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MAY 6 1899' 

%«ff/OGE, «i^ 



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Edanburgh : T. And A. CowtTABLB, Printers to Her Majesty 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 

PROFESSOR FRANCIS JAMES CHILD 

OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
WHOSE GREAT WORK 'THE ENGLISH AND 
SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS* SHOWS SO 









^COLLEGfT)^^ 



MAY 



899 



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"p^ Vv^ K- S^:/(^/uX.C . 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 

PROFESSOR FRANCIS JAMES CHILD 

OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

WHOSE GREAT WORK 'THE ENGLISH AND 

SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS* SHOWS SO 

GENUINE AN APPRECIATION OP THE VALUE 

OF EARLY SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 

AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM AND AFFECTION 

BY THE AUTHOR AND THE 

TRANSLATOR 



viii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

A word of explanation is necessary regarding the 
method of writing the Old Norse proper names. 
In many English works on Scandinavian subjects 
little care seems to have been taken to follow any one 
method consistently — Old Norse, Modern Danish, 
German, and English modes of spelling being strangely 
mixed up with one another. In this book I have 
used, I hope consistently, the Old Norse forms ; but 
with the following variations : (i) In words not 
italicised, S and J? are replaced by th^ the sounds 
represented by this combination of letters in English 
being the same as those it stands for in Old Norse. 
(2) The ending -r (-/, -n) of the nominative case has 
been dropped, except in words ending in -/>, where 
the -r has been retained to avoid confusion with words 
ending in -i (like Helgi) : thus, Gunnar, Thorstein, 
Egil, H9thbrodd, Fenrir. The -r in such a word as 
Baldr (gen. Baldrs) remains because it is part of the 
stem ; compare Sigrlinn (gen. Sigrlinnar). (3) Saxo's 
latinised forms have usually been kept (or at least 
indicated), when reference is made to a personage 
mentioned by him ; for they at once suggest the 
version of the story under discussion. The same is 
the case with the forms in Arngrim J6nsson's Latin 
extracts from the Skjoldungasaga, The quantity o( 
long vowels has been indicated. In apparent viola- 
tion of the principles above stated, a few names have 
been printed in the form which is definitely estab- 



TRANiSLATOR'S PREFACE ix 

lished in England and America — e,g, Odin, Thor, 
Wayland. 

I may add that I have employed * Old Norse ' with 
the meaning * Norwegian-Icelandic' The adjectives 
•Norse' and 'Norwegian' are indifferently applied to 
the inhabitants of Norway in early times. * Northern ' 
frequently replaces ' Scandinavian.' I make no apology 
for using the noun * motive ' (Norwegian motivy German 
motif) in the sense of * feature, incident, episode.' This 
word has been used for a number of years in English 
works dealing with questions of literary history, and is 
so convenient that it may well be adopted. 

I take pleasure, in conclusion, in acknowledging the 
kind assistance of several friends in the preparation of 
this book. I must thank Professor Hjalmar Falk, of 
the University of Christiania, and Dr. F. N. Robinson 
of this University, for suggestions of different kinds. 
I am under very great obligations to my distinguished 
teacher and friend. Professor George Lyman Kit- 
tredge, for whose generous aid, accorded in this case, 
as always, with the utmost unselfishness, I cannot 
express too strongly my deep feeling of gratitude. 
To Professor Bugge also I would thus publicly offer 
my hearty thanks, not only for the trouble he has 
willingly taken in reading both manuscript and proof, 
but also for his kindness in acceding to my request 
to prepare the very important Introduction, which 
appears now for the first time, a new contribution of 



X HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

distinct value to the subject of Old Norse mythology. 
To him is due all the honour of this work, coupled, of 
course, with the responsibility for the theories therein 
advanced. I would say, finally, that it is an especial 
pleasure to me to be able, thanks to the ready assent 
of Professor Bugge, to dedicate this volume to the 
memory of my revered master, the late Professor 
Francis James Child of this University. 

WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD. 



Harvard University, 

February 1 899. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Translator's Preface, . . . . vii 

Introduction, ...... xiii 

AFTCR 

I. Introductory Remarks, . . . . i 

II. The Hblgi-Lays in their Relation to Later 

Old Norse Skaldic Poems, . ' . . $ 

III. The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani in its 

Rei-ation to Earlier Old Norse Poems, . 7 

IV. Influence from the British Isles on the Phrase- 

ology OF the First Helgi-Lay, . . .11 

V. The First Helgi-Lay and the Irish Story of 

the Battle of Ross na RIg, . . . 28 

VI. The First Helgi-Lay and the Irish Tale of 

the Destruction of Troy, . . . 50 

VII. The Relation of the First Helgi-Lay to the 

Wolfdietrich Story, . . . • 67 

VIII. The Relation of the First Helgi-Lay to the 

Story of Meleager, .... 96 

IX. English and Irish Influence on the Second 

Helgi-Lay, ...... 107 

X. The Second Helgi-Lay in its Relation to other 

Eddic Poems, . . . . 125 

XL Helgi Hundingsbani a Danish King, . . 1A6 

XH. Helgi Hundingsbani in Saxo and in the Eddic 

Poems, • . . . . . .144 

Xni. The Account of Helgi Hundingsbani in its 

Relation to Ancilo-Saxon Erics, . . • I55 

xi 



xii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

CHAPTER PAOt 

XIV. Hblgi Hundingsbani in his Relation to the 

WOLFINGS, HUNDING, THE V^LSUNGS, AND SlGRt^N, 173 

XV. Concluding Remarks on the First Helgi-Lay, . 196 
XVI. The Hblgi-Lays and the Story of Eric the 

Eloquent, . . . . . • ^ 

XVII. The Poem on the Death of Hblgi Hundings- 
bani and Sigri^n, . . . . • 314 

XVIII. The Story of King Hj9rvarth and his Son 

Hblgi, ....... 234 

XIX. The Meeting of the Mermaid HrImgbrth with 

Atli and Hblgi Hjqrvarthsson, . . . 2j6 

XX. HjQRVARTH AND SlGRLlNN, . . . • «7J 

XXI. Atli's Two Encounters with a Supernatural 

Bird, . . . •290 

XXII. The Helgi-Poems and the Ballads of Ribold 

and of Hjelmer, . . • JoS 

XXIII. Concluding Remarks on the Lay of Hblgi 

HjgRVARTHSSON, . . - 3H 

XXIV. Saxo's Account of Regner and Swanwhite, . 348 

XXV. SvAfa and Th6rgerth HqlgabrCth, . 352 

XXVI. Conclusion, . -373 

APPENDIX I.— The Helgi-Lays in their Relation to 

Later Old Norse Skaldic Poems, . .378 

APPENDIX II.— The First Helgi-Lay in its Relation to 

Older Norse Poems, . •3^5 

APPENDIX III.— The Second Helgi-Lay in its Relation 

TO other Norse Poems, . . '395 

INDICES, . . . . . .399 



INTRODUCTION 

The Norwegian original of the present work forms the 
Second Series of my ' Studies on the Origin of the 
Scandinavian Stories of Gods and Heroes/ of which 
the First Series appeared at Christiania in 1881-1889.^ 

In the First Series I refrained from investigating 
the general foundation of the heathen Scandinavian 
religion, and made no effort to determine where 
Scandinavian mythological ideas, taken as a whole, 
had their origin, or to decide whether these ideas 
were known to all classes of society. My object was 
rather to throw light on certain of the most important 
of the Old Norse (Norwegian-Icelandic) myths pre- 
served in the so-called Elder Edda, and in Snorri's 
Edda. 

