[Footnote 27: For an account of the Scandinavian settlements on the Bristol Channel, cf. A. Bugge, _Contributions to the History of the Norsemen in Ireland_, No. III, published in _Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania, Historisk-filosofisk Klasse_, 11, 1900.] [Footnote 28: Axel Olrik, Introduction to _Danske Folkeviser Ì Udvalg_, 3rd ed. (Copenhagen and Christiania, 1913), p. 40 ff. Cf. also Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_ (Copenhagen, 1891), ch. VII.] [Footnote 29: On the literary sources of the Faroese ballads, cf. Steenstrup, _op. cit._ Introduction.] [Footnote 30: _Lied und Epos_ (Dortmund, 1915), p. 19.] [Footnote 31: _On the History of the Ballads, 1100-1500_, published in _Proceedings of the British Academy_ for 1902-1910, p. 202.] [Footnote 32: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 202.] [Footnote 33: Frank Sidgwick, _The Ballad_, London (Arts and Crafts of Letters Series), p. 61.] [Footnote 34: Gummere, _The Popular Ballad_ (London, 1907), p. 340.] [Footnote 35: _On the History of the Ballads_, etc., p. 204.] INTRODUCTION TO GRÕPLUR I In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Iceland, many of the Sagas or portions of them were turned into rhyming verse known as _RÌmur_. Sagas of almost every class were subjected to this treatment--_Õslendinga Sˆgur_, _Fornaldar Sˆgur_, _Fornmanna Sˆgur_ and others. It is supposed that in the first place these rhymed versions (_RÌmur_) were made for the purpose of recitation at social gatherings. There is ground for believing that the _RÌmur_ were sometimes recited, as an accompaniment of dances in Iceland[1]; but this is not believed to have been the purpose for which they were originally composed[2]. According to both JÛnsson[3] and Mogk[4], the _RÌmur_ and other forms of rhyming verse in early Norse poetry originated in the Mediaeval Latin Church Hymns introduced into Iceland in the thirteenth century. The similarity between the rhyming metres of the Latin and many (though not all) of the forms of verse used in the _RÌmur_ is very striking. Whether the influence of Latin hymns in Iceland was directly responsible for the change, however, as JÛnsson and Mogk believe, or whether the Latin hymns only influenced Norse verse indirectly through the medium of French poetry, is problematical. Perhaps these compositions owe their origin to the fashion of turning all kinds of material, likely and unlikely, into rhyming verse--a fashion which originated in France, and from the latter part of the twelfth century onwards gradually made its way over most of the West and North of Europe. The rhyming chronicles of the fourteenth century in England may be mentioned as one instance of this fashion, and the rhyming paraphrases of the splendid prose of Iceland are an outcome of the same movement.