Since the war in Schleswig-Holstein, however, all one's German
friends are exceedingly anxious to insist on the difference of nature
between themselves and the Scandinavians; when one expresses surprise
that the German sense of nationality should be so deeply affronted by
the rule over Germans, not of Latins or Celts, but of brother Teutons
or next door to it, a German will give you I know not how long a
catalogue of the radical points of unlikeness, in genius and
disposition, between himself and a Dane. This emboldens me to remark
that there is a fire, a sense of style, a distinction, in Icelandic
poetry, which German poetry has not. Icelandic poetry, too, shows a
powerful and developed technic; and I wish to throw out, for
examination by those who are competent to sift the matter, the
suggestion that this power of style and development of technic in the
Norse poetry seems to point towards an early Celtic influence or
intermixture. It is curious that Zeuss, in his grammar, quotes a
text which gives countenance to this notion; as late as the ninth
century, he says, there were Irish Celts in Iceland; and the text he
quotes to show this, is as follows: --'In 870 A.D., when the
Norwegians came to Iceland, there were Christians there, who
departed, and left behind them Irish books, bells, and other things;
from whence it may be inferred that these Christians were Irish.
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