PREFACE.
poetry had been cultivated among them for many ages. That daring spirit and vigour of imagination, which distinguished the northern warriors, naturally inclined them to bold and swelling figures: and as their mythology was grown very extensive and complicated, the frequent allusions to it could not but be a great source of obscurity to modern readers. It was the constant study of the northern Scalds to lift their poetic style as much as possible above that of their prose. So that they had at length formed to themselves in verse a kind of new language[1], in which every idea was expressed by a peculiar term, never admitted into their ordinary converse. Some of these terms
are founded on their mythology or the- ↑ Called by them, after the manner of the ancient Greeks, (Asom-maal,) the language of the gods.