The foundations of the heathen Scandinavian religion 
were laid in primitive Germanic times. Near kinship 
between Scandinavian and other Germanic peoples 
reveals itself in numerous conceptions regarding the 
whole mythological world, and in names connected 
with these conceptions — e.g,y Hel, the abode of the 
dead, Ur^r (A.S. Wyrd), who controls the fate of 
mortals, tf//ar (elves), rtsar (giants), jgtnar (giants), 
dvergar (dwarfs), vcettir (wights), etc., etc. 

* German translation by Professor Oscar Brenner, Munich, 1889. 

xiii 



XVI HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

that age. It was, indeed, stimulated by their associa« 
tion with the Christian peoples of the West, so that in 
the Viking era the Scandinavian mythological con* 
ceptions became grander, broader, and deeper than 
those of primitive Germanic times. 

Since the most important Old Norse myths are 
known to us in their earliest forms from the Eddie 
poems, the question as to the origin of these myths is 
most closely connected with the question where and 
when the Eddie poems, especially those of a m)^o- 
logical character, arose. 

The so-called Eddie lays are preserved in Icelandic 
manuscripts, the oldest of which are from the thirteenth 
century. But these manuscripts are only copies of 
older codices. No one of the poems is older than the 
end of the ninth century. The majority of them 
belong to the tenth century, and some are still later. 
These poems were, it is true, composed by various 
poets, at various times, and at various places ; but it is 
a mistake to suppose that they were never associated 
with one another before they were gathered into one 
collection in Iceland in the thirteenth century. Mostcrf 
them, from their very origin, belonged to one and the 
same poetical and mythological tendency. Many 
betray such literary relations with one another that th€ 
younger presuppose the older. 

Most of the Eddie poems seem to have been composed 
by Norsemen, or by men who traced their ancestry back 
to Norway, the majority coming from the western, but 
some also from the northern part of that country. Ob- 
serve, in evidence of this, the following facts: — HJ9rvartb, 
Helgi's father, is represented as a king of Norway. Later 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

this volume (see p. 66) I have pointed out that the 
hor of the First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani men- 
us not only the Sognefjord, but also an obscure 
!nt on the outer part of the Sognefjord, viz. Sdgunes. 
^Uy^ another place mentioned by the same poet in 
r Lay of Hrfmgerth, may be found in the diocese of 
rgen. The poem HyndluljffS^ preserved in the 
Ueyjarbdk, but correctly regarded as part of the 
etic Edda, deals with a family of Hgrthaland in 
»rway. GHmnismdl presupposes knowledge of a 
'thical story in the form in which that story was 
own in northern Norway, the old Hdlogaland, and 
ims to show familiarity with the landscape there.^ 
c author of VglundarkviKa, which is probably the 
lest of the heroic poems, was familiar with life in 
ilogaland, where the Finns went about on snowshoes 
d lived by hunting. He knew that they dwelt 
side inland lakes, where fir and birch grew, and where 
Ives and bears were plentiful ; he had seen swans 
ild their nests in summer on the shores of the solitary 
est lakes. 

But the Eddie poems just mentioned, and in general 
)sc Eddie lays which were the work of poets born in 
>rway, were not, in my opinion, composed under the 
luence of impressions from Norway alone. On the 
itrary, they were, I believe, composed after their 
:hors had become profoundly affected by impressions, 
iceptions, and stories, or poems, from the British 
BS ; and to this influence was due, in a considerable 
rree, the very production of the lays themselves. It 
not possible to decide in the case of each lay what 

^ See my Studies, First Series, pp. 422-425. 



xviu HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

soil the poet's foot trod when his poem took shape. 
Nor is that, indeed, a matter of great importance. The 
chief thing is to determine where the poet received the 
impulses that called his work into being. 

We are here, moreover, concerned with a continuous 
literary development which we can follow through a 
comparatively long period of time. We may, there- 
fore, suppose that the poems were composed, not in 
the widely scattered places where the several authors 
were born, but in some district where they associated 
under similar conditions of life— conditions which were 
essential for the production of such works, and under 
which the compositions of the older poets influenced 
those of the younger. 

When this is taken into consideration, one cannot 
but conclude that the oldest, and, indeed, the great 
majority of both the mythological and heroic poems 
were composed by Norwegians in the British Isles, the 
greater number probably in northern England, but 
some, it may be, in Ireland, in Scotland, or in the 
Scottish Isles. Very few Eddie lays seem to have 
arisen outside of the British Isles. The late Atlamdl, 
which varies greatly from the other heroic poems on 
the same subject, was certainly composed in Green- 
land. Some of the latest poems, e.g, GHpisspd, may 
have originated in Iceland. 

The old Norse poems which arose in the British 
Isles were carried, by way of the Scottish Isles, to 
Iceland, — and certainly in written form. But in Nor- 
way also, especially in the western part, several of 
the Eddie poems were known as early as the end of 
the heathen period. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

There is no space here for a minute examination of 
all the lays with a view to seeing what light each one 
throws on this question, and for the present I shall 
only adduce a few scattered bits of evidence, 

Wc find in most of the poems a goodly number of 
words which are of English origin, and cannot be shown 
to have been in general use in Norway or Iceland. In 
many cases they occur only in the Eddie lays, and must 
have been transferred to them from English poems. 
Moreover, wc find in these same lays Norse poetic 
expressions that are reconstructions of English expres- 
sions similar in sound but etymological ly different ; 
also Latin words taken into Norse from English ; and 
in addition certain Irish words. 

