Folkeviser i
Udvalg_, 3rd ed. (Copenhagen and Christiania, 1913), p. 40 ff.
Cf. also Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_ (Copenhagen, 1891), ch.
VII.]

[Footnote 29: On the literary sources of the Faroese ballads,
cf. Steenstrup, _op. cit._ Introduction.]

[Footnote 30: _Lied und Epos_ (Dortmund, 1915), p. 19.]

[Footnote 31: _On the History of the Ballads, 1100-1500_,
published in _Proceedings of the British Academy_ for
1902-1910, p. 202.]

[Footnote 32: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 202.]

[Footnote 33: Frank Sidgwick, _The Ballad_, London (Arts and
Crafts of Letters Series), p. 61.]

[Footnote 34: Gummere, _The Popular Ballad_ (London, 1907), p.
340.]

[Footnote 35: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 204.]

INTRODUCTION TO GRIPLUR I

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Iceland, many of the
Sagas or portions of them were turned into rhyming verse known
as _Rimur_. Sagas of almost every class were subjected to this
treatment--_Islendinga Soegur_, _Fornaldar Soegur_, _Fornmanna Soegur_
and others. It is supposed that in the first place these rhymed
versions (_Rimur_) were made for the purpose of recitation at social
gatherings. There is ground for believing that the _Rimur_ were
sometimes recited, as an accompaniment of dances in Iceland[1]; but
this is not believed to have been the purpose for which they were
originally composed[2].

According to both Jonsson[3] and Mogk[4], the _Rimur_ and other forms
of rhyming verse in early Norse poetry originated in the Mediaeval
Latin Church Hymns introduced into Iceland in the thirteenth century.
The similarity between the rhyming metres of the Latin and many
(though not all) of the forms of verse used in the _Rimur_ is very
striking. Whether the influence of Latin hymns in Iceland was directly
responsible for the change, however, as Jonsson and Mogk believe, or
whether the Latin hymns only influenced Norse verse indirectly
through the medium of French poetry, is problematical. Perhaps these
compositions owe their origin to the fashion of turning all kinds of
material, likely and unlikely, into rhyming verse--a fashion which
originated in France, and from the latter part of the twelfth century
onwards gradually made its way over most of the West and North of
Europe. The rhyming chronicles of the fourteenth century in England
may be mentioned as one instance of this fashion, a