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They were both Gothic Tribes, and used two not very different dialects of the same Gothic language. Accordingly we find a very strong resemblance in their versification, phraseology and poetic allusions, &c. the same being in a great measure common to both nations[1].
But there is also a resemblance between the laws of versification adopted by the British Bards, and those observed by the Icelandic Scalds; at least so far as this; that the metre of them both is of the alliterative kind: and yet there does not appear to be the least affinity in the two languages, or in the origin of the two nations. But this resemblance of metre, I think, may in part be accounted for on general philosophical principles, arising from the nature of both languages[2]: and in part from that intercourse, which was unavoidably produced between both nations in the wars and piratical irruptions of the northern nations: whose Scalds, as we learn from Torfæus[3], were respected and admired for their
- ↑ Compare the Anglo-Saxon Ode on Athelstan’s Victory, preserved in the Saxon Chronicle, (Ann. dccccxxxviii. beginning, Aþelsean cyning, &c. Gibson. Edit. 1692. p. 112.) with any of the Scaldic poems. See also Reliques of Anc. Eng. Poetry, Vol. II. p. 268, 269. 2d Edit.
- ↑ See Vol. I. p. 402. the latter part of the Note.
- ↑ Præfat. ad Hist. Orcad. folio.