The following words, selected from not a few poems, 
will serve as examples. HdrbarKslj6'6y Skimismdly and 
Lokasenna are closely related. In Old Norse, gamban 
occurs only in the compounds gambanteinn^ gamban- 
rei&i^ gambansumbL The first, gambanteinn, which 
occurs in Hdrb., 20, and in Skfrn., 26, and signifies a 
twig with magic powers,' may be a reproduction of an 
A.S. ^gombantdn.vfYiicYi would signify *a treasure-twig,' 
i.e. * a twig with magic powers, by the help of which 
its owner could discover and obtain riches, gold and 
treasure,' nearly synonymous with the German Wiin- 
schelruU. In Anglo-Saxon, goviban gyldan means * to 
pay tribute' (Danish 'betale skat') ; and gomban must 
have meant * treasure' (Danish 'skat') as well. In 
imitation of gambanteinn was formed gambanrei^t, 
Skfm., 33, referring to the wrath of the gods, which 
probably meant ' the anger called down upon one by 
striking him with a gambanteinn ^ or magic rod.' In 



XX HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

imitation oi gambanteinn was formed also gamiansumU, 
Lok., 8, ' wonderful banquet/ applied to the banquet at 
which the gods are present. Further, the poetic word 
sufptbl, * banquet, drink,' which occurs in many poems, 
is of foreign origin ; it goes back to A.S. symbel^ O.S. 
at sufnbUy irom the mediaeval Latin symbo/um, ^ feast, 
banquet' Hrimkdlkr, Skfrn., 37, Lok., 53, has its model 
in a Latin phrase, ^oAUr crystaUinus \ kdlkr^ which occurs 
ill several poems, comes from Latin calix^ through 
A.S. calic. In Skfrn., 29, there is mentioned as a magic 
sign tjqsully i.e. * he who causes harm,* from A.S. teosn^ 

* harm.' In the same strophe Skirnir says to Gerth, 

* I will announce to you heavy st'tsbreka and double 
sorrow.' Siisbreki arose from *sfislbreki\ the first 
part is A.S. sfisl, * torment ' ; the second part is O.N. 
brekiy * billow ' ; sifdran siisbreka means, then, * the 
heavy billow of torments,' which shall overpower 
Gerth.^ In Lok., 19, we read of Loki : hann figrg oil 

fla, *all living beings hate h\m' \fjgrg, neuter, pi., is 
A.S. feorg.feorh, * life, living being.' Sievers has shown 
that in Lok., 3, we have A.S. oil, * mockery.' 

In Vglundarkvi^a occur many English words, as well 
as poetic expressions that are reconstructions of English 
expressions :y^r/f«^j/^/>/;/, from A.S. eorcnanstdn\ gim, 
Vkv., 5, ace masc, from A.S. gim, *gem,* which in its 
turn comes from Lat. gemma \ IjS'^i, Vkv., 10, * prince,' 
formed from A.S. AW; kista, Vkv., 21, 23, borrowed 
by way of England from Lat. cista. In Vkv., 18,/rw, 
uQ.fravi, is used with the same meaning as A.S. from, 

^ We find the same metaphor in Irish — e.g. tuind mbroin, *a billow 
of sorrow.' The above explanation of tjosul! and sifshreki \i'as arrived 
at by Professor Falk and me independently. 



INTRODUCTION xjci 

* from,' for which the O.N. word is frd ; in. Vkv., 37, 
nita is inserted for an older neita^ derived from A.S. 
fuitan^ * to afflict' ; in Vkv., 12, we should read : 

Jyeir er d Ig^u 

besii j^r (ms. byr) sima. 

In simayr besti, * bond of bast/ besti is taken direct from 
an A.S. dative baste^ like a strati^ Hamth., 12, which is 
taken from A.S. on str^te, as Zimmer has pointed out 
The word used in Vkv. of the maidens who come 
flying in swan-form, Alvitr, was interpreted by the 
Norsemen as a compound, al-vitr ; but it is really a 
transformation of A.S. celbite, or elfetCy 'swans.' In 
Vkv., 5 and 8, we read of Wayland : 

Kom par afvei^i 
ve^reygr skytL 

Vi^reygr skyti was intended by the Norse poet to 
mean, * the hunter with a weather-eye,' just as the 
English now say : ' to keep one's weather-eye open,' 
*to have a weather-eye.' But when we compare 
expressions in A.S. poems, like that in GMldc^ 183, 

ponne hie afwa^um 
wirige civdmoriy 

we see that the Norse poet here imitated an A.S. 
poem, and, instead of the word werig, * weary,* there 
used, inserted v^reygr^ which is similar in sound but 
different in meaning. In Vkv., 6, Nfthuth is called 

* niara* drdttinn^ i.e. Njdra drdttinn^ an epithet that has 
hitherto been obscure. The A.S. poem which was the 
Norse poet's model, must have called Nithhad (Nithuth) 
the conqueror of Ned6ran^ i.e. * the lower ones ' 



xxii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

(inferiores). This epithet is explained by the fact that 
Nithhad and Wfiland (Wayland) here replace Minos 
and Daedalus, and Minos is said, by the Second Vatican 
Mythograph (p. 76), to have been apud inferiores judex. 
Njdra arose from *Nja^ray as O.N. hvdrir from *hvd6rif^ 
In Vkv., 28, ivi^gjartira (MS. tvtpgiarira) is put along- 
side harma^ ' sorrows.' This is probably an incorrect 
transference of *inwidgyrna (from gym^ ' sorrow *) in 
the A.S. model ; cf A.S. inwitsorh. Other expressions 
in this Norse poem which likewise find their explana- 
tion in Anglo-Saxon, might be mentioned. 

In Sievers's Beitrdge (xxil, 115-134) I have, I think, 
shown that Sigur^arkviSa is an imitation of A.S. 
poems, and contains many English words. In other 
poems also, English words, or misunderstandings of 
English expressions, might be pointed out, as, e.g., the 
following from GuMmarhvgL It is there said (st. 17) 
that Hggni was cut to the heart ; the word fid in this 
connection is from the A.S. dat. flAn, from JIA, with the 
meaning of 0,^.Jleinn ; tregrdf, st. 21, 'enumeration of 
sorrow,' contains A.S. rdw, or r<^w, * series ' ; jgrlum^ st. 
21, means ' men,* a meaning which A.S. eorl may have, 
but not 0,^.jarL 

Some poetic expressions in the Eddie poems arc 
taken from extant A.S. verses. In Guthr., il, 33, Grim- 
hild says to her daughter, ' I give thee Vinbjgrg, 
Valbjgrg! These places arc unknown, and no one 
has been able to explain the names. The poet, I believe, 
formed them in imitation of WtdsPS, jy f Here Cdsere, 
the Roman Caesar, is designated as 

se J>e wtNBURGA geweald dhte, 
wiolena and wilna and Wala rices, 



INTRODUCTION xxui 

*hc who had power over cities, riches, splendid 
possessions, and the kingdom of the Welsh.' In 
imitation of wtnburg^ a poetic expression which occurs 
pretty often in A.S., with the meaning of * city ' in 
general, the Norse poet formed the place-name 
Vinbjgrg} and then by analogy with this, he formed 
Valbjgrg from Wala rtce. In Atlakvi^a, 14, we read of 
Gunnar, King of the Goths, who is advancing to attack 
the King of the Huns, that he comes 

tn^ geiri gjallanda 
at vekja gramhildi^ 

* with resounding spear to awake fierce battle.' We 
detect more than the similarity of a poetic formula in 
Wtdsm, 128: 

{h^vhiende fleag) 
gieilende gar on grome Jyeode. 

For here also we find the Goths fighting against 
the people of Attila. O.^. gramhildt\ 'fierce fight for 
life and death,' is correctly explained by a comparison 
with the A.S. expression. In Akv., 18, the Huns, who 
take Gunnar, are wrongly called vinir Borgiinda^ ' the 
friends of the Burgundians.' This is probably due to 
a misunderstanding : in some A.S. poem, doubtless (as 
in Waldere\ GOthhere was called wine Burgenda, 

* friend of the Burgundians,' and the Norse poet took 
wine wrongly for a plural form. 

