Page:The Story of Egil Skallagrimsson.djvu/18

epithet, adding the noun. But where they do not fit the matter in hand, they are, if closely rendered, barely intelligible; to our notions they are unpoetical; they will often spoil the spirit and meaning of the whole verse to an English reader by calling off his attention to a puzzle. The substance of the entire passage will be lost by too much particularity. They are cumbrous, there is no room in the text to make them really clear, and to be continually putting down obscurities and claiming space elsewhere in notes to explain them seems undesirable. Therefore I elected to give up many of the far-fetched kennings, putting the answer instead of the riddle where the riddle seemed hardly worth keeping. For one thing seemed most important in translating these staves, to make each stave fairly plain to be understood by English readers as it was presumably by Icelandic hearers. That my renderings will satisfy all I do not suppose, either all learned Northern critics or all English readers. Many of the original staves cannot be made to satisfy modern taste, and, indeed, they are of very unequal merit. Some of Egil's verses are of great force and spirit; he had a true poetic vein, and depends less on artificialities than some of the Icelandic verse-writers; but the merit and attractiveness of the Saga does not rest on these detached verses. Were they omitted most readers would not miss much. But to omit them I could not venture, so I have dealt with them as best I might.

Besides these scattered stanzas the Egla contains Egil's three great poems. Jónsson, indeed, banishes these to an appendix. But there seems no doubt that they are genuine compositions of Egil, though perhaps not included in the Saga in its earliest form. It appeared, therefore, better to keep them in the place to which they have now by use a prescriptive right. I shall say no more of them here than that they are each remarkable in their way; 'Sonatorrek,' for depth of feeling and poetry, I should rank first; it is unlike the generality of Icelandic poems.

And now pass we to the actual matter and outline of the story, which naturally falls into three divisions.

I. The history of Kveldulf's family, especially of Thorolf, in Norway.