the manners and customs of the Icelanders superfluous. The reader has seen them at their drinking-bouts *, their festivals, their legislative and forensic assemblies, and obtained a good insight both of their public and private intercourse, and he will probaby coincide with us in opinion that the graphic sketches which they have themselves given of their social existence, produce, on the whole, an unfavourable impression. The worst traits of the ancient Scandinavian charactercraftiness, remorseless cruelty, a spirit of sanguinary revenge, perfidy, malice, slander, recklessness regarding the lives and property of others-are, in fact, every where but too conspicuous; though we also find the Scandinavian energy, valour, enterprise, love of independence, and a few other redeeming traits, that render the picture somewhat less sombre. And if a strict comparison were instituted between the social condition of Iceland and that of other countries, we should probably be induced to place it, notwithstanding its viciousness, rather above than below the average standard of civilization that prevailed in Europe during those barbarous ages. That an aristocratic republic should have flourished for four centuries on a comparatively barren island, placed amidst the wild waves of the Arctic Ocean, and that the leading men of this republic should have framed a code of laws, which, whatever may be its defects, secured at least an ample provision for the poorest member of the community, and suffered no one to perish from starvation, are facts which will always render Iceland peculiarly interesting to all who make human nature-or the development of humanity on earth, in its multifarious and ever varying aspects-the object of their *Antiquaries have not been able to ascertain whether the Icelanders brewed their beer from oats, rye, or barley. Previous to the eleventh century bread and wine were unknown in Iceland. The standing dish of an Icelandic family was oatmeal porridge; they had also plenty of butter and cheese, and, on festive occasions, their tables were abundantly supplied with beef, mutton, veal, pork, and horseflesh, and with fresh and dried fish. They appear to have been equally as fond of steaks as the people of this country; in fact, the Old Norse word for cook, is steaker, (steikari,) though meat swain, (matsveinn,) is also used to designate that indispensable household functionary. Our word steak is evidently derived from the Old Norse steik, which, how-. ever, was not restricted to beef; the term being applied by an Icelandic steaker to any slice of flesh meat that he had to prepare for the table. Horse steaks were probably as much in request at an Icelandic convivial meeting, as rump steaks are in a London tavern at the present day. special attention. It is also a very remarkable fact, that, notwithstanding its rude climate, the Icelanders should have evinced, in every age, an ardent attachment for their native island. To leave it, and lead for a few years an adventurous life in foreign countries, was considered, in the olden time, as the necessary complement of a youth's education. "Heimskr er heimalid barn." Inexperienced is he who remains in his native land-literally, homely is the home-bred child—was a favourite Icelandic maxim. But whatever might be his career-whether he acquired wealth and renown as a daring sea-rover, or served with distinction in the Varangian bodyguard of the Byzantine emperors; whether he pursued the more peaceful avocations of a Skald or a Sagaman, and became a welcome guest at every court his wandering disposition induced him to visit, the Icelander was sure to return and pass at least his old age amidst the volcanic fires and eternal snows of his own cherished island. And even at the present day, when an Icelander hears tell of the genial climes of the south, he exclaims, while he views with a happy contentment the bleak scenery around him, “After all, Iceland is the best land that the sun shines upon! Island er hinn besta land sem solinn skinnar uppá." CHAPTER IV. ICELANDIC LITERATURE. OUR limits only allow us to give a mere sketch of the literature of Iceland in the olden time. We shall regard it as naturally falling into the three divisions of Eddaic, Skaldic, and Saga literature, and say a few words respecting each : EDDAIC LITERATURE. There are two works which bear the title of Edda, the one in verse, the other in prose. The Poetic, or Elder Edda *, Various derivations have been given of the word Edda, which in Old Norse signifies simply, great grandmother, in which sense it is used in the Rígs-mál. In M. Gothic atta is used for father, and aithei for mother. Sæmund's Edda was quite unknown to the learned world until the seventeenth century, when the celebrated Torfæus received a MS. containing consists of thirty nine poems, which were collected by Sæmund Sigfusson, (n. 1057. ob. 1131,) surnamed the Learned, towards the latter end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. Sæmund, after pursuing his classical and theological studies in the universities of France and Germany, became, on his return to Iceland, the parish priest of Oddi, a village situated at the foot of Mount Hekla, and which had belonged to his family from the time of the first colonization of the island, and where he seems to have devoted himself with great zeal to the cultivation of letters and the education of youth. Some writers maintain, though without being able to adduce the slightest evidence in support of their arguments, that Sæmund merely transcribed the Eddaic poems from Runic manuscripts, or Runic staves; but the most probable conjecture seems to be that he collected them from oral tradition, though he may possibly have found some of the most important amongst them in manuscripts written in Roman characters, shortly after the introduction of Christianity. The Eddaic poems may be classified as follows:-1. The Mythic-cosmogonic. 2. The Mythic-ethnologic. 3. The Ethic. 4. The Mythological. 5. The Mythic-heroic. 