The death of heroes has provided an inexhaustible theme for folk-poets. The chief or partisan leader had his complement in the skald or bard or roving ballad-singer; if the one acted, turned tribes into nations, cut out history, the other sang, published his fame, gave his exploits to the future, preserved to his people the remembrance of his dying words. The poetry of hero-worship, beginning on Homeric heights, descends to the "lytell gestes" of all sorts and conditions of more or less respectable and patriotic outlaws and _condottieri_, whose "passing" is often the most honourable point in their career. On the principle which has been followed--that of letting the folk-poet speak for himself, and show what are his ideas and his impressions after his own manner and in his own language--I will take three death scenes from amongst the less known of those recorded in popular verse. The first is Scandinavian. What ails Hjalmar the Icelander? Why is his face so pale? The Norse Warrior answers: "Sixteen wounds have I, and my armour is shattered. All things grow black in my sight; I reel in walking; the bloody sword of Agantyr has pierced my heart. Had I five houses in the fields I could not dwell in one of them; I must abide at Samsa, hopeless and mortally wounded. At Upsal, in the halls of Josur, many Jarls quaff joyously the foaming ale, many Jarls exchange hot words; but as for me, I am here in this island, struck down by the point of the sword. The white daughter of Hilmer accompanied my steps to Aganfik beyond the reefs; her words are come true, for she said I should return no more. Draw off my finger the ring of ruddy gold, bear it to my youthful Ingebrog, it will remind her that she will see me never more. In the east upsoars the raven; after him the mightier eagle wings his way. I will be meat for the eagle and my heart's blood his drink." One backward look to all that was the joy of his life--the feast, the fight, the woman he loved--and then a calm facing of the end. This is how the Norseman died. The Greek hero, who dies peaceably in the ripeness of old age, meets his doom with even less trouble of spirit--