Influence from England on the Eddie poems may be 

' In the same way HUhjorg in H. Hund., il, 27, is a reproduction of 
Danish Laburgh ; and Norwegian Ingibjgrg corresponds to Danish 
Ingiburg, 



XXIV HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

detected not merely in poetic expressions, but also in 
poetic, saga-historical, and mythical motives, in the 
action of the story, and in its composition. 

The Norseman who formed the mythical picture of 
the world-tree, the ash Yggdrasil, which the author of 
Grimnismdl reproduces, imagined an eagle in the top 
of the tree, a squirrel running up and down its trunk, 
and a snake at its root. This Norseman had probably 
seen in the north of England monuments with sculptured 
ornamentation similar to those of the Bewcastle Cross 
in Cumberland, if, indeed, he had not seen the Bew- 
castle Cross itself He had, doubtless, heard that it 
was the crucified Christ who was represented in such 
sculptures. Up the side of the cross he had seen a 
tree rise, in the foliage of which sat an eagle or a hawk, 
squirrels and dragons, and ate of the fruits of the tree. 
He called the squirrel by an English name, Ratatoskr, 
t,e, * Rat-tusk,* from A.S. raty * rat,' and tusc^ * tusk.' 

In HyndluljJfS, Freyja comes at midnight with her 
favourite, Ottar, to the seeress Hyndla, who dwells in 
a cave. Freyja wishes to induce Hyndla to accom- 
pany her to Valhgll, so that Ottar may hear Hyndla 
enumerate the whole line of his descendants. Freyja 
praises Ottar ; for he had raised a stone altar to her and 
consecrated it with the fresh blood of cattle [tiauta bWSi)\ 
he has always believed in the goddesses. Hyndla 
enumerates all Ottar's race for him {allt er ]?at cett }}ln\ 
This poem, which is attached to Ottar, who came from 
HQrthaland, presupposes some familiarity with the con- 
tents of Virgil's ^neid, -^neas, the son and favourite 
of Venus, comes to Sibylla Cumaea^ who dwells in a 
cave, to gjet her to accompany him to the abodes of the 



«MH 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

dead, to Elysium. iEneas goes thither with the Sibyl 
at midnight to learn of all the race that shall descend 
from him. The pious i£neas shows by sacrifices his 
faith in many goddesses. He offers up petitions to 
Venus and sacrifices of cattle on altars to the goddesses 
of death {pecudum sanguine^ ^neid, V, 736). In the 
abodes of the blessed, whither the Sibyl is to conduct 
./£neas, he shall learn of all his race {genus omne tuiim 
. . . disces^ /Eneid^ V, 737). 

In Rigsjmla the different ranks of society, and in 
particular the office of king, are referred for their origin 
to the god Rigr. We learn that the representative, or 
eponym, of kingship, after having proved his intellectual 
superiority, adopts the name of the ancestor of his 
race, Rigr, This name is, as Vigfusson observed, the 
Irish riy oblique case rig, * king/ A Norse poet could 
scarcely designate the eponym of kingship by the Irish 
word for * king * unless a Norse king in whose neigh- 
bourhood the poet lived, or whose subject he was, had 
Irish subjects as well. The theory that Rtgspula arose 
in the West is supported also by the numerous foreign 
words in the poem — e.g. skutill, ' a flat wooden plate ' on 
which dishes are placed, from A.S. scutel, which in its 
turn comes from Lat. scutella or scutula ; frakka, fern., 
*a lance,' from A.S. franca, masc. ; kdlkr\ kanna\ 
kartr\ drekka ok dcema, 'drink and converse,* an 
alteration of A.S. drincan and dreinan ; Boddi, the 
name of the peasant, from Irish bodach ; FljS^, one 
of the epithets for a woman, taken from A.S. names of 
women in -fled. 

Volundarkvi6a, as I have already hinted in what 
precedes, was composed with an A.S. poem on W61and 



XXVI HOME OF THli EDDlC POEMS 

Nithhad, and Beadohild as a model. But the Norse 
poet represented the swan-maidens, who were introduced 
into the poem, as connected in race with historical kings, 
among others with a Prankish Hhf&vir, or Ludwig, 
called after one of Charlemagne's successors who bore 
the same name. 

-Here J jan_only_ suggest that the saga-cycle of ibe 
-V^Isungs _aji^d_ Nifiiings_ must have " coiiie" first" to-tbe- 
Scandinavians from the English.^wKo "m Their tuirn 
learned it from the Franks. This is evident both from 
the subject-matter of the Scandinavian poems and from 
their phraseology. 

The Norwegian poets who composed the majority 
of the Eddie lays (including the oldest pieces in the 
collection) were probably, as a rule, attached to the 
courts of Scandinavian kings who reigned, now in 



xxviii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Series of my Studies I have expressed the opinion that 
the foundation of the name of the heavenly tree is the 
Latin phrase species lauri in a scholium to Statius. 
This was translated into A.S. by ^laur-hdd^ which was 
adopted by a Danish poet as *Ldra^r^ and this finally 
became in the Norse work Lcera'Sr, since O.N. /is^r corre- 
sponded to Old Danish Idr. 

The first man is called, in Vgluspd, Askr, the first 
woman, Embla, The mans name, 'ash,' shows that 
the woman's must also be that of a tree. I believe 
Embla to have arisen from a Danish Elmbla^ formed 
from almr^ * elm.' Au6umbla is likewise Danish. 

The most important, from a mythological point of 
view, of all the Eddie poems about the gods is Vgluspd^ 
i.e. ' the Prophecy of the Sibyl {vglva)' Into the mouth 
of a Sibyl, or prophetess, the poet has put a prediction 
of the fate of the whole world. She begins with the 
earliest eras, before heaven and earth existed, before 
gods and men were created, and follows the life and 
fate of the gods even to their destruction, and that 
of the world, in ragndr^k. Nor is this all. The Sibyl 
sees still further into the future : she foretells the birth 
of a new world ; she sees gods and men living in a new 
golden age in eternal peace and joy. Finally, she 
predicts that the Mighty One shall come, he who shall 
rule all things. She dwells longest on the beginning 
and end, especially the latter, and passes quickly over 
the life of the gods under the present order of the world. 

We must infer from the manner of presentation and 
from the mythical personages mentioned in the poem 
that the author was a heathen, and belonged to a 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

people who worshipped the Scandinavian gods; but 
both in the composition as a whole, and in many 
single features, especially towards the conclusion, we 
observe the strong influence of Christian ideas. 

Germanic heathendom was familiar with seeresses 
of supernatural powers, who were treated with respect. 
But the giant-fostered seeress in Vg/uspd, who turns 
her gaze toward the whole human race and meditates 
upon the fate of the world from its first beginning to 
its destruction and resurrection, has unquestionably 
Christian prototypes, and shows particular kinship 
with the Sibyls of the Middle Ages. 

