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LIFE OF CHARLES HALIDAY.
Yet though the Norsemen of Iceland thus scorned to apply
themselves to make written chronicle, they gave themselves
up, as we have seen, to the composing of verse and sagas*
and to the singing and reciting of the history of their native
and adopted countries at their public feasts and Althings.
And thus is preserved a history more ancient and perfect
than in most other countries of Europe, except only in
Ireland, and there the record was in writing.
And this peculiarity and similarity arose probably from
the remarkable fact that in these two islands of Ireland and
Iceland only, lying at the western verge of the world, peace
prevailed.
Iceland being thus the fountain of northern history, (for Iceland the
nowhere else, says Laing, was the profession of scald and
sagaman (or poet and chronicler) heard of, not even in HistoI7- and as from thence was derived all the intellectual
Norway),
labour required in the north of Europe, 1 it is no wonder that
there are constant references to Ireland in the sagas. For
the intercourse with Ireland and its Scandinavian inhabi-
tants was continuously maintained.
But the sagas, whilst they give the public and more im-
But now we have clerks with their Tis he who calls fair fields to birth,
holy qualms, And bids each blooming branch ex-
And books and bells and eternal pand.
psalms,
And fasting, that waster gaunt and grim,
That strips of all beauty
Oisix.
both body
To weeds and &*** his and nmb.
Pncely eye,
My sire ne'er PATRICK
Oh! cease the strain, no longer dare
Thy
fondly turned,
^u* ^e ra '8ed n ' 3 country's glory high
When the 8trife of warriors burned.
Fion or his chiefs compare
With him who reigns
To shine in games of strength and skill,
in matchless might
To breast the torrent from the hill,
To lead the van of the bannered host
The King of Kings enthroned in light ! Tne8e were h ' 8 deeds "d these hia
boast'
1 The Heims Kringla, a Chronicle 2 The Chase: a Fenian tale
of the kings of Norway, translated "Irish Penny Journal," Vol. I.,
from the Icelandic of Snorro No. 13 (September 26th, 1840), p.
Sturleson, by Samuel Laing, Vol. I.,
p. 17, London, 3 vols., 8vo, 1844.
1 02.