The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature

From Penrose he quotes such lines as these:

From Sterling comes this imitation of Gray:

From these extracts, it appears that the poets who imitated Gray considered that only "dreadful songs," like his, were to be found in Scandinavian poetry.

Downman, Herbert and Mathias are also adduced by Dr. Drake as examples of poets who have gained much by Old Norse borrowings, but these borrowings are invariably scenes from a chamber of horrors. It occurs to me that perhaps Dr. Drake had begun to tire of the spiritless echoes of the classical schools, and that he fondly hoped that such shrieks and groans as those he admired in this essay would satisfy his cravings for better things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of the way in which genius works. His one desire in these studies of Scandinavian mythology was "to recommend it to the votaries of the Muse, as a machinery admirably constructed for their purpose" (p. 158). He hopes for "a more extensive adoption of the Scandinavian mythology, especially in our epic and lyric compositions" (p. 311). We smile at the notion, to-day, but that very conception of poetry as "machinery" is characteristic of a whole century of our English literature.

The Mathias mentioned by Drake is Thomas James Mathias, whose book, Odes Chiefly from the Norse Tongue (London, 1781), received the distinction of an American reprint (New York, 1806). Bartholinus furnishes the material and Gray the spirit for these pieces.

AMOS S. COTTLE(1768-1800). WILLIAM HERBERT (1778-1847).

In this period belong two works of translation that mark the approach of the time when Old Norse prose and poetry were to be read in the original. As literature they are of little value, and they had but slight influence on succeeding writers.

At Bristol, in 1797, was published Icelandic Poetry, or, The Edda of Saemund translated into English Verse, by A.S. Cottle of Magdalen College, Cambridge. This work has an Introduction containing nothing worth discussing here, and an "Epistle" to A.S. Cottle from Robert Southey. The laureate, in good blank verse, discourses on the Old Norse heroes whom he happens to know about. They are the old favorites, Regner Lodbrog and his sons; in Southey's poem the foeman's skull is, as usual, the drinking cup. It was certainly time for new actors and new properties to appear in English versions of Scandinavian stories.

The translations are twelve in number, and evince an intelligent and facile versifier. When all is said, these old songs could contribute to the pleasure of very few. Only a student of history, or a poet, or an antiquarian, would dwell with loving interest on the lays of Vafthrudnis, Grimner, Skirner and Hymer (as Cottle spells them). Besides, they are difficult to read, and must be abundantly annotated to make them comprehensible. In such works as this of Cottle, a Scott might find wherewith to lend color to a story or a poem, but the common man would borrow Walpole's words, used in characterizing Gray's "Odes": "They are not interesting, and do not ... touch any passion; our human feelings ... are not here affected. Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive-the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's hall?" [12]

In 1804 a book was published bearing this title-page: Select Icelandic Poetry, translated from the originals: with notes. The preface was signed by the author, William Herbert. The pieces are from Sæmund, Bartholinus, Verelius, and Perinskjöld's edition of Heimskringla, and were all translated with the assistance of the Latin versions. The notes are explanatory of the allusions and the hiatuses in the poems. Reference is made to MSS. of the Norse pieces existing in museums and libraries, which the author had consulted. Thus we see scholarship beginning to extend investigations. As for the verses themselves not much need be said. They are not so good as Cottle's, although they received a notice from Scott in the Edinburgh Review. The thing to notice about the work is that it pretends to come direct from Old Norse, not, as most of the work dealt with so far, via Latin.

Icelandic poetry is more difficult to read than Icelandic prose, and so it seems strange that the former should have been attacked first by English scholars. Yet so it was, and until 1844 our English literature had no other inspiration in old Norse writings than the rude and rugged songs that first lent their lilt to Gray. The human North is in the sagas, and when they were revealed to our people, Icelandic literature began to mean something more than Valhalla and the mead-bouts there. The scene was changed to earth, and the gods gave place to nobler actors, men and women. The action was lifted to the eminence of a world-drama. But before the change came Sir Walter Scott, and it is fitting that the first period of Norse influence in English literature should close, as it began, with a great master.

SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832).

In 1792, Walter Scott was twenty-one years old, and one of his note-books of that year contains this entry: "Vegtam's Kvitha or The Descent of Odin, with the Latin of Thomas Bartholine, and the English poetical version of Mr. Gray; with some account of the Death of Balder, both as related in the Edda, and as handed down to us by the Northern historians-Auctore Gualtero Scott." According to Lockhart, [13] the Icelandic, Latin and English versions were here transcribed, and the historical account that followed-seven closely written quarto pages-was read before a debating society.

It was to be expected that one so enthusiastic about antiquities as Scott would early discover the treasury of Norse history and song. At twenty-one, as we see, he is transcribing a song in a language he knew nothing about, as well as in translations. Fourteen years later, he has learned enough about the subject to write a review of Herbert's Poems and Translations. [14]

In 1813, he writes an account of the Eyrbyggja Saga for Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (edited by Robert Jameson, Edinburgh, 1814).

There are two of Scott's contributions to literature that possess more than a mere tinge of Old Norse knowledge, namely, the long poem "Harold, the Dauntless" (published in 1817), and the long story "The Pirate" (published in 1821). The poem is weak, but it illustrates Scott's theory of the usefulness of poetical antiquities to the modern poet. In another connection Scott said: "In the rude song of the Scald, we regard less the strained imagery and extravagance of epithet, than the wild impressions which it conveys of the dauntless resolution, savage superstition, rude festivity and ceaseless depredations of the ancient Scandinavians." [15] The poet did his work in accordance with this theory, and so in "Harold, the Dauntless," we note no flavor of the older poetry in phrase or in method. Harold is fierce enough and grim enough to measure up to the old ideal of a Norse hero.

"I was rocked in a buckler and fed from a blade," is his boast before his newly christened father, and in his apostrophe to his grandsire Eric, the popular notion of early Norse antiquarianism is again exhibited:

Scott's scholarship in Old Norse was largely derived from the Latin tomes, and such conceptions as those quoted are therefore common in his poem. That the poet realized the inadequacy of such knowledge, the review of Herbert's poetry, published in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1806, shows. In this article he has a vision of what shall be when men shall be able "to trace the Runic rhyme" itself.

"The Pirate," exhibited the Wizard's skill in weaving the old and the new together, the old being the traditions of the Shetlands, full of the ancestral beliefs in Old Norse things, the new being the life in those islands in a recent century. This is a stirring story, that comes into our consideration because of its Scandinavian antiquities. Again we find the Latin treasuries of Bartholinus, Torfæus, Perinskjöld and Olaus Magnus in evidence, though here, too, mention is made of "Haco," and Tryggvason and "Harfager." With a background of island scenery, with which Scott became familiar during a light-house inspector's voyage made in 1814, this story is a picture full of vivid colors and characters. In Norna of the Fitful Head, he has created a mysterious personage in whose mouth "Runic rhymes" are the only proper speech. She stills the tempest with them, and "The Song of the Tempest" is a strong...