den is, however, Tegner's Frithjof's Saga
(1846), relating the adventures and courtship of an old Scandinavian
hero, a work of which a complete synopsis is given in the author's
Legends of the Middle Ages.

The elite of the Norwegians emigrated to Iceland for political reasons
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Owing to their
geographical isolation and to the long winters, these people were
thrown entirely on their own resources for amusement. The hours of
darkness were beguiled by tales and songs, so young and old naturally
delighted in the recitations of the skalds. This gave birth to an oral
literature of great value, and, although many of the works of the
skalds have perished, the Icelanders fortunately recovered in
1643,--after centuries of oblivion,--the Elder Edda, an
eleventh-century collection of thirty-three poems on mythical and
heroic subjects by Saemunt the Wise.

There is also a similar work in prose known as the Younger Edda, by
Snorro Sturluson, which contains tales of Scandinavian mythology, and
this writer also collected many of the old hero tales in his
Heimskringla.

Many of the old sagas have been preserved in more or less perfect
forms. They are generally divided into three groups, the first
including sagas on historical themes, such as the Egilssaga, the
Eyrbyggjasaga, the Njalssaga, the Laxdaelasaga, and the already
mentioned Heimskringla.

The second, mythical, or heroic group comprises the Grettis saga and
the Volsunga, the finest of all the sagas and one of the main sources
of the Nibelungenlied and of Wagner's Trilogy. This epic has been
wonderfully rendered in modern English by William Morris.

In the third and last group are massed together the romantic epics,
translations or imitations of the Latin, French, and German epics and
romances, relating to Alexander, Charlemagne, Parsival, etc. The
finest saga in this group is the Gunnlaugssaga.

Norwegian literature goes back to the skald Bragi (_c._ 800), whose
principal poem, Ragnarsdrapa, relates the marvellous adventures of the
national hero Ragnar Lodbrog. This poem was incorporated by Snorro
Sturluson in what is known as the Snorro Edda. Most of the poems in
the Elder Edda are also of Norwegian origin, as well as Hvin's
Haustloeng or account of a famous warrior. In the thirteenth century
prose sagas were plentiful among the Danes, who took special pleasure
in the Thidrekssaga (1250), or life and adventures of Dietrich von