This chapter will analyse how translations and adaptations of primarily medieval Icelandic texts created a new archive of terror writing. The English versions were not only included in books of history or philology but also printed as literary pieces to appeal to a wider audience. The translations introduced the age to a new aesthetics significantly different from classical and neoclassical models. Beyond stylistic innovation, I will propose that the category of the sublime in Icelandic texts held a poignant cultural importance. Therefore, the chapter will trace the growing interest in Norse literary tradition to a juncture in British history when the need to establish a cultural lineage became crucial.

Norse poetry was believed to offer insights into the beliefs and values of the Germanic ancestors because Icelandic texts were believed to mirror the mindsets of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons. This chapter argues that the Norse examples, in the view of eighteenth-century writers, revealed a style of composition that embodied a fearlessness in confronting deeply terrifying aspects of the universe. The heroic nature that was linked with the Germanic forefathers was a concept widely celebrated. Hence, the idea that heroism was found in their poetic remains was eagerly embraced by writers.

The first part of the chapter will examine how Icelandic texts were co-opted as representative of Anglo-Saxon traditions, providing England with a long literary pedigree partly motivated by rivalry with the popular Ossian poetry, representing Britain's Celtic heritage. The second part of the chapter will discuss how Norse poetry was reinterpreted and reimagined to highlight the frightening and unsettling elements present in the original verses.

The Inf luence of Norse Tradition on Britain's Cultural Landscape

The appreciation of Norse tradition did not come about as a result of a single event or influence. It was the outcome of several converging cultural formations in the eighteenth century. However, if one is to define a significant catalyst, it would be the Genevan scholar Paul-Henri Mallet's Francophone works on wider Nordic history and poetry (published 1755–56). Especially pertinent to this chapter are his selected translations from the Poetic Edda (the collection of mythological poems written down in Iceland during the thirteenth century, but of older date) and Skaldic poetry (Norse court poetry developed between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries).