Note 270 — SECTION IX. CATALOGUE-RAISONNÉ OF MODERN TRAVELS IN ICELAND—PREPARATIONS FOR TRAVEL.

Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín observes: “If by ‘home’ is meant the place where the songs were first made, this is undoubtedly correct, according to accepted theories; but then Norway would not then be their home any more than Iceland. On the other hand, it is indisputable that their last and only home was in Iceland, when they were nowhere else to be found. The allusions in the songs give no clue to their birthplace. You may find an Icelander of the present day singing of lions and elephants. And if they can do so now, why not in former times also?” The author would remark that the Elder Edda has evidently been preserved by memory from earlier ages, and that its origin must have been in Continental Scandinavia. It is rather the spirit of the poetry than the scattered allusions which suggests that much of it was not addressed to islanders. A comparison of the Völuspá with any Icelandic composition will explain what is here meant; and Mr Benjamin Thorpe seems to have been struck by the same idea.