Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1943, Page 155

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band had already been drowned before their intimacy
started. Consequently their love affair did not have such
serious consequences as otherwise it might have had in
those austere times, and they were married shortly after-
wards.
IV.
But the world did not smile upon the young poet. His
behaviour had estranged his powerful benefactors both
in North and South Iceland. His reputation had suffered
severely. He was destitute and his prospects desperate.
He had an ingrained aversion to farming. The poet was
like a fish on dry land at the fishing stations south of
Faxaflói. Now and again he reverted to his sarcastic epi-
grams, which only made matters worse. This learned and
brilliant man, one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived
in Iceland, had to make his living by poorly paid work in
the service of Danish merchants and pitiless employers.
A certain man of noble character, Árni Gíslason by
name, who lived at Hólmur in Akranes, was an exception.
He always proved a staunch friend and helper.
Hallgrímur Pétursson faced seven years of this misery,
during which period the first phase of his poetical activi-
ty was started — the rímur. The Icelandic “rímur” were
already a well-known branch of literature when Hall-
grímur entered the arena. The “rímur” are epic poems of
an intricate and difficult metre, owing their origin partly
to foreign dance songs and partly to Icelandic court poetry.
The poets chose as a theme various foreign romances,
chiefly stories with plenty of adventure, battles, chivalry
and all sorts of absurd happenings and marvels, rendering
these into verse in various metres. In the course of time
this developed into a fine art, because the poets vied with
each other in elaborate metres, and a sterner school can-
not be imagined for a young poet, who wanted to attain
to mastery both in form and language.
It cannot be said with certainty, whether Hallgrímur
Pétursson composed all his “rímur” during this period,