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VON TROIL’s LETTERS ON ICELAND. 683
of its peculiar properties are contained in the impoffibility of changing one word for
another, or tranfpofing it, without making a great alteration in the whole verfe.
Thefe affonances, or /endingars, are generally found in the firft and laft word of each
line : fometimes however the one affonant word is placed in the middle of the line, as
in the initance of the word /éndum in the firft hemittich of the firft verfe.
This confonance of founds mutt be confidered as the neceflary ornament of a regular
verfe by the ancient Skalds: the greater this uniformity is, the more the verfe ap-
proaches to perfection ; it likewife ferves them as a guide in finging their verfes. We
alfo find fomething of this fort in the Latin poets: Virgil fays,
—tales cafus Caflandra canebat.
And another poet,
Dum dubitat natura marem faceretve puellam,
Nates es o pulcher paene pueila puer.
This has likewife been remarked by Boxhorn, who at the fame time quotes from
Giraldus Cambrenfis, that this was alfo cuftomary among the ancient Cambrians, and
in England: fo that it feems to have been the opinion of molt nations, that the elegance
of poetry required this harmony of founds. For this reafon the Cambrians fay,
Digawn Duw da y unie
Wrth bob ctybwylh parawd.
And the Englifh,
God is together gamman and wifdome.
David Rhaefus confirms this in his Grammatica Cambro-Brytannica, printed in folio,
London 1592, and quotes feveral paflages from their verfes, which have a great deal of
refemblance with the hendingar of the Icelanders.
I know not whether the agreement of the initial letters, cuftomary in the poetry of
the Findlanders, might not likewife be mentioned here, as a proof of the fame cuftom
being obferved there as in Iceland: I will therefore infert a paflage from Calamnii’s
Seee een to the late king Adolphus Frederic, on his undertaking a voyage to
Finland,
Kofta kulki kuningamme
Adolph Fredric armollinen
Meidan maalla matkutteli,
Kaicki vereni venahti,
Kaicki liikahti lihani,
Eltae virteni viritin,
Kannoin minum kandeleni,
Ifaen iftuimen etchen,
Kaicki vallan kamarihin : F
Iofta anvin andimia,
But this carries me too far from my fubject. Though we do not find any rhymes in
our moft ancient poetry, it may however, be faid with certainty that they are older than
the introduction of the Chriftian religion. Skule Ejnarfon is therefore wron gfully accufed
48-2 of
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