But it lay in the nature of things that a pure Scandinavian poetry could not grow up either among the Normans in France, or their Danish kinsmen in England. For the development of such a poetry it was necessary that they should preserve their Scandinavian nationality intact. But it is well known, that a foreign education and refinement soon caused them to abandon their belief in Odin, as well as many of the habits and customs which they had inherited from their forefathers. Of the change that took place in them nothing bears stronger evidence than their mother tongue, which, by degrees, lost more and more of its characteristics, and at length passed entirely into the modern French and English languages. The old predilection for poetry which the Normans brought with them from the North, was reflected in many ways in their foreign refinement. Of all France, Normandy was the country where most historical and warlike songs were heard. The Normans sang them in battle, and derived from them a sort of inspiration. Before the battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror’s bard, Taillefer, recited songs about Charlemagne, Roland, and others, to the Norman host, to cheer and enliven the warriors after the old Scandinavian fashion; just as Thormod Kolbrunaskjald, before the battle of Stiklestad, in Norway, (1030), sang the far-famed Bjarkemaal. When the poetry of the Troubadours of Provence began to spread itself throughout France, it found another home in Normandy; where it so peculiarly developed itself, that the French troubadour poetry is generally divided into two principal kinds, the “Provençal” and the “Norman.” Even in Italy, where the Normans conquered fresh kingdoms, their peculiar poetry had a perceptible and important influence on the development of the art.