Greinar (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.01.1943, Page 162

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which the Lutheran church put into the field against
Pope, church conferences and tradition, and consequently
it was necessary for the furtherance of the church that the
public should become acquainted with the Bible. But in
Iceland it was a well-known fact, that poems were learnt
more easily. They were re'ad and learnt by heart. Hall-
grímur Pétursson selected various themes from the Old
and New Testaments. He also composed hymns on
themes taken from the Sunday gospels, various cycles on
the history of the Passion, on resurrection etc., which
cannot be discussed in further detail here.
It is true of these poems that they are not greatly
superior to some other poems of this kind, yet his style
of narrative is very racy, free from verbosity and florid
expressions, everywhere bespeaking the great master of
rhyme.
Hallgrímur Pétursson next wrote a remarkable cycle
for didactic purposes, which he called: “A catechism on
church rites and ceremonies for the edification of young
people and simple souls”. First we have an introduetion
about the necessity of knowing what takes place during
the service, then there are 42 questions with lucid an-
swers, containing many beautiful and inspired things. Fin-
ally there is an epilogue, in which he declares that he is
sending this catechism to his parishioners. This shows no
little interest on the part of this kind clergyman. All this
is in verse. Then Hallgrímur Pétursson writes a very short
didactic poem which he calles “Echo”, some questions
which are answered by an echo, i. e. the latter part of the
word, for instance:
Will God many to his judgement call . . . all
This was intended for the most simple souls.
Besides these special didactic poems there are many
things in various others of his poems, which are composed
for instructive purposes. In the first place may be men-
tioned the Passion-Hymns, which originally are evidently