Skálldaspillir*,] and fought in the battle which he celebrated. Hacon earl of Norway was accompanied by five celebrated bards in the battle of Jomsburgh: and we are told, that each of them sung an ode to animate the soldiers before the engagement began. They appear to have been regularly brought into action. Olave, a king of Norway, when his army was prepared for the onset, placed three scalds about him, and exclaimed aloud, "You shall not only record in your verses what you have HEARD, but what you have SEEN." They each delivered an ode on the spot. These northern chiefs appear to have so frequently hazarded their lives with such amazing intrepidity, merely in expectation of meriting a panegyric from their poets, the judges, and the spectators of their gallant behaviour. That scalds were common in the Danish armies when they invaded England, appears from a stratagem of Alfred; who, availing himself of his skill in oral poetry and playing on the harp, entered the Danish camp habited in that character, and procured a hospitable reception. This was in the year 878". Anlafft, a Danish king, used the same disguise for reconnoitring the camp of our Saxon monarch Athelstan: taking his station near Athelstan's pavilion, he entertained the king and his chiefs with his verses and music, and was dismissed with an honourable reward". As Anlaff's dialect must have discovered him to have been a Dane; here is a proof, of what I shall bring more, that the Saxons, even in the midst of mutual hostilities, treated the Danish scalds with favour and respect. That the Islandic bards were common in England

* [Skalldaspillir, poetarum alpha, cui he spoke the dialect of his province, or omnes invident poetæ.] what Hickes calls the Dano-Saxon.'Bartholin. p. 172. EDIT.]

Olaf. Sag. apud Verel. ad HERV. SAG. p. 178. Bartholin. p. 172. Ingulph. Hist. p. 869. Malmesb. ii.

u

Malmesb. ii. 6. I am aware, that the truth of both these anecdotes respecting Alfred and Anlaff has been controverted. But no sufficient argument has yet been offered for pronouncing them spurious, or even suspicious. See an ingenious Dissertation in the ARCHEOLOGIA, vol. ii. p. 100. seq. A. D. 1773, 4to.

during the Danish invasions, there are numerous proofs. Egill, a celebrated Islandic poet, having murthered the son and many of the friends of Eric Blodoxe, king of Denmark or Norway, then residing in Northumberland, and which he had just conquered, procured a pardon by singing before the king, at the command of his queen Gunhilde, an extemporaneous ode *. Egill compliments the king, who probably was his patron, with the appellation of the English chief. "I offer my freight

to the king. I owe a poem for my ransom. I present to the

ENGLISH CHIEF the mead of Odin." Afterwards he calls this Danish conqueror the commander of the Scottish fleet. "The commander of the Scottish fleet fattened the ravenous birds. The sister of Nera [Death] trampled on the foe: she trampled on the evening food of the eagle." The Scots usually joined the Danish or Norwegian invaders in their attempts on the northern parts of Britain: and from this circumstance a new argument arises, to show the close communication and alliance which must have subsisted between Scotland and Scandinavia. Egill, although of the enemy's party*, was a singular favourite of king Athelstan. Athelstan once asked Egill how he escaped due punishment from Eric Blodoxe, the king of Northumberland, for the very capital and enormous crime which I have just mentioned. On which Egill immediately related the whole of that transaction to the Saxon king, in a sublime ode still extanta. On another occasion Athelstan presented Egill with two rings, and two large cabinets filled with silver; promising at the same time, to grant him any gift or favour which he should choose to request. Egill, struck with gratitude, immediately composed a panegyrical poem in the Norwegian lan

guage, then common to both nations, on the virtues of Athelstan, which the latter as generously requited with two marcs of pure gold. Here is likewise another argument, that the Saxons had no small esteem for the scaldic poetry. It is highly reasonable to conjecture, that our Danish king Canute, a potentate of most extensive jurisdiction, and not only king of England, but of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was not without the customary retinue of the northern courts, in which the scalds held so distinguished and importan* a station. Human nature, in a savage state, aspires to some species of merit, and in every stage of society is alike susceptible of flattery, when addressed to the reigning passion. The sole object of these northern princes was military glory. It is certain that Canute delighted in this mode of entertainment, which he patronized and liberally rewarded. It is related in KNYTLINga-Saga, or Canute's History, that he commanded the scald Loftunga to be put to death, for daring to comprehend his atchievements in too concise a poem. "Nemo," said he, "ante te, ausus est de me BREVES CANTILENAS componere." A curious picture of the tyrant, the patron, and the barbarian, united! But the bard extorted a speedy pardon, and with much address, by producing the next day before the king at dinner an ode of more than thirty strophes, for which Canute gave him fifty marcs of purified silver. In the mean time, the Danish language began to grow perfectly familiar in England. It was eagerly learned by the Saxon clergy and nobility, from a principle of ingratiating themselves with Canute: and there are many manuscripts now remaining, by which it will appear, that the Danish runes were much studied among our Saxon ancestors under the reign of that monarch d.

