The story of the volsungs

It would seem fitting for a Northern folk, deriving the greater and better part
of their speech, laws, and customs from a Northern root, that the North should be to
them, if not a holy land, yet at least a place more to be regarded than any part of
the world beside; that howsoever their knowledge widened of other men, the faith and
deeds of their forefathers would never lack interest for them, but would always be
kept in remembrance. One cause after another has, however, aided in turning
attention to classic men and lands at the cost of our own history. Among battles,
"every schoolboy" knows the story of Marathon or Salamis, while it would be hard
indeed to find one who did more than recognise the name, if even that, of the great
fights of Hafrsfirth or Sticklestead. The language and history of Greece and Rome,
their laws and religions, have been always held part of the learning needful to an
educated man, but no trouble has been taken to make him familiar with his own people
or their tongue. Even that Englishman who knew Alfred, Bede, Caedmon, as well as he
knew Plato, Caesar, Cicero, or Pericles, would be hard bestead were he asked about
the great peoples from whom we sprang; the warring of Harold Fairhair or Saint Olaf;
the Viking (1) kingdoms in these (the British) Western Isles; the settlement of
Iceland, or even of Normandy. The knowledge of all these things would now be even
smaller than it is among us were it not that there was one land left where the olden
learning found refuge and was kept in being. In England, Germany, and the rest of
Europe, what is left of the traditions of pagan times has been altered in a thousand
ways by foreign influence, even as the peoples and their speech have been by the
influx of foreign blood; but Iceland held to the old tongue that was once the
universal speech of northern folk, and held also the great stores of tale and poem
that are slowly becoming once more the common heritage of their descendants. The
truth, care, and literary beauty of its records; the varied and strong life shown
alike in tale and history; and the preservation of the old speech, character, and
tradition -- a people placed apart as the Icelanders have been -- combine to make
valuable what Iceland holds for us. Not before 1770, when Bishop Percy translated
Mallet's "Northern Antiquities", was anything known here of Icelandic, or its
literature. Only within the latter part of this century has it been studied, and in
the brief book-list at the end of this volume may be seen the little that has been
done as yet. It is, however, becoming ever clearer, and to an increasing number, how
supremely important is Icelandic as a word-hoard to the English- speaking peoples,
and that in its legend, song, and story there is a very mine of noble and pleasant
beauty and high manhood. That which has been done, one may hope, is but the
beginning of a great new birth, that shall give back to our language and literature
all that heedlessness and ignorance bid fair for awhile to destroy.