prince
of the Northern coasts, is now represented as a King of the Goths,
somewhere in the East of Europe--apparently in the neighbourhood
of the Dnieper. In the last section of the story, dealing with the
adventures of Angantyr and Hloeth, the sons of Heithrek, there is no
longer any reminiscence of the Viking Age or the North of Europe. Here
we are away back among the Goths and Huns in the fifth or the latter
part of the fourth century.

Throughout this strange concatenation of scenes a connecting link
is afforded by the magic flaming sword, which is handed on from
generation to generation, and which can never be sheathed without
having dealt a death wound.

It is abundantly clear that the latter part of the story is of a
totally different origin from the first part, and in reality many
centuries earlier. The prose here is for the most part little more
than a paraphrase of the poem, which probably has its roots in poetry
of the Gothic period. But how this story came to be joined on to a
narrative of the Viking Age is far from clear.

It is also interesting to note that some of the characters in the
saga are repetitions of one another. At all events what is said about
Hervoer the daughter of Heithrek in the latter part of the story bears
a strong resemblance to the description of the more prominent Hervoer,
the daughter of Angantyr, in the first part.

Three poems of considerable length are preserved in the story. The
Riddles of Gestumblindi, though somewhat tedious as a whole, afford
a better specimen of this type of composition than is to be found
elsewhere in early Norse literature. They cannot fail to be of
considerable interest to anyone who studies the Anglo-Saxon Riddles,
though unlike the latter they are wholly Teutonic in spirit and form.
Direct Latin influence appears to be entirely absent.

Gestumblindi's Riddles, while they belong essentially to popular
literature, yet contain many arresting phrases which show a minute
observation of nature. They illustrate the condensed, proverbial type
of wisdom that prevails in a primitive state of society, as well as
its keen interest and delight in the little things of life. They can
hardly be called literature as we understand the term; they are rather
the stuff of which literature is made. But though it is a far cry from
these little nature verses to the more beautiful and more ambitious
nature poems of Burns and Tennyson, yet Gestumblindi's loving interest
i