certainly have had dramas of Icelandic life.

IV.

BY THE HAND OF THE MASTER.

Time has brought us to the man whose work in this field needs no apology. The writer whom we consider next contributed almost as much material to the English treasury of Northern gold as did all the writers we have so far considered. Were it not for William Morris, the examination that we are making would not not be worth while. The name _literature_, in its narrow sense, belongs to only a few of the writings that we have examined up to this point, but what we are now to inspect deserves that t.i.tle without the shadow of a doubt. For that reason we set in a separate chapter the examination of Morris' Old Norse adaptations and creations.

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896).

The biographer of William Morris fixes 1868 as the beginning of the poet's Icelandic stories.[30] Eirikr Magnusson, an Icelander, was his guide, and the pupil made rapid progress. Dasent's work had drawn Morris' attention to the sagas, and within a few months most of the sagas had been read in the original. Although _The Saga of Gunnlang Worm-tongue_ was published in the _Fortnightly Review_, for January, 1869, the _Grettis Saga_, of April, was the first published book on an Old Norse subject. The next year gave the _Volsunga Saga_. In 1871, Morris made a journey through Iceland, the fruits of which were afterwards seen in many a n.o.ble work. In 1875, _Three Northern Love Stories_ was published, and, in 1877, _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs_. More than ten years pa.s.sed before he turned again to Icelandic work, the Romances of the years of 1889 to 1896 showing signs of it, and the translations in the _Saga Library_, "Howard the Halt," "The Banded Men," _Eyrbyggja_ and _Heimskringla_ of 1891-95. These contributions to the subject of our examination are no less valuable than voluminous, and we make no excuses for an extended consideration of them. They deserve a wider public than they have yet attained.

1.

_The Story of Grettir the Strong_ is the t.i.tle of Morris and Magnusson's version of the _Grettis Saga_. The version impresses the reader as one made with loving care by artistic hands. Certainly English readers will read no other translation of this work, for this one is satisfactory as a version and as an art-work. English readers will here get all the flavor of the original that it is possible to get in a translation, and those who can read Icelandic if put to it, will prefer to get _Grettla_ through Morris and Magnusson. All the essentials are here, if not all the nuances.

The reader unfamiliar with sagas will need a little patience with the genealogies that crop out in every chapter. The sagaman has a squirrel-like agility in climbing family trees, and he is well acquainted with their interlocking branches. There are chapters in the _Grettis Saga_ where this vanity runs riot, and makes us suspect that Iceland differed little from a country town of to-day in its love for gossip about the family of neighbors whose names happen to come into the conversation. If the reader will persevere through the early chapters, until Grettir commands exclusive attention, he will come to a drama which has not many peers in literature. The outlaw kills a man in every other chapter, but this record is no vulgar list of brutal fights. Not inhuman nature, but human nature is here shown, human nature struggling with unrelenting fate, making a grand fight, and coming to its end because it must, but without ignominy. How fine a touch it is that refuses to the outlaw's murderer the price set upon Grettir's head, because the getting of it was through a "nithings-deed," the murder of a dying man! William Morris was most felicitous in envoys and dedicating poems, and in the sonnet prefixed to this translation he was particularly happy. The first eight lines describe the hero of the saga--the last six lines the significance of this literary creation: