↩ That the historic poems of the ►Edda, or the songs concerning the exploits and downfall of those mighty hero-races, the ►Volsungs, ►Budlungs, and the ►Giukungs or ►Nibelungs, form a highly remarkable relic of ancient Northern song, doubly alluring to the inquirer, both on account of their deviation from, and their resemblance to, the Germans' ►Lay of the Nibelungs, is indisputable; but they all look so like translations, and are so wanting in the completeness, clearness, and compactness, which distinguish ►Beowulf's “Drapa,” that it would be doing the Skalds of 📌the North a great wrong, to take this wreck of a bark stranded on 📌Iceland, for ►Skibbladner (►Odin's ship) itself. Mr. 👤Wheaton has made an excellent choice in the specimen he has given of ►the first lay of Gudruna [p. 83] which likewise, in regard to form, belongs to the noblest, and depicts in few, but powerful and masterly strokes, the deep-toned pathos of the warrior-maid of 📌the North; who, as it sounds in the old song, does not beat her bosom and wring her hands over the corse of the beloved hero, but is turned to stone, like ►Niobe, till she sees the spear-pierced eye, and then melts as snow would melt before 📌Afric's sun, under the mere recollection of what formerly glistened beneath the vaulted arches of the heroic scull.*Mr. 👤Wheaton is in error when he says [p.88] that 👤Œlenschlâger has enriched his works from these songs. ⓘ Grundtvig has dramatized the story in his View of Northern Heroic life.*►Optrin af Norners og Asers Kamp. Khvn, 1811. In 📌Germany, also, 👤De la Motte has attempted the same thing with a part of the tale, and at least produced a poetic work which deserves to be known.*►Sigurd der Schlangentödter.