R

ODES,

AND OTHER

ANCIENT POEMS.

I

THOUGHT proper to fubjoin to the EDDA the following pieces, selected out of that vast multitude of verses, which we find preserved in the ancient Chronicles.

These are such as appeared to me most expreffive of the genius and manners of the ancient inhabitants of the north, and most proper to confirm what I had advanced in the preceding Volume; as also to thew that the Mythology contained in the EDDA, hath been that of all the northern Poets, and the religion of many nations drest out with fictions and allegories.

I shall first of all present the ODE which Regner Lodbrog composed in the torments preceding his death. This Ode was dictated by the Fanaticism of Glory, VOL. II.

animated by that of Religion. Regner, who was a celebrated Warrior, Poet and Pirate, reigned in Denmark about the beginning of the ninth century: after a long series of maritime expeditions into the most diftant countries, his fortune at length failed him in England. Taken prisoner in battle by his adversary Ella, who was king of a part of that ifland, he perished by the bite of ferpents, with which they had filled the dungeon he was confined in. He left behind him several fons, who revenged this horrible death, as Regner himself had foretold in the following verses. There is fome reafon, however, to conjecture that this prince did not compose more than one or two stanzas of this Poem, and that the reft were added, after his death, by the Bard, whose function it was, according to the cuftom of those times, to add to the funeral fplendor, by finging verses to the praife of the deceased. Be that as it may, this Ode is found in feveral Icelandic Chronicles, and its versification, language and stile, leave us no room to doubt of its antiquity. Wormius has given us the text in Runic Characters, accompanied with a Latin Version, and large notes in his Lituratura Runica. Vid. p. 197. It is also met with in M. Biorners's collection. Out of the twenty-nine strophes, of which it confists, I have only chosen the following, as being what I thought the generality of my readers would peruse with most pleafure. I have not even always translated entire stanzas, but have sometimes reduced two stanzas into one, in order to spare the Reader such passages as appeared to me uninteresting and obfcure *.

* Our elegant Author having taken great liberties in his Tranflation of this and the following ODES, in order to accommodate them to the taste of French Readers; it was once intended here, instead of copying the French, to have given extracts from the more literal Version of all these Poems formerly published, which hath been so often quoted in the Notes to this work: viz. The FIVE PIECES OF RUNIC POETRY, TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC LANGUAGE. 1763. 8vo.

But an ingenious Friend having translated from the French this part of M. Mallet's Book, I have got leave to infert his Verfion, and shall take the liberty to refer the more curious Reader to the pamphlet above-mentioned; which the Tranflator professes he occasionally confulted in the following pages. There the ODEs here abridged may be seen at large, cornfronted with the Icelandic Originals, and accompanied with two other ancient Pieces of Northern Poetry. T.

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EXTRACTS

FROM THE ODE OF

1

KING REGNER LODBROG.

८८

W

E fought with swords †, when, in my early youth, I went to"wards the east to prepare a bloody prey " for the ravenous wolves: 'ample food " for the yellow-footed eagle.' The whole

"ocean seemed as one wound: the ravens "waded in the blood of the flain.

:

"We fought with swords, in the day " of that great fight, wherein I sent the " inhabitants of Helsing to the Hall of "Odin. Thence our ships carried us to "Ifa *: there our steel-pointed launces, "reeking with gore, divided the armour " with a terrible clang: there our fwords " cleft the shields asunder.

"We fought with swords, that day " wherein I saw ten thousand of my foes

rolling in the dust near a promontory of "England. A dew of blood distilled from "our swords. The arrows which flew in " search of the helmets, bellowed through "the air. The pleasure of that day was equal to that of clasping a fair virgin in

"my arms †,

* Or the Vistula.

+ I cannot help thinking, that the Reader will censure our ingenious Author, as not having here

"We

exerted his usual good taste in selecting, when he finds he has omitted such stanzas as the following, particularly the two laft.

"We fought with swords, in the Northumbrian land. A furious storm defcended on the shields:

Q3

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