in high honour. Gunnlaug Worm-tongue (12) in 1004 carne to
England, after being in Norway, as the saga says: -- "Now sail
Gunnlaug and his fellows into the English main, and come at
autumntide south to London Bridge, where they hauled ashore their
ship. Now, at that time King Ethelred, the son of Edgar, ruled
over England, and was a good lord; the winter he sat in London.
But in those days there was the same tongue in England as in
Norway and Denmark; but the tongues changed when William the
Bastard won England, for thenceforward French went current there,
for he was of French kin. Gunnlaug went presently to the king,
and greeted him well and worthily. The king asked him from what
land he came, and Gunnlaug told him all as it was. `But,' said
he, `I have come to meet thee, lord, for that I have made a song
on thee, and I would that it might please thee to hearken to that
song.' The king said it should be so, and Gunnlaug gave forth
the song well and proudly, and this is the burden thereof --

"'As God are all folk fearing
The fire lord King of England,
Kin of all kings and all folk,
To Ethelred the head bow.'

The king thanked him for the song, and gave him as song-reward a
scarlet cloak lined with the costliest of furs, and golden-
broidered down to the hem; and made him his man; and Gunnlaug was
with him all the winter, and was well accounted of."

The poems in this volume are part of the wonderful fragments
which are all that remain of ancient Scandinavian poetry. Every
piece which survives has been garnered by Vigfusson and Powell in