“Men who skim the main on sea stag Well in this ye showed your sense, Making game about the Burning, Mocking Helgi, Grim and Njal; Now the moor round rocky Swinestye,[4] As men run and shake their shields, With another grunt shall rattle When this _Thing_ is past and gone.” The great Icelandic poets have translated into the Icelandic many of Shakespeare’s plays, the Iliad, _Odyssey_, Paradise Lost and scores of the minor pieces of English and American poetry as well as the masterpieces of German, French and Scandinavian literature. When we learn that the rules for Icelandic poetry are strict, that not only rhyme and rhythm but a complicated alliteration must be incorporated in the verses, we can understand what a task these translators have had. There are many variations of the alliteration. In the following is noted not only simple alliteration but also that the _second hemistich begins with the penultimate syllable of the first_. To illustrate note the following:— _H_rein-tiörnum gledr _horna_ _Horn_ nair litt at thorna Miöðr hegnir _b_ol _bargna_ _Brag_ningr scipa Fagnir. Folk hömlo gefr _fram_la _Fram_lyndr vidum gamla Sas helldr fyrir skot _Skiölld_um. _Skiölld_ungr hunangs ölldur. “The king refreshes his warriors with the pure mead,—mead which soothes the sorrows of man. The horns are seldom empty. The aged and magnanimous monarch, who wields off the darts with his shield, divides the honey-drink among his warriors.” _Henderson._ The organ in this humble home suggested this digression. Supper over, let us return to the farm. Down by the stream there is a diminutive grist mill with hand-hewn stones fifteen inches in diameter and turned by a most primitive water wheel. The mill never stops. The rye or barley, imported from Europe, is placed in the hopper and ground whole. There is no differentiation of the botanical parts as in America, where the live stock get the nutritious portions and bread is made out of the remainder because it is “white.” When the meal bucket at the house is empty the maid goes down to the brook, removes the flour, refills the hopper and thus in rotation for years, or until the mill must be repaired. To appreciate this mill in all its simplicity one must see it. The stones are placed on the upper end of a vertical shaft. At the lower end of the shaft there are simply two paddle blades attached to turn the shaft under the pressure of the water. Simple, but effective, always at work and producing nutritious flour as long as the grains are added to the miniature hopper.