There are descriptions of dawn in new and unexpected terms: "The guest slept within until the black raven, blithe-hearted, gave warning of the coming of the heaven's joy, the bright sun, and of robbers fleeing away."[69] Never did the terraces of Rome, the peristyles of Athens, the balconies of Verona, see mornings dawn like unto these, to the raven's merry shriek. The sea of the Anglo-Saxons is not the Mediterranean, washing with its blue waves the marble walls of villas; it is the North Sea, with its grey billows, bordered by barren shores and chalky cliffs. FOOTNOTES: [40] H. Sweet, "Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon poetry," in Hazlitt's Warton, ii. p. 3. [41] "De Bello Trojano," iii., line 108. Rhyme, however, commenced to appear in a few Christian poems of the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. On the use, rather rare, of alliteration in old French, which nevertheless has been preserved in several current expressions, such as "gros et gras," "bel et bon," &c., see Paul Meyer, "Romania," vol. xi. p. 572: "De l'alliteration en Roman de France." [42] "His date has been variously estimated from the eighth to the eleventh century. The latter is the more probable." Earle, "Anglo-Saxon Literature," 1884, p. 228. [43] Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Poesie," ed. Wuelker; Cassel, 1883 ff., 8vo; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale, The poetry of the old northern tongue, from the earliest to the XIIIth Century," edited and translated by G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., Eddic poetry; vol. ii., Court poetry. Other important monuments of Scandinavian literature are found in the following collections: "Edda Snorri," Ion Sigurdsson, Copenhagen, 1848, 2 vols.; "Norroen Fornkvaedi," ed. S. Bugge, Christiania, 1867, 8vo. (contains the collection usually called Edda Saemundi); "Icelandic Sagas," ed. Vigfusson, London, 1887, 2 vols. 8vo (collection of the "Master of the Rolls"; contains, vol. i., "Orkneinga Saga" and "Magnus Saga"; vol. ii., "Hakonar Saga"); "Sturlunga Saga," including the "Islendiga Saga of Lawman Thordsson, and other works," ed. Vigfusson, Oxford, 1878, 2 vols. 8vo; "Heimskringla Saga, or the Sagas of the Norse Kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason," ed. S. Laing, second edition, revised by R. B. Anderson, London, 1889, 4 vols. 8vo. The two Eddas and the principal Sagas will be comprised in the "Saga Library," founded in 1890 by W. Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (Quaritch, London). _Edda_ means great-grandmother; the prose Edda is a collection of narratives of the twelfth century, retouched by Snorri in the thirteenth; the Edda in verse is a collection of poems of various dates that go back in part to the eighth and ninth centuries. _Saga_ means a narrative; the Sagas are narratives in prose of an epic character; they flourished especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.