ceased, there are still many vellums, but they contain Sagas on sub- jects taken mostly from foreign or fictitious romances, or Skrök-Sögur [pseudo-Sagas] or Saints' Lives or the like. The end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth are mainly marked by 'Rimur,' and poems on saints in a cloister style, with a stray true Saga vellum now and then. At last we reach a period (1530-1630) of which hardly any Saga MSS. exist: no single copy taken of Landnama, or Edda, or Sturlunga, or Laxdæla, one transcript of Niala perhaps, and some stray antiquarian scraps.
In fact, after careful examination, we cannot point to any classic which had kept its place in popular favour or popular remembrance. For instance, has a fifteenth-century Rimur-maker to give a list of luckless lovers or gallant and unfortunate heroes (a favourite topic which at once set forth the wide knowledge of the poet and whetted the hearer's hunger for another song), what does he do? Of course he turns to the woe of Gudrun, the proud sorrow of Brunhild, the devotion of Sigrun and Cara, the gallantry of Helgi! Not at all, he never mentions their names. Then he speaks of Nial and Gunnar, Egil, of Skarphedin, Kiartan, of Gretti! Not a whit more. The only Icelanders whom he remembers are Poet-Helgi and Gunlaug Snake's-tongue. But he grieves for the grief of Tristram and Isolt, of Alexander and Helen, of Hector and Iwain, of Gawain and Roland, and of the heroes of a score of imaginary stories. Our friend Dr. Kölbing, who has collected passages[1] where such lists occur in his Beyträge (Breslau 1876), has been kind enough to send us a copy of the unpublished Kappa-kvædi, composed by a West Icelander c. 1500, from which we have extracted the following typical list: Hector, David, Mirmant, Karlamagnus, Otwel, Balan, Rolland, Walter, Bæring, Errek, Ivent, Floris, Gibbon, Philpo, Tristram, Partalopi, Remund, Konrad, Asmund, Mafus (Maugis), Clares, Alanus, Florens, Belus, Landres, Herman, Iarlman, Victor and Blaus, Anund and Randwe, Saulus, Anchises, Ahel, Helgi, Hogni, Hialmar, Arrow-Odd, Anganty, Illugi, An, Thori Highleg, Vilmund, Solli, Hagbard, Skald- Helgi, Finnbogi, Thorstan Bæjar-magn, Einar, Elling, Bui Digri, Vagn, Ref, Oddgeir, the two Olafs, Harald, Ring, Ulf the Red.
Of all Islendinga Sagas Niala has been most copied: counting every strip of vellum which once formed part of a manuscript, we shall find out of some fifteen MSS., one of the thirteenth century, ten of the four- teenth, three of the fifteenth, and one of the sixteenth. This Saga was
- ↑ Compare the list of heroes from Skida-rima, ii. p. 396; and the following from Hialmtheow's Rimur (fifteenth century)-Arthur and Elida, Tristram and Ysolt, Hogni and Hedin, Philotemia, Ring and Tryggwi, Iwain, Alexander and Elene, David and Absalom; from Gerard's Rimur (fifteenth century)-Priamus, Mirman, Iwain, Flores and Blanchefleur, Samson and Dalila, Sörli, Earl Roland; from Heming's Rimur (fifteenth century)-Godwine, Sörli, Parthenope, Raven and Gunlaug, Poet- Helgi, Tristram and Ysolt. For Gunnar and Hallgerd, or Gudrun and Kiartan, we look in vain.
