Inscriptions In Old Norse Literature

Abstract

I row so that it makes a difference; I am able to understand both: harp-playing and poems”. on the root and reddened them with her blood and recited spells over them. She walked backwards withershins round the log and spoke over it many powerful formulas. After that she had the log pushed into the sea and made this pronouncement that it was to drift out to Drangey and be a source of every evil to Grettir. retell those feats of their ancestors which had been made popular in the songs of their mother tongue. Adher-ing to the tracks of these verses, as if to some ancient volumes, and following the sense with the true steps of a translator, I have assiduously rendered one poem by another; my chronicle, relying on these aids, should be recognised not as something freshly compiled but as the utter-ance of antiquity; this book is thereby guaranteed to give a faithful understanding of the past, not a frivolous glitter of style. Moreover, how much historical writing might we suppose men of such genius would have published if they had slaked their thirst for composition knowing Latin? Even when they had no acquaintance with the Roman tongue, they were taken by such an urge to transmit their record to posterity that in absence of books they resorted to massive boulders and granite for their pages.