PREFACE.
The varied and vigorous literature of ancient Scandinavia will amply repay the student for the labour which he can bestow upon it, and to facilitate his acquisition of the language in which it is embodied is the object of this little work. With this view, I have aimed at the utmost brevity consistent with completeness and precision, avoiding all those elaborate details which can only interest the advanced scholar. Stating merely those rules which must necessarily be mastered, I have endeavoured through simplicity of arrangement and a practical system to present the general structure of the Icelandic tongue before the learner's eye, so that with ordinary application it will be easily comprehended; particularly by him who possesses the advantage of an acquaintance with some of its cognate branches. Wherever rules are laid down, they are so enforced by analogous examples selected from standard authorities, with a correct translation of the passages, as to show both the proper application of them, and the right meaning of the sentences.
The earliest poetry and historical sagas of the North furnish exhaustless sources of intellectual pleasure to the antiquarian and philologist. The traditions of Iceland, car-
