The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature | Page 7

later. As has been

intimated, this was unusual in the time in which they lived, when, in
Lowell's phrase, the "blight of propriety" was on all poetry. But it was
only the rude and savage in an unfamiliar literature that could give
pause in the age of Pope. The milder aspects of Old Norse song and
saga must await the stronger century to give them favor. "Behold, there
was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion."
GEORGE HICKES (1642-1715).
The next book in the list that contains an English contribution to the
knowledge of our subject is the Thesaurus of George Hickes. On p. 193
of
Part I, there is a prose translation of "The
Awakening of Angantyr,"
from the Harvarar Saga. Acknowledgment is given to Verelius for the
text of the poem, but Hickes seems to have chosen this poem as the
gem of the Saga. The translation is another proof of an antiquarian's
taste and judgment, and the reader does not wonder that it soon found a
wider audience through another publication. It was reprinted in the
books of 1716 and 1770 in the above list. An extract or two will show
that the vigor of the old poem has not been altogether lost in the
translation:
Hervor.--Awake Angantyr, Hervor the only daughter of thee and Suafu
doth awaken thee. Give me out of the tombe, the hardned[9] sword,
which the dwarfs made for Suafurlama. Hervardur, Hiorvardur, Hrani,
and Angantyr, with helmet, and coat of mail, and a sharp sword, with
sheild and accoutrements, and bloody spear, I wake you all, under the
roots of trees. Are the sons of Andgrym, who delighted in mischief,
now become dust and ashes, can none of Eyvors sons now speak with
me out of the habitations of the dead! Harvardur, Hiorvardur! so may
you all be within your ribs, as a thing that is hanged up to putrifie
among insects, unlesse you deliver me the sword which the dwarfs
made ... and the glorious belt.
Angantyr.--Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise the dead, why dost
thou call so? wilt thou run on to thy own mischief? thou art mad, and
out of thy senses, who art desperatly resolved to waken dead men. I

was not buried either by father or other freinds. Two which lived after
me got Tirfing, one of whome is now possessor thereof.
Hervor.--Thou dost not tell the truth: so let Odin hide thee in the tombe,
as thou hast Tirfing by thee. Art thou unwilling, Angantyr, to give an
inheritance to thy only child?...
Angantyr.--Fals woman, thou dost not understand, that thou speakest
foolishly of that, in which thou dost rejoice, for Tirfing shall, if thou
wilt beleive me, maid, destroy all thy offspring.
Hervor.--I must go to my seamen, here I have no mind to stay longer.
Little do I care, O Royall friend, what my sons hereafter quarrell about.
Angantyr.--Take and keep Hialmars bane, which thou shalt long have
and enjoy, touch but the edges of it, there is poyson in both of them, it
is a most cruell devourer of men.
Hervor.--I shall keep, and take in hand, the sharp sword which thou
hast let me have: I do not fear, O slain father! what my sons hereafter
may quarrell about.... Dwell all of you safe in the tombe, I must be gon,
and hasten hence, for I seem to be, in the midst of a place where fire
burns round about me.
One can well understand, who handles the ponderous _Thesaurus_,
why the first English lovers of Old Norse were antiquarians. "The
Awakening of Angantyr" is literally buried in this work, and only the
student of Anglo-Saxon prosody would come upon it unassisted, since
it is an illustration in a chapter of the _Grammaticæ Anglo-Saxonicæ et
Moeso-Gothicæ_. Students will remember in this connection that it was
a work on poetics that saved for us the original Icelandic Edda. The
Icelandic skald had to know his nation's mythology.
THOMAS PERCY (1729-1811).
The title of
Chapter XXIII

in Hickes' work indicates that even among learned doctors mistaken
notions existed as to the relationship of the Teutonic languages. It took
more than a hundred years to set the error right, but in the meanwhile
the literature of Iceland was becoming better known to English readers.
To the French scholar, Paul Henri Mallet (1730-1807), Europe owes
the first popular presentation of Northern antiquities and literature.
Appointed professor of belles-lettres in the Copenhagen academy he
found himself with more time than students on his hands, because not
many Danes at that time understood French. His leisure time was
applied to the study of the antiquities of his adopted country, the King's
commission for a history of Denmark making that necessary. As a
preface to this