6. The Miscellaneous. One of them-the Sólar-ljód-was probably composed by Sæmund himself, as it is the only one that contains the least allusion to Christianity *. All the others, espe cially the Mythic-cosmogonic poems, bear internal evidence that entitles them to the claim of a much higher antiquity than the eleventh century. The Mythic-cosmogonic poems are the Völuspá, the Vafthrúdnis-mál, and the Grimnis-mál. The Völu, or Völo-spáa compound word, signifying The Song of the Prophetess †,it from Iceland. Resenius gave two of the poems in the first edition of the Prose Edda, published in 1665, but we have now a complete edition of all the poems, with notes and glossaries, in 3 volumes, 4to., published by the Arni-Magnæan Commission at Copenhagen, the 1st volume in 1787, the 2nd in 1818, and the 3rd, which is provided with an excellent "Lexicon Mythologicum" by Finn Magnusen, in 1828. With the exception of a couplet in the thirteenth strophe of the Grou galdur, in which mention is made of the (magical) evil to be apprehended from the dead body of a Christian woman, "kristin daud kona," and perhaps also one or two obscure allusions in the mythic-heroic poems. + Scoticé Vala's spae.-See the Glossary to the Prose Edda. All the Teutonic nations appear to have had their Valas or prophetesses; Cæsar remarks, i. 50, that " apud Germanos ea consuetudo esset, ut matres familias appears to be the oldest as it is the most interesting of the Eddaic poems. It is a kind of Sybilline lay, supposed-though we think without any adequate grounds-to have been recited before the assembled people at the religious festival of the summer solstice, and contains the whole system of Scandinavian mythology-the creation, the origin of man, how evil and death were brought into the world, and concludes by a prediction of the destruction and renovation of the universe, and a description of the future abodes of bliss and misery. As numerous extracts from this poem are given in the Prose Edda, of which it in fact forms the groundwork, any further details respecting it would be superfluous. The Vafthrúdnismál contains the same system of cosmogonic mythology in the form of a dramatic dialogue between Odin and the giant Vafthrúdnir. The poem commences by Odin telling his wife, Frigga, that he intends to visit Vafthrúdnir in order to ascertain the extent of his knowledge of sacred lore. Frigga fearing that Odin-to whose fate that of gods and men was indissolubly linked-might be vanquished in an intellectual encounter with a giant so renowned for his omniscience, advises him to desist from his purpose. Odin, however, proceeds on his journey, and enters the halls of Vafthrúdnir as a mere mortal under the name of Gangrad. The giant finding, after he had asked the stranger a few questions, that he had a worthy antagonist, invites him to take a seat, and expresses his willingness to enter into a disputation with him on the condition that the vanquished party-the one unable to answer a question put to him by the othershould forfeit his head. They accordingly discuss by question and answer the principal topics of Scandinavian mythology; but the pretended Gangrad at length asks his adversary what eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus declararent, utrum prælium committi ex usu esset, nec ne;" and Tacitus in giving an account of Veleda, the prophetic virgin of the Bructeri, says, Hist. 4. 61, "Ea virgo nationis Bructeræ, late imperitabat, vetere apud Germanos more, quo plerasque feminarum fatidicas, et augescente superstitione arbitrantur deas." He afterwards speaks of Veleda giving her oracular responses from the tower in which she dwelt. The classic writers also make mention of Ganna and Aurinia (probably a Latin corruption of Alirúna) as Germanic prophetesses. * Mál, song, discourse, speech, a word cognate with the Ang. Sax. mal, ma!, the Gr. uídos, &c. For an explanation of the proper names that occur in this chapter, see the Glossary to the Prose Edda. Odin whispered in the ear of his son Baldur before he had him placed on the funeral pile,-a question by which the astonished giant becomes aware that his antagonist is Odin himself, who was alone capable of answering it, and therefore acknowledges himself vanquished. Although the limits of the present work only allow us to give a mere summary of these ancient myths, we cannot refrain from remarking that most of them admit of a satisfactory explanation. The dispute between Odin and Vafthrúdnir, for instance, is the symbolical expression of the strife between summer and winter -between light and darkness; the earth, (Frigga,) naturally awaiting with anxiety the issue of a combat on which her fate depends. As darkness was also supposed to conceal some profound mystery, some primordial knowledge which could only be revealed by the rays of light dissipating the enshrouding gloom, the disputation of Odin and Vafthrúdnir may typify, not only the elemental antagonism of light and darkness, but also the strife between intellectuality and obscurantism-a strife coeval with man, and which we fear will only end when time shall be no more; although it were certainly much to be wished that obscurantism should become like Vafthrúdnir, a headless monster; or, in other words, that the rays of science should at length dissipate that deadening and soul-withering gloom in which the human understanding is still unfortunately enshrouded. The Grimnis-mál (Grimnir's lay) contains, among other matters, a description of twelve habitations of celestial deities, which were possibly meant (for we will not venture to speak so dogmatically on the subject as Finn Magnusen, and other interpreters of Eddaic esoteric doctrines,) for the twelve signs of the zodiac. Should this be the true interpretation, Grimnir's lay may be regarded as a mythic-uranographic poem, under which point of view it is well deserving of attention. The Mythic-ethnologic class contains only one poem, the Rigs-mál, which explains, in an allegorical manner, the origin of the different races, or, more properly speaking, castes, located in Scandinavia at the period it was composed. Heimdall-who, as the warder of heaven, is here a symbol of the sun-wanders, under the name of Rígr, over the earth, then but thinly peopled, probably, according to the notions of the |