Through the Greenland colony also came two, or
perhaps more, great poems of this western school. This school
grew out of the stress and storm of the viking life, with its
wild adventure and varied commerce, and the close contact with an
artistic and inventive folk, possessed of high culture and great
learning. The infusion of Celtic blood, however slight it may
have been, had also something to do with the swift intense
feeling and rapidity of passion of the earlier Icelandic poets.
They are hot-headed and hot-hearted, warm, impulsive, quick to
quarrel or to love, faithful, brave; ready with sword or song to
battle with all comers, or to seek adventure wheresoever it might
be found. They leave Iceland young, and wander at their will to
different courts of northern Europe, where they are always held
in high honour. Gunnlaug Worm-tongue (12) in 1004 carne to
England, after being in Norway, as the saga says: -- "Now sail
Gunnlaug and his fellows into the English main, and come at
autumntide south to London Bridge, where they hauled ashore their
ship.
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