Summary: Written at London not later than the beginning of May 1761, based largely on a Latin translation of the original poem preserved in the late 13th-century Njáls Saga, ch. 157. This untitled Old Norse poem is a prophetic account of the Battle of Clontarf, fought on Good Friday 1014. First published in Poems (1768).
Alternate Form:
Facsimile and description in Verlyn Klinkenborg et al., British Literary Manuscripts, Series I. From 800 to 1800 (New York, 1981), no. 99
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 49, 83-84; Munby (ed.), Sale Catalogues (1971), Evans sale (27-29 November 1845), lot 604, 9
Contents: Autograph fair copy, revised, here untitled but referred to in the preface as a "magic song", beginning "Now the storm begins to lour", with the preface and a prose epilogue beginning "Having finish'd their incantation they tore the web they had woven into twelve pieces...", endorsed in another hand on verso. Bound into a copy of Poems (1768), following p. 71.