The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Síða 39

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
37
letters. For the English-speaking race
especially there is nowhere, so near
home, a field promising to the scholar
so rich a harvest. The few translations,
or attempted translations, which are
to be found in English, give merely
a faint idea of the treasures of antique
wisdom and sublime poetry which
exist in the Eddie lays, or of the quaint
simplicity, dramatic action, and strik-
ing realism which characterize the hist-
oric Sagas. Nor is the modern literature
of the language, with the rich and
abundant stores of folk-lore, unworthy
of regard”.
Dr. Rasmus B. Anderson, (1846-
1936), was a Professor of Scandinavian
languages at the University of Wis-
consin, (U.S.A.), and at one time Min-
ister to Denmark. He was the author
of America Not Discovered by Col-
umbus, Viking Tales of the North, and
Norse Mythology or The Religion of
Our Forefathers. He was editor of the
deluxe, Royal edition of the Norroena,
Anglo-Saxon Classics, fifteen large
volumes. In his book Norse Mythology,
he says: “. . . In the next place, that is,
next after the English and Anglo-
Saxon, we must study German, Meso-
Gothic and the Scandinavian langu-
ages, and especially Icelandic, which
is the only living key to the history of
middle ages, and to the Old Norse
literature. It is the only language now
in use in almost unchanged form,
through a knowledge of which we can
read the literature of the Middle ages.
We must by no means forget that we
have Teutonic antiquities to which
we stand in an entirely different and
far closer relation than we do to
Greece and Rome. And the Norsemen
have in Iceland an Old literature,
which the scholar must of necessity
be familiar with in order to compre-
hend the history of the middle ages. . .
The more vividly the truth will flash
upon our minds, that the Greek and
the Icelandic are two silver-haired
veterans, who hold in their hands two
golden keys,—the one to unlock the
treasures of ancient time, the other
those of the middle ages; the one to
the treasures of the south and the other
those of the north of Europe. . .”
Dame Bertha Surtees Phillpotts, —
(1877-1932), was born at Bedford, Eng-
land, the daughter of James Surtees
Phillpotts, Headmaster of Bedford
Grammar School. In 1898, at Cam-
bridge, she was awarded first class
(French and German) in the medieval
and modern languages. Between 1901
and 1913 she was acquiring, extending,
and deepening her knowledge of
Scandinavian languages, history archae-
ology and literature. In 1911 she was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Northern Antiquity of Copenhagen.1
In 1913 she was elected first lady Car-
lisle fellow of Somerset College, Oxford.
When in Stockholm, Sweden, during
the first world war she was appointed
Clerical Assistant to His Majesty’s
Legation and she also acted as private
secretary to the British Minister, and
was awarded the O.B.E. in 1918. She
was Principal of Westfield College,
Hampstead 1919-1921, and of her own
College 1922 to 1925. Then she was
elected a research fellow for one year,
and finally became a lecturer and
Director of Scandinavian Studies and
Head of the Department of other
languages at the University of Cam-
bridge. She was honored with the title
D.B.E. in 1929;—was the only woman
member of the Statutory Commission
for the University of Cambridge (1923-
1927); and Statutory member of the
University of London (1926-1928).
Dame Phillpotts was recognized as
an authority on Scandinavian subjects.
3. The Royal Society of Northern Antiquity
of Copenhagen was founded in 1825.