h tales of famous men, were
told among the northern peoples. These stories were passed on from
one to another by word of mouth, till they grew much longer and
fuller, and the happening of certain historical events helped to take
them from country to country.

As we have seen, all the races of the North were warlike and eager
for adventure, and so when trouble came upon them in their own homes,
they readily took to the sea to plunder the coasts or to conquer
other lands. Between 800 and 900 A.D., when the Danes were invading
England, many were driven from Norway because they refused to submit
to a king called Harold Fairhair, and when he pursued them to the
Orkney and Faroe Islands they took refuge on the coasts of Iceland.
There they settled, built themselves wooden houses, planted such
crops as would grow in that bleak land, and founded a commonwealth.
Little by little they left the old Viking life, and it lived only in
their songs and stories.

They had come to Iceland with a vast stock of tales in poetry, which
were related or sung by professional poets, called skalds, at all
kinds of feasts and gatherings. The skalds arranged and improved the
old stories, but they were not written down until about the time of
our King Stephen, when some unknown writer collected them into one
book called the Elder Edda. Very soon after this another book was
written containing the same stories in prose and called the Younger
or Prose Edda. In this way many of the old poems, and a great many
stories containing much information about the religion which the
people took with them to Iceland, have been preserved.

But it was from neither of the Eddas that William Morris took his
story of Sigurd.

All through the period from 800 A.D. till about the time of Henry III.
of England, the skalds had been re-telling many of the poetic stories
in prose, and as the people grew more civilised, one tale after
another was written down in its new form.

These prose tales were called Sagas, and among the very greatest is
the Volsunga Saga, or Story of Sigurd. It is a tale which has been
told in other lands besides Iceland. We read part of the same story
in the Old English poem of Beowulf, and in Germany it was made into
a great poem called the Nibelungenlied. The German musician, Richard
Wagner, set it to music in a famous series of operas called the
Nibelungen Ring. But his tale differs in many points from that
contained in Morris's poem, for Mor