In many cases we are helped by quite modern material to make out some puzzle that an old tale presents, and there is little doubt but that the present activity in the field of folklore will not only result in fresh matter but in fresh methods freshly applied.

The Scandinavian material, at all events, is particularly rich:  there is the extensive Icelandic written literature touching the ninth and tenth and eleventh centuries; the noble, if fragmentary remains of Old Northern poetry of the Wickingtide; and lastly, the mass of tradition which, surviving in oral form, and changing in colour from generation to generation, was first recorded in part in the seventeenth, and again in part, in the present century; and all these yield a plentiful field for research.  But their evidence gains immensely by the existence of Saxo’s nine books of traditional and mythic lore, collected and written down in an age when much that was antique and heathen was passing away forever.  The gratitude due to the Welshman of the twelfth century, whose garnered hoard has enriched so many poets and romances from his day to now, is no less due to the twelfth-century Dane, whose faithful and eloquent enthusiasm has swept much dust from antique time, and saved us such a story as Shakespeare has not disdained to consecrate to highest use.  Not only Celtic and Teutonic lore are the richer for these two men, but the whole Western world of thought and speech.  In the history of modern literature, it is but right that by the side of Geoffrey an honourable place should be maintained for Saxo, and

“awake remembrance of these mighty dead.”

—­Oliver Elton

Endnotes:  (1) A horn and a tusk of great size are described as things of price, and great uroch’s horns are mentioned in Thorkill’s Second Journey.  Horns were used for feast as well as fray. (2) Such bird-beaked, bird-legged figures occur on the Cross at Papil, Burra Island, Shetland.  Cf.  Abbey Morne Cross, and an Onchan Cross, Isle of Man.

THE DANISH HISTORY OF SAXO GRAMMATICUS.

PREFACE.

Forasmuch as all other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers:  Absalon, Chief Pontiff of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be defrauded of like renown and record, cast upon me, the least of his followers—­since all the rest refused the task—­the work of compiling into a chronicle the history of Denmark, and by the authority of his constant admonition spurred my weak faculty to enter on a labour too heavy for its strength.  For who could write a record of the deeds of Denmark?  It had but lately been admitted to the common faith:  it still languished as strange to Latin as to religion.  But now that the holy ritual brought also the command of the Latin