Among other Germanic peoples we have traces of 
poems that, like Vgluspd, treated the creation of the 
world ; but these poems were Christian. In a Bavarian 
manuscript of the early part of the ninth century, 
copied from an Old Saxon original, is preserved the 
so-called Wessobrunner-Gebet, This contains nine 
verses, forming the beginning of a poem in which the 
creation of the world was described in accordance 
with Biblical teaching. Two lines which tell of the 
time when 'the earth was not, nor the high heaven/ 
betray a similarity with lines in Vgltispd that cannot 
be accidental. In Vpi., 3, we read : 

jgr^ fannzk ctva 
nt upphtminn. 

In the Wessobrunner-Gebet : 

ero ni was 
noh ufliimil^ 

but, directly after, definite Christian ideas appear : 

do was der eino 
almahtuo cot. 



XXX HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

It is evident that the author of Biowulf^ds familiar 
with a Christian English poem on the creation of the 
world. In B^ow., 88-98, we read that a poet (^scof) 
sang to the music of the harp in the hall of the Danish 
king : * He who could give an account of the creation 
of men from the most remote times, sang of how the 
Almighty created the earth, the radiant plain encircled 
by water, how the Glorious One established sun and 
moon to shine for the inhabitants of the world, and 
adorned the corners of the earth with branches and 
foliage, and likewise created life for all races, who live 
and move.* Here also the epithet, *the Alniighty,' 
points to a Christian poem. 

I conjecture that the heathen Norse poet who com- 
posed Vgluspd in the tenth century in England was 
familiar, when he celebrated the creation of the world, 
with a Christian poem on the same theme, by which 
he was to some extent influenced. This English epic 
poem, now lost, to which Bi^ozvulf ipoinis^ also stood in 
historical connection with the North-German poem 
presupposed by the Wessobrunner-Gebet, 

I conjecture, further, that the model of these poems, 
the oldest Christian Germanic poem on the creation of 
the world, was composed somewhat after the year 700, • 
when English missionaries worked in North Germany, 

A remarkable mythological word connects the 
heathen old Norse works on the fate of the world 
with the oldest Christian North-German work on its 
destruction. The beings who shall lay waste the world 
with fire are called, in O.N. works, * the sons of Mtispell* 
In the Old Saxon /fiVta nd (vrhich dates from the first 
half of the ninth century), in a passage which attaches 



Hh 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

itself to the words : * So shall it be in the end of this 
world' (Matt xiii. 40), we read: ^ MUdspelles might 
comes over men, the end of this world' (v. 2591; 
fnudsfielleSy Cod. Monac, mutspelleSy Cotton.); and in 
another place (v. 4358): ' mAtspelli comes as a thief 
in the dark night.' In a Bavarian Christian poem, 
\vritten in the first half of the ninth century, the 
destruction of the world by fire, or the fire which shall 
destroy the world, is called mAspille. 

This word was originally North-German, Old Saxon. 
The Old High German word is borrowed from the Old 
Saxon. The O.N. word is probably derived from an 
A.S. word, now lost, that corresponded to the Old 
Saxon. The word became widespread in Christian 
works that predicted the destruction of the world by 
fire. Its oldest form was probably m{i6spelli, or w/^S- 
spilli. I was the first to point out that the word had 
nothing to do with O.S. spHdiatiy * to harm,' but that 
it is derived from spell, * speech, tidings, prediction, 
prophecy.' Better has explained the first part of 
*mli'6spilli as derived from ;//rf5, * mouth,' and has 
compared the A.S. mMMl, 'salutary words,' O.N. 
munnrc^ay * speech,' etc. He regards *mli^spilliy which 
really means *oral prediction,* as a Christian word 
which is a free reproduction of Latin prophetia. Fol- 
lowing Vigfusson, I thought previously that in the first 
part of the word we had the Latin mtinduSy so that 
mtl&spelli would mean * the prediction, prophecy of the 
world, of mundi consummatio* 

In Vgluspd the influence of Christian English works 
is very clear in the description of the first eras of the 
world. We read that the gods gave names to the 



xxxii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

different divisions of time. ' Then the Asir assembled 
on Ida-plain, they who erected high altars and temples. 
They built smithies and forged treasures ; they made 
tongs and fashioned tools; they played "tables" 
(draughts) ; they lacked nothing from gold * (Vpl, 
sts. 7, 8). This was, then, the golden age of Paradise. 
In the new world of the remote future,, the Asir shall 
again assemble on Ida-plain, and there the golden 
'tables/ which in the morning of time they had pos- 
sessed, they shall find lying in the grass (Vpd., Cod. 
Reg., sts. 57, 58). 

For the name d PSavelli (with short 1), Vgluspd is 
our only authority. This word contains a reconstruc- 
tion of the name Eden, which name the heathen Scandi- 
navians heard in England from Christian Englishmen. 
Ed' in Ede7i was reproduced by 75-, because of the 
relation between A.S. ed-, 'again,' and the correspond- 
ing O.N. /"S-. The Scandinavians doubtless connected 
FSavgllr as the name of the place where the gods shall 
assemble in the new (A.S. ed-ftiwe) world with the 
O.N. j8-, 'again.* The -n in Eden doubtless fell away 
because the name was treated as an A.S. form {e.g. a 
genitive) in -an, to which corresponded an O.Nr form in 
-a. Thus A.S. eorcnanstdn was changed in O.N. into 
jarknasteinn. The second part of I^avgllr, viz. vgllr^ 
'plain,* corresponds in meaning to A.S. wong^ which 
was used of Paradise. In like manner the Norwegian 
place-name Leikvangr has been changed in modem 
times into Leikifoll} 

In the description of the first eras of the world in 

* See Rygh, Nor she Gaardnavney 1 1, 271. O.N. grasvglir is synony- 
mous with A.S. ^iirswopit;, O.N. vigitoUr with A.S. wtgwang. 



I 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

Vgluspd^ there are, as E. H. Meyer has pointed out, 

several agreements in poetic phraseology with A.S. 

poems. In VpA., 8, we read of the gods in the morning 

of time : var }>eim vettergis vant 6r guilty * they lacked 

nothing from gold.' In the A.S. poem, * The Wonders 

of Creation,'^ we read of the blessed who dwell with 

God: nis him wihte won, etc., *they lack nothing.' 

Of the first ages of the world, we find in VpA., 3 : jgr^ 

fannsk ceva, . . . en gras kvergiy and in st. 4 : pd var 

grand grUn \ grosnunt lauki ; compare A.S. : Folde 

wees }}d gyt II grces ungrine. Genesis^ 1 16 f. With Vpd., 5 : 

mdni Jkxt ne vissi \ hvat hann megins dttiy || stjgmur J>at 

ne vissu^ \ kvar jxer sta^i dttu^ compare A.S. : J>onne 

stedeUase steorran hr^oscSS || . , . ne se mdna ncef^ nAnne 

mihte wiht, in the poem on the Day of Judgment,* of 

the year 971. 

These agreements are certainly not accidental. They 
are easily explained on the theory that Vgluspd was 
composed by a Norseman in England under the in- 
fluence of English poems, though not exactly those 
here quoted. 

