Before speaking particularly of the substance of the Sagas it will be
necessary to trace briefly the origin and history of Icelandic
literature in general.
We have already mentioned the fact that Iceland was mainly settled by
Norwegians of superior qualities. And this superiority was always
maintained, though it was somewhat slow in manifesting itself in the
form of literature. Prior to the year 1000, the Runic alphabet had
existed in Iceland, but it was generally used for the simplest
purposes.[58] History and literature derived no advantage, as the runes
were used chiefly for monumental inscriptions, and for mottoes and
charms on such things as drinking cups, sacrifical vessels and swords.
Yet the people were not without a kind of intellectual stimulus. It had
long been the custom to preserve family and general histories, and
recite them from memory as occasion seemed to warrant. This was done
with a wonderful degree of accuracy and fidelity, by men more or less
trained for the purpose, and whose performances at times were altogether
surprising. They also had their scalds or poets, who were accustomed
both to repeat the old songs and poems and extemporize new ones. Every
good fighter was expected to prove himself a poet when the emergency
required it. This profession was strongly encouraged. When Eyvind
Skialdespilder sang his great song in praise of Iceland every peasant in
the island, it is said, contributed three pieces of silver to buy a
clasp for his mantel of fifty marks weight. These scalds were sometimes
employed by the politicians, and on one occasion a satire so nettled
Harold, king of Denmark, that he sent a fleet to ravage the island, and
made the repetition an offense punishable with death. These poets also
went to England, to the Orkneys and to Norway, where at the king's court
they were held in the highest estimation, furnishing poetical effusions
on every public or private occasion which demanded the exercise of their
gifts. The degree to which they had cultivated their memories was
surprising. Old Blind Skald Stuf could repeat between two and three
hundred poems without halting; while the Saga-men had the same power of
memory, which we know may be improved to almost any extent by
cultivation. But with the advent of Christianity came the Roman
alphabet, which proved an easy method of expressing thought.
Christianity, however, did not stop here. Its service was a reasonable
service, and demanded of its votaries a high intelligence. The priest of
Odin need do no more than to recite a short vow, or mutter a brief
prayer. He had no divine records to read and to explain. But the
minister of the new religion came with a system that demanded broader
learning and culture than that implied in extemporaneous songs. His
calling required the aid of books, and the very sight of such things
proved a mental stimulus to this hard-brained race. Besides,
Christianity opened to the minds of the people new fields of thought.
These rude sons of war soon began to understand there were certain
victories, not to be despised, that might be gained through peace, and
soon letters came to be some what familiar to the public mind. The
earliest written efforts very naturally related to the lives of the
Saints, which on Sundays and holy days were read in public for the
edification of the people. During the eleventh century these exercises
shared the public attention with those of the professional Saga-man, who
still labored to hand down the oral versions of the national history and
traditions. But in the beginning of the twelfth century the use of
letters was extended, and, ere-long, the Saga-man found his occupation
gone, the national history now being diligently gathered up by zealous
students and scribes and committed to the more lasting custody of the
written page. Among these was Ari Frode, who began the compilation of
the Icelandic _Dooms-day Book_, which contained the records of all the
early settlers. Scarcely less useful was Sæmund the Wise, who collected
the poetical literature of the North and arranged it in a goodly tome.
The example of these great men was followed, and by the end of the
twelfth century all the Sagas relating to the pagan period of the
country had been reduced to writing. This was an era of great literary
activity, and the century following showed the same zeal. Finally
Iceland possessed a body of prose literature superior in quantity and
value to that of any other modern nation of its time.[59] Indeed, the
natives of Europe at this period had no prose or other species of
literature hardly worthy of the name; and, taken altogether, the Sagas
formed the first prose literature in any modern language spoken by the
people.[60] Says Sir Edmund Head, "No doubt there were translations in
Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, by Alfred, of an earlier date, but there was
in truth no vernacular literature. I cannot name," he says, "any work
in high or low German prose which can be carried back to this period. In
France, prose writing cannot be said to have begun before the time of
Villehardouin (1204), and Joinville (1202). Castilian prose certainly
did not commence before the time of Alfonso X (1252). Don Juan Manvel,
the author of the _Conde Lucanor_, was not born till 1282. The _Cronica
General de España_ was not composed till at least the middle of the
thirteenth century. About the same time the language of Italy was
acquiring that softness and strength which were destined to appear so
conspicuously in the prose of Boccaccio, and the writers of the next
century."[61]
Yet while other nations were without a literature the intellect of
Iceland was in active exercise, and works were produced like the _Eddas_
and the _Heimskringla_, works which being inspired by a lofty genius
will rank with the writings of Homer and Herodotus while time itself
endures.
