These ten lines serve to illustrate very well one of the most remarkable powers of Morris. Just consider for a moment the number of details that are crowded into this picture, and then notice how few are the strokes required to put them there. For this rapid painting of a crowded canvas Morris is second to none among English poets. This power to put a whole landscape or a complex personality into a few lines is the direct outcome of his study of Old Norse literature. Icelandic poetry is characterized by this quality. One has but to compare the account of the end of the world as it is found in the last strophes of _Völuspá_, or in the _Prose Edda_, with the similar account in _Revelations_ to see how much two languages may differ in this respect. It would seem as if the short verses characteristic of Icelandic poetry forbade lengthy descriptions. The effect must be produced by a number of quick strokes: there is never time to go over a line once made. A simile is never elaborated, a new one is made when the poet wishes to insist on the figure. Take the second strophe of the "Ancient Lay of Gudrun" as an example, in the translation by Morris and Magnusson: Such was my Sigurd Among the Sons of Giuki As is the green leek O'er the low grass waxen, Or a hart high-limbed Over hurrying deer, Or gleed-red gold Over grey silver. That is the Icelandic fashion; William Morris has caught it in the _Story of Sigurd_. Matthew Arnold has not seen fit to use it in his "Balder Dead," as these lines show: Him the blind Hoder met, as he came up From the sea cityward, and knew his step; Nor yet could Hermod see his brother's face, For it grew dark; but Hermod touched his arm. And as a spray of honeysuckle flowers Brushes across a tired traveller's face Who shuffles thro the deep-moistened dust, On a May-evening, in the darkened lanes, And starts him that he thinks a ghost went by-- So Hoder brushed by Hermod's side. These are noble lines, but altogether foreign to Icelandic. Book III opens with the dream of Gudrun and Brynhild's interpretation of it. This matter is managed in accordance with our own standards of art, and thus differs materially from the saga story. In the latter a most naïve procedure is adopted, for Brynhild prophesies that Sigurd shall leave her for Gudrun, through Grimhild's guile, that strife shall come between them, and that Sigurd shall die and Gudrun wed Atli. The whole later story is thus revealed. This is not a story-teller's art, but it sets clear the Old Norse acceptance of fate's dealings. Of course Morris' poetic action explains the dream perfectly, but the details are not so frankly given. "Thou shalt live and love and lose, and mingle in murder and war," is the gist of Brynhild's message, and the whole future history is there.