The theory of a conglomerate epic may be applied to the Icelandic Sagas with some effect. It is plain on the face of them that they contain short stories from tradition which may correspond to the short lays of the epic theory, which do in fact resemble in many things certain of the lays of the "Elder Edda." Many of the Sagas, like _Eyrbyggja_, _Vatnsdæla_, _Svarfdæla_, are ill compacted, and easily broken up into separate short passages. On the other hand, these broken and variegated Sagas are wanting in dignity and impressiveness compared with some others, while those others have attained their dignity, not by choosing their episodic chapters merely, but by forcing their own original and commanding thought upon all their matter. This is the case, whether the form be that of the comprehensive, large, secure, and elaborate _Njála_; of _Laxdæla_, with its dilatory introduction changing to the eagerness and quickness of the story of Gudrun; of _Grettir_ and _Gisli_, giving shape in their several ways to the traditional accumulation of a hero's adventures; or, not less remarkable, the precision of _Hrafnkels Saga_ and _Bandamanna_,[49] which appear to have discovered and fixed for themselves the canons of good imaginative narrative in short compass, and to have freed themselves, in a more summary way than _Njála_, from the encumbrances of traditional history, and the distracting interests of the antiquarian and the genealogist. These two stories, with that of Howard of Icefirth[50] and some others, might perhaps be taken as corresponding in Icelandic prose to the short epic in verse, such as the _Atlakviða_. They show, at any rate, that the difficulties of reluctant subject-matter and of the manifold deliverances of tradition were not able, in all cases, to get the better of that sense of form which was revealed in the older poetic designs. [Footnote 49: See below, pp. 229 _sqq._] [Footnote 50: p. 216.] In their temper also, and in the quality of their heroic ideal, the Sagas are the inheritors of the older heroic poetry. III THE HEROIC IDEAL