try of Old Norse song came about through the scholar's
agency, not the poet's. It was Gray, the scholar, that made "The Descent
of Odin" and "The Fatal Sisters." They were intended to serve as
specimens of a forgotten literature in a history of English poetry. In
the "Advertisement" to "The Fatal Sisters" he tells how he came to give
up the plan: "The Author has long since drop'd his design, especially
after he heard, that it was already in the hands of a Person well
qualified to do it justice, both by his taste, and his researches into
antiquity." Thomas Warton's _History of English Poetry_ was the
execution of this design, but in that book no place was found for these
poems.

In his absurd _Life of Gray_, Dr. Johnson said: "His translations of
Northern and Welsh Poetry deserve praise: the imagery is preserved,
perhaps often improved, but the language is unlike the language of other
poets." There are more correct statements in this sentence, perhaps,
than in any other in the essay, but this is because ignorance sometimes
hits the truth. It is not likely that the poems would have been
understood without the preface and the explanatory notes, and these, in
a measure, made the reader interested in the literature from which they
were drawn. Gray called the pieces "dreadful songs," and so in very
truth they are. Strength is the dominant note, rude, barbaric strength,
and only the art of Gray saved it from condemnation. To-day, with so
many imitations from Old Norse to draw upon, we cannot point to a single
poem which preserves spirit and form as well as those of Gray. Take the
stanza:

Horror covers all the heath,
Clouds of carnage blot the sun,
Sisters, weave the web of death;
Sisters, cease, the work is done.

The strophe is perfect in every detail. Short lines, each ending a
sentence; alliteration; words that echo the sense, and just four strokes
to paint a picture which has an atmosphere that whisks you into its own
world incontinently. It is no wonder that writers of later days who have
tried similar imitations ascribe to Thomas Gray the mastership.

That this poet of the eighteenth century, who "equally despised what
was Greek and what was Gothic," should have entered so fully into the
spirit and letter of Old Norse poetry is little short of marvelous. If
Professor G.L. Kittredge had not gone so minutely into the question of
Gray's knowledge of Old Norse,[3] we might be pardoned for still
bel