But in the beginning of the sixteenth century the literature of Iceland
ultimately reached the period of its greatest excellence and began to
decline. Books in considerable numbers always continued to be written,
though works of positive genius were wanting. Yet in Iceland there has
never been an absence of literary industry, while during the recent
period the national reputation has been sustained by Finn Magnussen and
similar great names. One hundred years before the Plymouth colonists,
following in the track of Thorwald Ericson, landed on the sands of Cape
Cod, the people of Iceland had set up the printing press, and produced
numerous works both in the native language and the Latin tongue.
It is to this people, whom Saxo Grammaticus points out as a people
distinguished for their devotion to letters, that we are indebted for
the narratives of the pre-Columbian voyages to America. Though first
arranged for oral recitation, these Sagas were afterwards committed to
manuscript, the earliest of which do not now exist, and were finally
preserved in the celebrated Flatö collection nearly a century before the
rediscovery of America by Columbus.
But it is no longer necessary to spend much time on this point, since
the character and value of the Icelandic writings have come to be so
generally acknowledged, and especially since scholars and antiquarians
like Humbolt have fully acknowledged their authenticity and authority.
It is proper to notice here the fact that not a few have imagined that
the claims of the Northmen have been brought forward to detract from the
fame of Columbus;[62] yet, nothing could be farther from the truth,
since no one denies that it was by the discovery of America by Columbus
that the continent first became of value to the Old World. The Northmen
came and went away without accomplishing any thing of lasting value;
yet, because the world at large derived no benefit from their discovery,
it is certainly unjust to deny its reality.
The fact that the Northmen knew of the existence of the Western
Continent, prior to the age of Columbus, was prominently brought before
the people of this country in the year 1837, when the Royal Society of
Northern Antiquarians at Copenhagen published their work on the
Antiquities of North America, under the editorial supervision of that
great Icelandic scholar, Professor Rafn. But we are not to suppose that
the first general account of these voyages was then given, for it has
always been known that the history of certain early voyages to America
by the Northmen were preserved in the libraries of Denmark and
Iceland.[63] Torfæus, as early as 1706, published his work on Greenland,
which threw much light on the subject. We find accounts of these
discoveries in the works of Egede and Crantz. A very intelligent sketch,
at least for those times, was given by J. Reinhold Forster, who frankly
concedes the pre-Columbian discovery of America, in a _History of the
Voyages and Discoveries made in the North_. Robertson speaks of them in
his _History of America_, but says that he is unable to give an
intelligent opinion. Indeed, the most of the older and more
comprehensive writers give the Northmen recognition. Yet, owing to the
fact that the Icelandic language, though simple in construction and easy
of acquisition, was a tongue not understood by scholars, the subject has
until recent years been suffered to lie in the back ground, and
permitted, through a want of interest, to share, in a measure, the
treatment meted out to vague and uncertain reports. But the
well-directed efforts of the Northern Antiquarians of Denmark, supported
by the enlightened zeal of scholars and historians in England, France
and Germany, have done much to dispel popular ignorance, and to place
the whole question in its true bearing before the people of all the
principal civilized nations. In our own country, the work of Professor
Rafn, already alluded to, has created a deep and wide-spread conviction
of the reality of the Northman's claim, and has elicited confessions
like that of Palfrey, who is obliged to say of the Icelandic records
that, "their antiquity and genuineness appear to be well established,
nor is there anything to bring their credibility into question, beyond
the general doubt which always attaches to what is new or strange."[64]