Mímir. Icelandic institutions with adresses - 15.12.1903, Blaðsíða 80

7°
NOTES ON ICELANDIC MATTERS
ancient life and the ancient customs, each one of which casts
a new light upon the text he is reading. The fact may, per-
haps, be here recalled that, until nearly a generation after
Rask’s time, no other foreigner became a really profound
Old-Northern scholar. Up to that date, virtually all the gram-
matical work, all the lexicological labour was done, and all
the texts edited and commented by natives of Iceland — though,
in many instances, the names of others appeared on the title-
pages of the volumes when published. Even in our day no
man born beyond Iceland’s shores has accomplished such vast
tasks, in the domain of linguistics and letters, and accomplished
them so well as the late Gudbrandur Vigfusson. In connection
with this theme may be quoted the words of an American
writer: “Following the story of Old-Northern philology, from
its beginning down to our own day, it is impossible not to feel
astonishment at the number of learned labourers which a com-
munity so small as the population of Iceland has produced.
As in the ancient days, when the sagaman recounted his tales
and the skald recited his lays, nearly all the literary life of
the north was hers — while the other greater and richer lands
of Scandinavia were well nigh barren — so, in more recent
times, she has been the chief interpreter of her own creations,
which embody the history, the mythology, the laws of the
early Gothic world. It is true that the island commonwealth
possessed — to begin with — a splendid heritage. All the lore
of the primeval ages was hers. Her sons still spoke the lan-
guage of the days in which there were giants; to them the
larger utterances of the gods were still household voices; even
the whispers which startled nature, at the dawn of our civili-
i zation, they could yet repeat. The key of the treasures concealed
by the mysterious runes — powerful as the seal of Solomon
against the endeavors of other hands — was likewise in their
possession. All the deities of the Odinic theology found their
final refuge on Iceland’s shores. Only among her icy mountains