In the passage dealing with the occupation of the 
gods on Ida-plain, are used the words tefifiu, *they 
played tables,* tgflur, * tables.* According to R{gs}>ula, 
Earl's sons learn to play tafl. These words (which 
became familiar throughout the North), though ulti- 
mately of Latin origin, were derived, at all events in 
part, from England. A.S. tcefl translates Lat. alea ; 
taflan means ' to play.' 

With reference to the building of altars or temples, 

^ Grein^ I, 215, v. 95, from the Exeter Book. 
- Ed. Lumby, v. 106. 

C 



xxxiv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

the word hdtimbra is used in Vgluspd and in GrimniS" 
mdl (i6). As far as its composition is concerned, it 
could be genuine Norse ; but while it does not occur 
elsewhere in Norse, we find pretty often in A.S. hMli- 
getimbrUy * high buildings/ particularly of Heaven, with 
gen. pi. fi^ahtimbra, and the participle Mahtimbrod, In- 
Old High German hohgisimbri is explained by * pcr- 
gama, capitolia.' 

The theory that it was in the West that the Norse 
poet sang, in Vgluspd^ of the first eras of the world, is 
strengthened by the fact that he uses an Irish word. 
In Vpd., 4, he calls the earth and the other component 
parts of the world bjo'^iim (dat. pi.), which is borrowed 
from Irish bioth^ btth, * world.' In later Icelandic poems, 
bjo"^ was adopted from Vgluspd and used in the mean- 
ing * earth,' e.g,^ by the skald Kormak (note the Irish 
name) who was on a warlike expedition in Scotland, 
and who uses several Irish and English words. 

Towards the end of Vgluspd^ the influence of 
Christian conceptions becomes still more evident I 
will call attention to certain bits of linguistic testimony 
which show that these conceptions were taken from 
Christian Anglo-Saxons. 

We have indisputable evidence of this fact, as has 
often been pointed out, in the last strophe of the poem : 
J?ar kemr enn dimmi dreki fljitgandiy * there comes the 
dark dragon flying ' ; for dreki is certainly a foreign 
word. Nor can it be doubted that the word in Vgluspd 
is due to English influence ; for A.S. draca ^ occurs 

^ Norlhumbrian dncca (Pogatscher, p. Ii8). In O.N. dreki ^ the e 
probably arose from a through the influence of .^7, and from drcf:i it was 
transferred lu dnka. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

earlier in English than the corresponding word in Old 
Norse. And, moreover, a 'flying dragon' plays an 
important part in the national epic Beowulf, 

The A.S. draca is, in its turn, taken from Lat. draco ; 
but the context in which the word dragon occurs in 
the last strophe of Vgluspd shows that dreki in this 
passage has nothing to do with draco in the Latin sense 
of * the standard of a cohort' In Vp^., we read : * There 
comes the gloomy dragon flying, the shining serpent, 
up from " Nitha-fells " ; with corpses on his wings, 
Nthhoggr flies over the plain ; now shall he sink/ 
Here, then, the dragon comes up from the deep with 
corpses on his wings. Down below he has torn to 
pieces the bodies of the wicked. But this idea of 
dragons tearing to pieces the bodies of the wicked 
is, as I have shown in the First Series of my Studies 
(pp.453 fi^, a Christian conception which in the Middle 
Ages was well known in western Europe, and there- 
fore in Ireland and England. 

After the Sibyl has described the renewed earth and 
the splendid dwellings of the good in Giml^, and after 
she has proclaimed that the Mighty One shall come, 
she announces in conclusion that she sees the dragon 
rise from the deep, only to sink for ever. E. H. Meyer^ 
thinks that this vision is based on the prediction of St. 
John (Rev. xx. 1-3) that 'the dragon, that old serpent,' 
after having been cast into the bottomless pit, and bound 
a thousand years, ' must be loosed a little season.' This 
seems to me possible, although the statement in Vgluspd 
that Ni^/wggr svic\^s bodies on Nd-strandir {i.e. Corpse- 
strands), has its origin in other conceptions than those 

^ Voius/Hlf p. 205. 



xxxvi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

regarding the dragon in the above-cited passage from 
the Apocalypse. 

We read that the dragon comes flying frd Ni6a- j 
fjgllum. This, I believe, means * from the fells (moun- 
tains) below, in the deep,* even as the designation of 
the place where a golden hall stands, viz. d Nitiavgllum, 
Vpd., 37, means * on plains in the deep.' The word b 
to be explained by the A.S. «/5, neut., * deep, abyss.'* 

There is another word in the Sibyl's description of 
the last ages of the world which betrays definite 
Christian influence from England. 

The hall, fairer than the sun, thatched with gold, in 
which the good and upright shall dwell in the renewed 
world and enjoy gladness for ever, is said to be 
i Gimlee, i.e. *the secure home adorned with precious 
stones.' The last part of the word is hli\ * shelter, pro- 
tection.' The place cannot have received its name GimU 
before the Scandinavians had borrowed their v/ord gimr 
(masc, in Vkv.), as in gimstemn^ * precious stone,' from 
Englishmen who had themselves borrowed it (A.S. 
giffiy gimm, masc.) from \^2X. gemma, most likely through 
the Irish gemm. Thus, since the name Gimle neces- 
sarily presupposes influence from Christian peoples, we 
have every reason to find in this home of the righteous 
in the new world, * Gem-shelter,' the hall of which is 

^ This occurs in Satan, 634 : sni/afi td gruudc in jnct nearwc Htfi, and 
in Bdowulf also. Usually frd Ni^afj]>ilum is explained as * from the 
dark fells,' from w/ft', *dark'; but in that case one would expect Ni(Sja' 
fjoUumy following the dative ni^jom in Vpa., 6. In the second place, 
;//5, *the time when the moon does not shine,' points to a temporaiy 
darkness, which does not suit the passage. Thirdly, the hall spoken of 
in Vpa., 37, would scarcely have been imagined as golden if it had stood 
on plains where pitch darkness reigned. 



1 NTR01)i;CTI0N xxxvii 

fairer than the sun and thatched with gold, a reproduc- 
tion, altered by passing through several intermediaries, 
of the holy Jerusalem of which St. John says (Rev. 
xxi. 1 1 ff) : * Her light was like unto a stone most 
precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.' 
' And the building of the wall of it was of jasper : and 
the city was pure gold like unto clear glass. And the 
foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with 
all manner of precious stones/ * And the street of the 
city was pure gold.' * And the city had no need of the 
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it.' 

The statement in the Scandinavian poet, that the 
hall in Giml6 is * thatched with gold,' is even closer to 
a passage in Gregory the Great {Dial, iv., chap. 36), who 
in a vision says that in Paradise are to be seen various 
resplendent dwellings, in the midst of them a shining 
house with golden tiles. 

Wc have a reflection of the holy Jerusalem in several 
German works also ; among others in the following 
description by a M.H.G poet: *In the kingdom of 
heaven stands a house. A golden road leads to it. 
The pillars are of marble ; Our Lord adorns them with 
precious stones.' 

