The want of a short and easy introduction to the study of Icelandic has been felt for a long time--in fact, from the very beginning of that study in England. The _Icelandic Reader_, edited by Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell, in the Clarendon Press Series, is a most valuable book, which ought to be in the hands of every student; but it still leaves room for an elementary primer. As the engagements of the editors of the Reader would have made it impossible for them to undertake such a work for some years to come, they raised no objections to my proposal to undertake it myself. Meanwhile, I found the task was a more formidable one than I had anticipated, and accordingly, before definitely committing myself to it, I made one final attempt to induce Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell to take it off my hands; but they very kindly encouraged me to proceed with it; and as I myself thought that an Icelandic primer, on the lines of my Anglo-Saxon one, might perhaps be the means of inducing some students of Old English to take up Icelandic as well, I determined to go on.

In the spelling I have not thought it necessary to adhere strictly to that adopted in the Reader, for the editors have themselves deviated from it in their _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, in the way of separating _ǫ_ from _ö_, etc. My own principle has been to deviate as little as possible from the traditional spelling followed in normalized texts. There is, indeed, no practical gain for the beginner in writing _tīme_ for _tīmi_, discarding _ð_, etc., although these changes certainly bring us nearer the oldest MSS., and cannot be dispensed with in scientific works. The essential thing for the beginner is to have _regular_ forms presented to him, to the exclusion, as far as possible, of isolated archaisms, and to have the defective distinctions of the MSS. supplemented by diacritics. I have not hesitated to substitute (¯) for (´) as the mark of length; the latter ought in my opinion to be used exclusively--in Icelandic as well as in Old English and Old Irish--to represent the actual accents of the MSS.

In the grammar I have to acknowledge my great obligations to Noreen's _Altisländische Grammatik_, which is by far the best Icelandic grammar that has yet appeared--at least from that narrow point of view which ignores syntax, and concentrates itself on phonology and inflecti