Indridi Einarsson's 'Sword and Crozier' is the first Icelandic play to be done into English. Very probably, the well-informed reader will wonder, not so much that a translation 'should be so late in forthcoming,' but that, of all things, there should exist a dramatic literature worthy the name in that Ultima Thule. He is, indeed, not in any way to be blamed for not suspecting the possibility of a highly developed drama under conditions such as obtain in Iceland, even though he may well be aware that lyric poetry has been cultivated there with ardor and success. When authors of small nations, such as Denmark and Holland, have been known to complain about the limited circle they can hope to reach, how true, how pathetically true, is this of Iceland, with its scant eighty thousand inhabitants of poor fishermen and farmers thinly spread over the lordly spaces of their far-away, rugged and barren island! What audience can an author expect there? Nor is it to be thought that his very difficult mother-tongue will permit a comprehension of his work among the reading public of the other Scandinavian lands. It stands to reason--whatever enthusiasts on the subject have said to the contrary--that, by its very nature, the drama can attain independent and legitimate growth only in centers of human habitation, where the stage--very necessarily--epitomizes the tendencies of the times, and, if occupied by a real literature in every sense, is the self-expression of a great community. As late as 1886 a sober-minded author on Scandinavian literature was able to say, with some justice, 'Iceland lacks all conditions for a dramatic literature.' And the situation has not changed essentially since. Whatever has been done in that line in recent times is to all intents and purposes due to stimulation from abroad and, in so far, artificial. So far, none of the more ambitious native efforts have been on the program of the stage of Reykjavik to be performed by the very estimable amateur players of that town. The above is by no means said in a spirit of reproach. On the contrary, all honor to the patriotic men who, by writing dramas in their mother-tongue, are willing to forego the emoluments and recognition to be gained from audiences in more favored lands: for the sake of enriching their native literature; for the sake of showing both the world and their own people that neither in this art are they inferior to other nations; for the sake of demonstrating to their satisfaction that a contribution of Iceland to world-literature is no more an impossibility now than in the older times, when it enriched us with lore and history, and gave the world what Greece and Rome did not, the realistic novel.