ng to the
story that was the pride of an entire age, in order to serve his own the
better. If he was wise in these additions, he was no less wise in
subtractions and in preservations. The saga has a long address by
Brynhild, opening with mystical advice concerning the power of runes,
and closing grandly with wise words that sound like a page from the Old
Testament. The former find no place in _Sigurd the Volsung_, but the
latter are turned into mighty phrases that wonderfully preserve the
spirit of the original.

One passage more from Book II:

So they climb the burg of Hindfell, and hand in hand they fare,
Till all about and above them is nought but the sunlit air,
And there close they cling together rejoicing in their mirth;
For far away beneath them lie the kingdoms of the earth,
And the garths of men-folk's dwellings and the streams that water them,
And the rich and plenteous acres, and the silver ocean's hem,
And the woodland wastes and the mountains, and all that holdeth all;
The house and the ship and the island, the loom and the mine and the
stall,
The beds of bane and healing, the crafts that slay and save,
The temple of God and the Doom-ring, the cradle and the grave.

(P. 145.)

These ten lines serve to illustrate very well one of the most remarkable
powers of Morris. Just consider for a moment the number of details that
are crowded into this picture, and then notice how few are the strokes
required to put them there. For this rapid painting of a crowded canvas
Morris is second to none among English poets. This power to put a whole
landscape or a complex personality into a few lines is the direct
outcome of his study of Old Norse literature. Icelandic poetry is
characterized by this quality. One has but to compare the account of the
end of the world as it is found in the last strophes of _Voeluspa_, or in
the _Prose Edda_, with the similar account in _Revelations_ to see how
much two languages may differ in this respect. It would seem as if the
short verses characteristic of Icelandic poetry forbade lengthy
descriptions. The effect must be produced by a number of quick strokes:
there is never time to go over a line once made. A simile is never
elaborated, a new one is made when the poet wishes to insist on the
figure. Take the second strophe of the "Ancient Lay of Gudrun" as an
example, in the translation by Morris and Magnusson:

Such was my Sigu