As to the literary quality of this work we in say much, but we
think we may well trust the reader of poetic insight to break
through whatever entanglement of strange manners or unused
element may at first trouble him, and to meet the nature and
beauty with which it is filled: we cannot doubt that such a
reader will be intensely touched by finding, amidst all its
wildness and remoteness, such a startling realism, such subtilty,
such close sympathy with all the passions that may move himself
to-day.
In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to us, that
this Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem, should
never before been translated into English. For this is the Great
Story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale
of Troy was to the Greeks -- to all our race first, and
afterwards, when the change of the world has made our race
nothing more than a name of what has been -- a story too -- then
should it be to those that come after us no less than the Tale of
Troy has been to us.
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