Other evidence that outside of Scandinavia the holy 
Jerusalem of the Apocalypse became a heathen 
Paradise, may be seen in the story of how the devil 
shows Radbot, King of the Frisians, a golden house in 
which he shall dwell if he will not give up the heathen 
faith: the house shines like gold, and before it is a 
street paved with gold and precious stones. 

As examples of how the most important Old Norse 



xxxviii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

mythological stories, as we know them from the Eddie 
poems and from Snorri's Edda, arose under the pro- 
found influence of Jewish-Christian tales which the | 
Scandinavians heard among the English and Irish, I \ 
shall now briefly examine some of the leading features 
of the stories of Baldr and Loki. 

Baldr. , 

The myth of Baldr appears in its chief features in 
several Eddie poems, especially in Vglnspd^ but is most 
complete in Gylfaginning. In the form in which it 
is preserved in these Old Norse sources, it seems to 
be a reconstruction of an older myth, more epic in 
character, of which we seem to have a weak echo, a 
modernised and localised imitation, corrupt in many 
respects, in the story of Hothcrus and Balderus in 
Saxo Grammaticus. I shall not attempt to explain 
here the origin of Saxo's story, or of the more epic 
myth of Baldr. I shall deal only with the ancient Old 
Norse traditions concerning him. 

In them Baldr, pure and spotless, is represented as the 
god of innocence in the midst of the other gods, where 
a still more benign light is thrown upon him by contrast 
with the dark figure of Loki. All that is not con- 
nected with Baldr's death is here made subordinate, or 
entirely omitted, while his fall is made particularly 
prominent and presented with dramatic vividness, be- 
coming the very turning-point in the whole history of 
the world. In this reconstruction of the epic myth, we 
see a strong tendency everywhere manifest to lay the 
chief stress on the fundamental moral elements of life. 
In my opinion, this new form of the Baldr-story is due 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

to the powerful influence exerted by English and Irish 
Christianity on the heathen Norsemen in the West. 
These Norsemen transferred the stories they heard in 
the West about Christ, the Son of God, to Baldr, the 
son of their highest god Odin — yet not without change ; 
they transformed them, with the aid of their vivid, 
creative imaginations, in accordance with special 
heathen Scandinavian conceptions, so that the new 
myths thus formed became genuinely national in 
character. 

The identification of Baldr with Christ may be the 
reason why no deed of this son of Odin is celebrated in 
song or story. His personality only is described ; of 
his activity in life almost no external trait is recorded. 
All the stress is laid upon his death ; and, like Christ, 
Baldr dies in his youth. 

In Vgluspd^ the Sibyl first mentions Baldr when she 
predicts his death. She begins her utterances regard- 
ing him with the following words (Cod. Reg., st. 32) : 

Ek sd Baldri 
^blc^gom tivor^ 

drifts barni 
^rlggfblgin, 

' I saw fate (/>. death) decreed for Baldr . . . Odin's 
son.' The Icelanders in the Middle Ages, and even 
the author of this poem himself, probably understood 
the expression bl^gom Hvor of Baldr as *the bloody 
god,' and connected //z/^r with //z/^r, 'gods' ;^ but this 

* Compare the expression frS^giim i(fi [tffn in Codex Wormianus) in 
the poem Haustlgngin Snorri's Edda, I, 310. This expression seems to 
have been chof^en by the poet because hld^^qovt tivor echoed in his ear. I 
regard the poem HaustlQtig as later than Vcluspd. 



1 / 



xl HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

interpretation cannot, in my opinion, be what was 
originally intended by the expression.* 

The word Hvor is unmistakably borrowed from 
English. It is the Anglo-Saxon ttber^ iifir^ neut, 'a 
sacrifice, victim.'^ From the fact that it is usually 
written ttber with b, seldom ttfer, and that it has a long 
vowel, I infer that the word is a compound, A.S. ttber is 
a later form of ^ttbor^ as eofer of eofor. I explain the 
word as derived from an old Germanic tiivabra along- 
side *ttwabora^ 'what is borne forward to the gods,' 
formed like Gothic gabaur^ 'tax.'^ By dissimilation, 
tUvabra was contracted into *ttbra. 

Now, 'bloody* is a natural epithet to apply to a 
sacrifice. It seems to me certain, therefore, that the 
expression bl&Sgom tlvor used of Baldr in Vgluspd was 
taken from the expression blddig ttbor {=tiber\ *the 
bloody sacrifice,' in some Northumbrian poem. 

This circumstance, in my opinion, supports the view 
that Vgluspd "Wdis composed by a Norwegian in Northern 
England, in a district where both English and Norse 
were spoken. It leads us to believe, also, that at any 
rate some of the lines of Vgluspd were formed under 

^ There is not sufficient analogy for the derivation of thforr from the 
stem tTwa-<, *god.* If the word were very old in Norse, w would have 
fallen out before o. It would also be remarkable if bldiSgom were here used 
in anticipation, although we do find in Beowulf ^ 2439 : his mag cfscit^ 
brS6or dfSernet blddigan gdre. Miillenhoffs change of bidfigom to biaufSgom 
is extremely unhappy ; for he thus applies to the god an expression which 
the ancients would have regarded as gotSgd, * blasphemy.' 

* This comparison has already been made by J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth}^ 
177, note 209, and Vigfusson, Corp. Poet. Bor,^ 11, 643, 648. Sievers 
has shown that ttber has a long t. 

' In O.H.G. zebary * sacrificium, hostia, victima/ short e has developed 
out of short i ; and short i has taken the place of long i before br^ 



INTRODUCTION xli 

the influence of English verse. Of course, Vgluspa 
cannot be, in its entirety, a redaction of an English 
poem ; for while Vgluspd is heathen in appearance, the 
Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Northern England in the 
period in question were Christian. But that does not 
prevent Vgluspd from being at bottom an imitation of 
an English poem ; and we may even believe that in 
some parts it may have kept fairly near to its model, and 
have reproduced almost literally certain of the expres- 
sions of the latter. Furthermore, from a mythological 
point of view, it is highly significant that the expression 
blffSgom tivor is a reproduction of an English expression 
which meant 'the bloody sacrifice '; for, as I have said, 
at the time when Vgluspd was composed, the English 
were Christians. The phrase blodig ttbor cannot, there- 
fore, have been used by them of a heathen god, but 
must have referred to Christ, the God of the Christians. 
This becomes still more evident if we observe that 
Germanic heathendom, when uninfluenced by Christi- 
anity, had no conception of any god as a bloody 
sacrifice. Indeed, the English expression, blddig ttboty 
*the bloody sacrifice,' follows naturally from the way 
in which Christ's death was regarded in the Christian 
Middle Ages, and agrees with the Christian way of 
speaking of the Redeemer. In the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, v. 2, as regularly in the Middle Ages, 
Christ is designated as hostia ; in a hymn, Crux 
benedictay of Venantius Fortunatus, and in many other 
places, as victima. And whenever the conception of 
Christ as a sacrifice or * Lamb of God * is presented in 
the Middle Ages, the ^/^<?^ of Christ is invariably dwelt 
upon (as, eg,^ in Old Eng, Homilies, 279, J>at blisfuU 



xlii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

blodi bodiy where the same adjective is used that we 
find in Vgbispd), 

Now in Vgluspd we find Baldri alliterating with 
blS&gom tivor. May we not, in the light of what pre- 
cedes, infer that in the lost North-English Christian 
poem from which Vgluspd here borrowed, baldor in like 
manner alliterated with blddig ttbor^ *the bloody 
sacrifice'? In the Christian English poem, baldor^ 
of course, was not used of Baldr, the god of the 
heathen, but must have signified 'lord,' Le, the Lord 
of the Christians, Christ, even as He is called in the 
A.S. poem Andreas ($4/), p/oda becUdor. 

