wearing a sombreness
distasteful to our race when it was young.... The time seems near, if it
has not actually arrived, when the mournful sublimity of a moor, a sea,
or a mountain, will be all of nature that is absolutely consonant with
the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the
commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and
myrtlegardens of South Europe are to him now." Is it not a suggestive
thought that England and the nineteenth century evolved a pessimism
which poor Iceland on its ash-heap never could conceive? William Morris
was an Icelander, not an Englishman, in his philosophy.

In this same scene, a notable deviation from the saga is the
conversation between Regin and Sigurd concerning the relations that
shall be between them after the slaying of Fafnir. Here Morris impresses
the lesson of Regin's greed, taking the un-Icelandic device of preaching
to serve his purpose:

Let it lead thee up to heaven, let it lead thee down to hell,
The deed shall be done tomorrow: thou shalt have that measureless Gold,
And devour the garnered wisdom that blessed thy realm of old,
That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the, very heart of hate:
With the blood and the might of thy brother thine hunger shalt thou
sate:
And this deed shall be mine and thine; but take heed for what followeth
then!

(P. 119.)

In still another place has Morris departed far from the saga story.
According to the poem, Sigurd meets each warning of Fafnir that the gold
will be the curse of its possessor with the assurance that he will cast
the gold abroad, and let none of it cling to his fingers. The saga,
however, has this very frank confession: "Home would I ride and lose all
that wealth, if I deemed that by the losing thereof I should never die;
but every brave and true man will fain have his hand on wealth till that
last day." Here, again, we see an adaptation of the story of the poem to
modern conceptions of nobility. It remains to be said that the ernes
move Sigurd to take the gold for the gladdening of the world, and they
assure him that a son of the Volsung had nought to fear from the Curse.
The seven-times-repeated "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd," is an admirable
poem, but it does not contain information concerning Brynhild, as do the
strophes of _Reginsmal_ which are the model for this lay.

Let us look at the art of Morris as it is shown in