Explore "Tales of a Wayside Inn" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And then the blue-eyed Norseman told / A Saga of the days of old. / "There is," said he, "a wondrous book / Of Legends in the old Norse tongue, / Of the dead kings of Norroway,- / Legends that once were told or sung / In many a smoky fireside nook / Of Iceland, in the ancient day, / By wandering Saga-man or Scald; / Heimskringla is the volume called; / And he who looks may find therein / The story that I now begin."
And in each pause the story made / Upon his violin he played, / As an appropriate interlude, / Fragments of old Norwegian tunes / That bound in one the separate runes, / And held the mind in perfect mood, / Entwining and encircling all / The strange and antiquated rhymes / with melodies of olden times; / As over some half-ruined wall, / Disjointed and about to fall, / Fresh woodbines climb and interlace, / And keep the loosened stones in place.