The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Síða 37

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
35
er in 1870, which position he held for
twentydive years. During his stay in
Stockholm, Sweden, Sir Dasent associat-
ed with scholars who were studying
Old Icelandic literature. Moreover,
during his travels in Germany, he be-
came acquainted with the philologist
and fairy tale writer, Jacob Ludwig
Grimm, (1785-1863), who aroused Da-
sent’s interest in the old literature of
the Teutonic peoples. Sir Dasent
decided to learn the Icelandic langu-
age. He learned it the hard way by
translating Rask’s Icelandic grammar
and Gylfaginning, from Snorri Sturlu-
son’s Edda, which was published in
1842, two years before Samuel Laing
published his translation of Heims-
kringla, three large volumes. For
eighteen years Dasent worked in his
spare time at the translation of Njals
Saga. This work under the title The
Story of Burnt Njal was published in
two volumes in 1861. Dasent also did
some work on the Cleasby-Vigfusson
Icelandic-English dictionary.
Sir George Dasent travelled extensiv-
ely in Iceland in 1861 and again in
1862, accompanied by the Icelandic
poet Dr. Grimur Thomsen and a group
of English scholars. Among Old Ice-
landic literature which he translated
later is The Story of Gisli the Outlaw,
(Gisla Saga Surssonar), which was publ-
ished in 1866.
Sir Dasent’s comments on the Old
Icelandic classics are, in part, as fol-
lows: “Putting aside the study of Old
Norse, (Icelandic), for the sake of its
magnificent literature, and consider-
ing it merely as an accessory help for
the English student, we shall find it
of immence advantage, not only in
tracing the rise of words and idioms,
but still more in clearing up many
dark points in our early history; in
fact so highly do I value it in this
respect, that I cannot imagine it pos-
sible to write a satisfactory history of
the Anglo-Saxon period without a
thorough knowledge of the Oid Norse
literature.”
Friedrich Max Muller, (1823-1900),
was born in Germany. In 1868 he be-
came a Professor of comparative phil-
ology at the Oxford University, Eng-
land, and was made a Privy Councillor
in 1896. He was a very prolific writer,
his greatest single effort being the ed-
iting of the “Sacred Books of the East”,
Rig Veda, a series of oriental scriptures
in an English version to which he con-
tributed three volumes .This Ancient
literature, was, like the Old Icelandic
literature, committed to memory for
centuries before it was written down
in that ancient language, Sanskrit.
Max Muller, as he is called, was a pre-
eminent authority in Sanskrit, and he
wrote many books on the science of
languages and related subjects. His
article on Comparative Mythology
has been highly praised. In his second
volume of Chips From a German Work
Shop he makes the following remarks:
“There is, after Anglo-Saxon, no
language, no literature, no mythology
so full of interest for the elucidation
of the earliest history of the race,
which now inhabits the British Isles
as the Icelandic. Nay, in one respect Ice-
landic beats every other dialect of the
great Teutonic family of speech, not
excepting Anglo-Saxon and old High
German and Gothic. It is in Icelandic
alone that we find complete remains of
the genuine Teutonic heathendom.
Gothic, as a language, is more ancient
than Icelandic; but the only literary
work which we possess in Gothic is a
translation of the Bible. The Anglo-
Saxon literature, with the exception of
Beowulf, is Christian. The old heroes of
the Niebelunge, such as we find them
represented in the Suabian epic, have
been converted into church-going