Several Latin words have been noticed above.
There are Old English words (though few), such as “hauk-staldr, hage-stalda,’ in our Tapestry-poet.
The Tapestry-poet uses Hunar (Huns), Hynskr (Hunnish), as a vague word for foreign, in a like way as Valir (Gauls) is used by the earlier poets; probably the East Baltic folk would have been ‘Huns’ to them.
In the Helgi-poet ships play a great part: the gallant fleet running out to sea, the bold captain carrying on before the gale, the waves dashing over the bows, the rattling of the shielded bulwark, and the groaning of the hull; the harbour with its marks (curious-shaped stones), the docks ('grindir'), [not 'naust' as in Iceland], a golden war-standard or gonfalon at the bows; the tents of the forecastle (stamn-tiold); the wicker shield (víg-nisting) hoisted to the mast as a war-token. There is the captain at the tiller, the pilot ('sund-wordr,' sound-warder) in the forecastle, ready to con the ship in, and to warn the captain of all danger—these are all non-Icelandic. The wicker shield is not Norwegian either, but characteristically Irish. It was an archaism in the North, where the good linden had replaced it. The very word for ship, ‘ciol,’ is foreign.
As regards law there are strange words, unknown in Icelandic, used instead of the familiar terms. The judge is 'miotud' [measurer], or 'forseti' [fore-sitter]; the daysmen are 'iafnendr' [eveners]; the inheritance 'oðal-torfa' [ethel-turf, an Anglicism one would say (extinct inheritance)]; the escheated estate, 'aldauða arfr;' head-money or tax is 'nef-giold' [neb-gild]; boot-money is 'munda-baug' [manus aurum]; to summon to wage of battle is 'stefna til eyrar' [not the Icelandic 'scora á holm']; 'ganga til hvers' or 'taka til ketils' is to go to wager of law—ordeal; the sacrifice or victim is 'tifor;' to wed is to go under linen, 'ganga und líni;' the woman is said 'at breida blæior,' to spread the coverlet for her husband. Husband and wife are 'wordr and wer' [ward and were],—words peculiar to these poems.
Traces of a peculiar vocabulary are frequent, not only foreign words (see above) but Teutonic words, not met with in the North: hloa [to low], cringa [to cringe], swelta [to die], angr [narrow], ámunr [like], hiufra [to bewail], varn [warren], etc.
The kind of life to which all these indications witness is very different indeed from that of Iceland, as preserved for us in the Sagas, not only in details but also in the whole tone and spirit. The real flesh and blood characters, the homely incident, the faithful presentment of a scene by small sharp touches, which are so patent in the Sagas, are absent here, while, on the other hand, these poems discover an ideal of beauty, an aerial, unearthly fairy world, and a love of nature, which we do not find in the Sagas. We are not depreciating Icelandic genius; the Saga is the true child of Iceland; were it so that but one could be preserved, the Eddic Songs or the Sagas, the Editor, at least, would unhesitatingly pray for the Sagas; for Ballads there are
