288
The End of Brunhild (J. Wagrez) 290
Ingeborg (M. E. Winge) 304
Frithiof Cleaves the Shield of Helge (Knut Ekwall) 308
Ingeborg Watches her Lover Depart (Knut Ekwall) 312
Frithiof's Return to Framnaes (Knut Ekwall) 316
Frithiof at the Shrine of Balder (Knut Ekwall) 318
Frithiof at the Court of Ring (Knut Ekwall) 320
Frithiof Watches the Sleeping King (Knut Ekwall) 324
Odin and Fenris (Dorothy Hardy) 334
The Ride of the Valkyrs (H. Hendrich) 344
The Storm-Ride (Gilbert Bayes) 358

INTRODUCTION

The prime importance of the rude fragments of poetry preserved in
early Icelandic literature will now be disputed by none, but there
has been until recent times an extraordinary indifference to the
wealth of religious tradition and mythical lore which they contain.

The long neglect of these precious records of our heathen ancestors
is not the fault of the material in which all that survives of
their religious beliefs is enshrined, for it may safely be asserted
that the Edda is as rich in the essentials of national romance
and race-imagination, rugged though it be, as the more graceful
and idyllic mythology of the South. Neither is it due to anything
weak in the conception of the deities themselves, for although
they may not rise to great spiritual heights, foremost students of
Icelandic literature agree that they stand out rude and massive as the
Scandinavian mountains. They exhibit "a spirit of victory, superior
to brute force, superior to mere matter, a spirit that fights and
overcomes." [1] "Even were some part of the matter of their myths
taken from others, yet the Norsemen have given their gods a noble,
upright, great spirit, and placed them upon a high level that is all
their own." [2] "In fact these old Norse songs have a truth in them,
an inward perennial truth and greatness. It is a greatness not of
mere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul." [3]

The introduction of Christianity into the North brought with it the
influence of the Classical races, and this eventually supplanted the
native genius, so that the alien mythology and literature of Greece
and Rome have formed an