GIFT-BOOKS.
TWO NORSE STORIES.* " VINLAND " is America, or rather that part of America which the Norse adventurers of the tenth and eleventh centuries are said to have discovered. The name appears never to have " caught on" among our kinsfolk on the other side of the Atlantic. Only one place, as far as we can learn from the Gazetteer, is so called. Possibly it has seemed sacrilege to question the honour due to Columbus. Still, the subject, whatever the historical value of the legend, is a good one. Southey's " Madoc," which deals with it, would have made a good tale, if it had not been an indifferent poem. Miss Ottilie Liljencrantz has turned the theme to good account. The story runs that three brothers, sons of Eric the Red, had to do with the discovery. Lief the Lucky, whom Miss Liljencrantz has already celebrated, was the first to set foot on Vinland. His voyage was a success ; but his brothers, when they tried to follow in his steps, were less fortunate. Thorwald was slain by the natives ; Thorstein died of disease. When the tale opens, a fourth adventurer, Karlsefne by name, has established himself in the country, an expedition to which he had been moved by the talk of his wife Gudrid Thorstein's widow. Karlsefne is a law-abiding man, a pecu- liarity of character, as we may say in view of Norse ways, which has given him the sobriquet of " Lawman." He has sent out an exploring ship, the Wind-Raven,' with the strictest instructions to keep the peace with the natives, the mysterious Skraellings, and not to make them dangerous by bartering for their furs any weapon of steel, for this people, which may be supposed to be Eskimos, are still in the Stone Age. The crew of the Wind-Raven' consists in part of a turbulent set of boys, among whom one, Airek son of Ingolf, is conspicuous. The lads are cleverly sketched, and are not unlike a set of modern " Middies," with a good share of the Norse fierceness super- added; but it is in Alrek that our interest centres. His father has been a dear friend of Karlsefne in former days, but was outlawed for some deed of violence, and ended his life in disgrace. The Lawman watches the conduct of Alrek with a keen interest sprung from his old affection, but never free from the haunting fear that the rebellious spirit of the father will reproduce itself in the son. The situation thus created is described with much force. The boys are to be taught responsibility by being made into a separate community, of
• (1) The Vinland Champions. By Ottilie A. Liljencrantz. London Ward, Lock, and Co. [5s.]—(2) Heroes of Iceland. Adapted by Allen French. London : D. Nutt. [58.) which Alrek is appointed the chief. The working out of the experiment is complicated by the ambitions and feuds of other actors in the drama. All this is skilfully managed by the author, whom we may congratulate on having achieved a distinct success. The plot is well contrived, and the literary quality of the work is fully adequate to the occasion. We must not omit to mention the ingenious way in which the character of Gudrid is handled.
It is forty-three years since Sir G. W. Dasent published The Story of Burnt Njal. In those days the idea of adapting the great epics and romances of the world to the tastes and capacities of young readers was very far from being developed as it is now. Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses was a very early example. Mr. French has applied it with success in the volume now before us. He has adapted by abridgment and occasional omission Dasent's translation of the Icelandic saga. (It would have been a graceful act to recognise by something more than the bare mention of Dasent's name on the title-page the very great services which he rendered in this department of letters.) We have no criticism to make on Mr. French's execution of his task. It was inevitable that the result would be to accentuate in some degree the characteristic which makes Scandinavian romances less suitable for the special purpose of books of this kind than, say, the Hellenic. This is the savagery with which it is, so to speak, saturated. There are barbarities in the Homeric story,—as when Achilles slays twelve Trojan captives at the pyre of Patroclus ; but the tone of the whole is more humane than what we find in the sagas. And abridgment where facts are retained and detail omitted tends to make all this more prominent. On the other hand, it is a great advantage for the young reader to have the very informing preface which Mr. French has supplied. His critical comparison of the Icelandic epic, if we may so speak of it, with the Iliad and Odyssey, the Niebelungen Lied, and the other members of the European cycle is an excellent piece of work, and the notes are likely to be very useful.
TRAFALGAR AND OTHER BATTLES REFOUGHT.* THE refighting of Trafalgar under modern conditions must have been an interesting exercise to the two collaborators, one of whom, alas ! is no longer with us. One aspect of novelty has, by the Battle of the Sea of Japan, been taken from the book ; for we now know what a modern battle be- tween " first-rates " means. It seems that victory, once gained, must be more decisive than in old days ; superiority increases, as it were, in geometrical instead of arithmetical proportion. A modern battleship cannot stand the massing of fire on her which the older vessels could endure without absolute ruin. The authors have followed in all essentials the campaign of 1805: the somewhat tedious watching outside Toulon, the dash towards threatened Egypt and the chase of Villeneuve's squadron to the West Indies and back. Some of the earlier details might be thought unnecessarily full ; but at least they will teach boys who read that a naval officer's life is not all " beer and skittles." The strain on the mind and temper of all is very distinctly brought out, much accentuated as it is by Nelson's incessant demand for news, his per- petual drills, alarums, and excursions. But that, of course would be the " note " of a modern Trafalgar fought under a modern Admiral with Nelson's rapidity of thought and nervous tension. The actual battle does not take long in telling, though the separate cruiser actions come in for more detail, and will probably excite more enthusiasm. The terrible effect of modern guns, the awful spectacle of two battleships ramming each other,—these and other incidents are brought home to us in vivid language. One of these phases of the modern battle is when Collingwood, with two battleships only, pursues Gravina with three ; then follows the clever scheme of the Spaniards, the concentration of their -fire on the Leviathan,' and their sudden rush at her. The Spanish flagship rams her, and sinks some time afterwards, while Collingwood redresses the balance by ramming one of the two survivors and torpedoing the other. Well told, well arranged, with many nautical terms explained for the use of non-nautical readers, we can have nothing but hearty (1) Trafolgar Befought. By Sir W. laird Clowes and Alan H. Burgoyne, London: Nelson and Sons. [6s.]—(2) The Nelson Nary Book. By J. C. liadden. London : Mackie and Son. [6s.]
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