Not less accustomed are we to such heroes as Kiartan:
And now in every mouth was Kiartan's name, And daily now must Gudrun's dull ears bear Tales of the prowess of his youth to hear, While in his cairn forgotten lay her love. For this man, said they, all men's hearts did move, Nor yet might envy cling to such an one, So far beyond all dwellers 'neath the sun; Great was he, yet so fair of face and limb That all folk wondered much, beholding him, How such a man could be; no fear he knew, And all in manly deeds he could outdo; Fleet-foot, a swimmer strong, an archer good, Keen-eyed to know the dark waves' changing mood; Sure on the crag, and with the sword so skilled, That when he played therewith the air seemed filled With light of gleaming blades; therewith was he Of noble speech, though says not certainly My tale, that aught of his he left behind With rhyme and measure deftly intertwined.
The Old Norse touch here is in the last three lines which intimate that the warrior was often a bard; but be it remembered that the Elizabethan warrior could turn a sonnet, too.
We have said that the _Laxdæla Saga_ is famous for its portrayal of character. This English version falls not at all below the original in this quality. The lines already quoted show Gudrun and Kiartan as to exterior. But this is a drama of flesh and blood creations, and they are men and women that move through it, not puppets. Souls are laid bare here, in quivering, pulsating agony. The tremendous figure of this story is not Kiartan, nor Gudrun, nor Refna, but Bodli, and certainly English narrative poetry has no second creation like to him. The mind reverts to Shakespeare to find fit companionship for Bodli in poetry, and to George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in prose. The suggestion of Shakespearean qualities in George Eliot has been made by several great critics, among them Edmond Scherer;[31] in Hardy and Morris, here, we find the same soul-searching powers. These writers have created sufferers of titanic greatness, and in the presence of their tragedies we are dumb.
An English artist has made Napoleon's voyage on H.M.S. _Bellerophon_ to his prison-isle a picture that the memory refuses to forget. The picture of Bodli as he sails back to Iceland, which, though his home, is to be his prison and his death, is no less impressive: