All sagas that have yet appeared in
English may be found in the book-list at end of this volume, but
they are not a tithe of those that remain.
Of all the stories kept in being by the saga-tellers and left for
our delight, there is none that so epitomises human experience;
has within the same space so much of nature and of life; so fully
the temper and genius of the Northern folk, as that of the
Volsungs and Niblungs, which has in varied shapes entered into
the literature of many lands. In the beginning there is no doubt
that the story belonged to the common ancestral folk of all the
Teutonic of Scando-Gothic peoples in the earliest days of their
wanderings. Whether they came from the Hindu Kush, or originated
in Northern Europe, brought it with them from Asia, or evolved it
among the mountains and rivers it has taken for scenery, none
know nor can; but each branch of their descendants has it in one
form or another, and as the Icelanders were the very crown and
flower of the northern folk, so also the story which is the
peculiar heritage of that folk received in their hands its
highest expression and most noble form.
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