"Nor were it grateful to forget
That from these reservoirs and tanks
Even imperial Shakespeare drew
His Moor of Venice and the Jew,
And Romeo and Juliet,
And many a famous comedy."
After a longer pause, the Spanish Jew from Alieant begins "a story in
the Talmud old," "The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi." This is followed after
the interlude by the Sicilian's tale, "King Robert of Sicily," a noble
legend of the Church, whose moral is humility. It is told in a broad,
stately measure, and with consummate simplicity and skill. The attention
is not distracted for a moment from the story, which monks might tell in
the still cloisters of a Sicilian convent, and every American child hear
with interest and delight.
"And then the blue-eyed Norseman told.
A Saga of the days of old."
It is the Saga of King Olaf, and is much the longest tale in the volume,
recounting the effort to plant Christianity in Norway by the sword of
the King. In every variety of measure, heroic, elegiac, lyrical, the
wild old Scandinavian tradition is told. Even readers who may be at
first repelled by legends almost beyond modern human sympathy cannot
escape the most musical persuasion of the poem which wafts them along
those icy seas.
"And King Olaf heard the cry,
Saw the red light in the sky,
Laid his hand upon his sword,
As he leaned upon the railing,
And his ships went sailing, sailing
Northward into Drontheim fiord.
* * * * *
"Trained for either camp or court,
Skilful in each manly sport,
Young and beautiful and tall;
Art of warfare, craft of chases,
Swimming, stating, snow-shoe races,
Excellent alike at all."
There is no continuous thread of story in the Saga, but each fragment of
the whole is complete in itself, a separate poem. The traditions are
fierce and wild. The waves dash in them, the winds moan and shriek.
There are evanescent glimpses of green meadows, and a swift gleam of
summer; but the cold salt sea and winter close round all. The tides rise
and fall; they eddy in the sand; they float off and afar the huge
dragon-ships. But the queens pine for revenge and slaughter; the kings
drink and swear and fight, and sail away to their doom.
"Louder the war-horses growl and snarl,
Sharper the dragons bite and sting!
Eric the son of Hakon Yarl
A death-drink salt as the sea
Pledges to thee,
Olaf the King!"
Whoever has heard Ole Bull play, or Jenny Lind sing, the weird minor
melodies of the North, will comprehend the kind of spell which these
legends weave around the mind. Nor is their character lost in the
skilful and symmetrical rendering of Longfellow. The reader has not the
feeling, as in Sir William Jones's translations, that he is reading Sir
William, and not the Persian.
"'What was that?' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck;
Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck.'
Einar, then, the arrow taking
From the loosened string,
Answered, 'That was Norway breaking
From thy hand, O King!'"
But the battle which Thor had defied was not to end by the weapons of
war. In the fierce sea-fight,
"There is told a wonderful tale,
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,
As he swam beneath the main;
"But the young grew old and gray,
And never by night or day
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again."
The victory must be won by other weapons. In the convent of Drontheim,
Astrid, the abbess, hears a voice in the darkness:--
"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred.
Peace-cry for war-cry!"