The songs of the Irish bards are by some conceived to be

b Crymog. Arn. Jon. p. 129. ut supr. Bartholin. Antiquit. Danic. lib. i. cap. 10. p. 169, 170. See KNYTLINGASAGA, in Catal. Codd. MSS. Bibl. Holm. Hickes. Thesaur. ii. 312.

[Canute's threat-for he did not "command the scald to be put to death"-is thus translated by Mr. Turner: "Are

you not ashamed to do what none but yourself has dared, to write a short poem upon me? Unless by to-morrow's dinner you produce above thirty strophes on the same subject, your head shall be the penalty." Hist. of Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 437. The result was as Warton states. -EDIT.] Hickes, ubi supr. i, 134. 136.

strongly marked with the traces of scaldic imagination; and these traces, which will be reconsidered, are believed still to survive among a species of poetical historians, whom they call TALE-TELLERS, supposed to be the descendants of the original Irish bards. A writer of equal elegance and veracity relates, "that a gentleman of the north of Ireland has told me of his own experience, that in his wolf-huntings there, when he used to be abroad in the mountains three or four days together, and laid very ill a-nights, so as he could not well sleep, they would bring him one of these TALE-TELLERS, that when he lay down would begin a story of a KING, or a GYANT, a Dwarf, and a DAMOSELf." These are topics in which the Runic poetry is said to have been greatly conversant.

* We are informed by the Irish historians, that saint Patrick, when he converted Ireland to the Christian faith, destroyed three hundred volumes of the songs of the Irish bards. Such was their dignity in this country, that they were permitted to wear a robe of the same colour with that of the royal family. They were constantly summoned to a triennial festival: and the most approved songs delivered at this assembly were ordered to be preserved in the custody of the king's historian or antiquary. Many of these compositions are referred to by Keating, as the foundation of his History of Ireland. Ample estates were appropriated to them, that they might live in à condition of independence and ease. The profession was hereditary; but when a bard died, his estate devolved not to his eldest son, but to such of his family as discovered the most distinguished talents for poetry and music. Every principal bard retained thirty of inferior note, as his attendants; and a bard of the secondary class was followed by a retinue of fifteen. They seem to have been at their height in the year 558. See Keating's History of Ireland, p. 127. 132. 370. 380. And Pref. p. 23. None of their poems have been translated.

There is an article in the Laws of Keneth king of Scotland, promulged in the year 850, which places the bards of Scotland, who certainly were held in equal esteem with those of the neighbouring

countries, in the lowest station. “Fugitivos, BARDOS, otio addictos, scurras et hujusmodi hominum genus, loris et flagris cædunto." Apud Hector. Boeth. Lib. x. p. 201. edit. 1574. But Salmasius very justly observes, that for BARDOS we should read VARGOS, or VErgos, i. e. Vagabonds.

[Such, said the late ingenious Mr. Walker, was the celebrity of the Irish music, that the Welsh bards condescended to receive instructions in their musical art from those of Ireland. Gryffydd ap Conan, king of North Wales, about the time that Stephen was king of England, determined to reform the Welsh bards, and brought over many Irish bards for that purpose. This Gryffydd, according to the intelligent Mr. Owen, was a distinguished patron of the poets and musicians of his native country, and called several congresses, wherein laws were established for the better regulation of poetry and music, as well as of such as cultivated those sciences. These congresses were open to the people of Wales, as well as of Ireland and Scandinavia, and professors from each country attended: whence what was found peculiar to one people, and worthy of adoption, was received and established in the rest. Hist. Mem. of Irish Bards, p. 103. Cambrian Biogr. p. 145.-PARK.]

f Sir W. Temple's Essays, part iv. p. 349.

Nor is it improbable that the Welsh bards might have been acquainted with the Scandinavian scalds. I mean before their communications with Armorica, mentioned at large above. The prosody of the Welsh bards depended much on alliteration". Hence they seem to have paid an attention to the scaldic versification. The Islandic poets are said to have carried alliteration to the highest pitch of exactness in their earliest periods: whereas the Welsh bards of the sixth century used it but sparingly, and in a very imperfect degree. In this circumstance a proof of imitation, at least of emulation, is implied. There are moreover, strong instances of conformity between