THE OLD NORSE SAGAS
By Halvdan Koht Poetry flourished so astonishingly in Iceland, during the early years of colonization, that it became almost a national profession. Every second Icelander going abroad, as Mr. Koht tells' us in The Old Norse Sagas (Allen and Unwin, 7s. Oil.), proved a poet and won the favour of the Kings of Norway by his poems. In fact, for a couple of centuries poetry was the 'only article exported from Iceland. In such a soil the art of story-telling quickly throve. Mr. Koht's lecture-chapters will appeal to English readers -who have been disconcerted by the ilighly specialized descriptions of fighting which crowd famous Stories such as the sagas of Gisll and Burnt Njal. He shows bow the sagas sprang from the desire of an isolated people for news. But news had to be shaped into a lively and pleasing form. Event or gossip of great doings was knit into episodes, and the episodes were woven into. a complete story of serial nature, which was recited, for many nights, around the winter's fire. The art of the saga makers, their treatment
Of, , plot and of charicter, is analysed. There is an exciting i chapter on Snorri Sturluson, the composer .,of the Edda, who was ae poetic host,-in himself: a regular Walter ;51!
early lurt n h eentu , he recovered northern I past and was, in-a sense, the first of modern- historians. THE SECRET DOSSIER
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