In Vgluspd we have, therefore, evidence that the 
conception of a god who was offered up as a bloody 
sacrifice was transferred from Christ, the God of the 
English Christians, to Baldr, the god of the heathen 
Norsemen. 

Baldr's slayer is called Hg'^r in all Scandinavian 
sources. The account of his evil deed is given most 
fully in Gylfaginning. In Snorri's Edda, Hoth is said to 
be blind. We may infer from Vgluspd also that Hgth 
was blind ; for that poem likewise represents Loki as 
the real slayer of Baldr. In Old Norse (Norwegian- 
Icelandic) mythology Hgth is significant only as being 
Baldr's slayer, and his blindness must, therefore, be 
connected with his slaying of Baldr, HQth's blindness 
is the outer sign of his inner spiritual blindness : he is 
not moved by malice, like Loki, but acts without 
knowing what he does. 

In the blind HQth the Norwegian mythological 
poets in the West saw the blind Longinus, who pierced 
Christ. In Gylfaginning we read that the blind Hoth 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

stands without weapon and inactive in the outermost 
circle of those who are shooting at Baldr. Then Loki 
comes to him, begs him to shoot at Baldr, puts a 
mistletoe into his hand, and directs him where to aim 
his dart. The dart pierces Baldr, and he falls dead 
to the earth. Vgluspd presupposes essentially the same 
story. In mediaeval accounts of the death of Christ, 
current among the English and Irish, as well as among 
some other peoples, we are told that the blind Longinus, 
who is standing near by, or going past, has a lance put 
into his hand with which to pierce Christ, who is nailed 
to the cross. Longinus is led forward. One of the 
company shows him in what direction to aim, and the 
lance pierces Christ's heart 

It is certain that this story about Longinus is entirely 
Christian, and has not been in the least affected by the 
Scandinavian myth. The amazing likeness between 
the Christian legend of Longinus and the story of 
H9th can, therefore, be explained only on the theory 
that the story received its Old Norse form under the 
influence of the legend. 

Baldr is slain by Hoth's dart. It was a common 
belief in the Middle Ages, especially in England and 
Ireland, that Jesus did not die until pierced by the 
lance, and that it was the wound of the lance that 
caused His death. 

Loki by his wicked counsel brings about the death 
of Baldr; and he is, therefore, called rcKbani Baldrs. 
Loki urges H9th to shoot at Baldr, hands him the 
mistletoe which alone can harm the sinless god, and 
shows him in which direction to aim. It is Lucifer^ as 
conceived in the Middle Ages, who has thus been 



xliv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

carried over into the Scandinavian mythological world 
as Loki. This I shall endeavour to prove in the 
following section. 

Even as Loki by his counsel causes Baldr's death, 
so in the Cornish mystery, * The Passion of Our Lord 
Jesus Christ/ Lucifer says that it is he who induced 
Pilate to slay Our Lord. Lucifer often appears in the 
Middle Ages as the prince of the devils, and thus cor- 
responds to Satan princeps in the Gospel of Nicodemus. 
In the redaction of the second part of this gospel, which 
was known in England, Satan princeps says to Inferus, 
the ruler of the domain of death : ' I sharpened the 
lance that pierced Jesus.* Similarly, it is Loki who 
prepares the weapon that pierces Baldr. 

In Gylfaginning "w^ read that the gods, before H9th 
was brought forward by Loki, stood about the invulner- 
able Baldr. Some shot at him ; others struck at him ; 
and still others cast stones at him. This also shows 
connection with certain features in stories of the death 
of Christ In the A.S. poem * Satan,' Christ says : * On 
the rood-tree men pierced me with spears {gAruni) on 
the gallows; the young man hewed there' (510-11). 
And in the A.S. poem * The Dream of the Holy Rood,' 
the cross on which Christ is crucified says : * Every- 
where I was wounded with arrows.* 

It is to honour Baldr that the gods shoot at him. 
Loki says to Hoth : ' Will you not, like the others, do 
Baldr honour?' In this we may hear an echo of the 
devilish mockery of the soldiers when they hail the 
thorn-crowned Christ as their king. In mediaeval 
English writings the mocking is represented as occur- 
ring at the same place as the crucifixion. 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

Hgth pierces Baldr with the mistletoe. In Vgluspd 
le Sibyl says : ' The mistletoe stood grown-up higher 
lan the level plains (/>. in a tree above the earth), 
ender and very fair.* The mistletoe changes in 
[Qth's hand info a spear, and thus becomes a deadly 
eapon. 

Neither in Iceland nor in Norway can the mythical 
lotive have arisen that it is from the mistletoe that 
»aldr gets his death-wound. This plant does not 
row in Iceland. In Norway it grows in but a few 
laces, in the south-eastern part, near the present town 
f Horten, But it has been sufficiently proved that the 
lorwegians who exerted influence on the formation of 
tie oldest extant mythical poems were from western 
forway, not from the south-eastern part of the country, 
n England, on the other hand, the mistletoe is well 
nown and very widespread. It occupies, moreover, a 
rominent position in popular superstition. It has the 
ame name in Anglo-Saxon as in Old Norse (A.S. 
tisteltdrty O.N. mistelteinn). In the west of England 
he superstition is current even now that the cross was 
lade of mistletoe, which at the time of Christ was a 
air tree in the forest, but which was cursed because 
•f the evil use to which it had been put, and con- 
lemned to live ever afterwards as an insignificant plant. 
Ve may, therefore, suppose that the Norwegians who 
irst told how Baldr was pierced by the mistletoe, and 
hrough whom the account heard by the author of 
Vgluspd s^xt,2A itself in tradition, lived in England, and 
ashioned that mythical incident under the influence of 
inglish superstitions about the mistletoe. 

The story about the mistletoe in the prose GylfagiJi- 



> 



xlvi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

ning is based on older verses. When Baldr dreamed 
that his life was in danger, Frigg made the trees, and 
all other things in Nature, swear an oath not to harm 
Baldr; but a slender sapling which grew west of 
Valh9ll she regarded as so harmless that she did not 
demand an oath from it. Loki, hearing this, tore up 
the mistletoe, bore it into the assembly of the gods, 
and with it Baldr was slain. This story, as Konrad 
Hofmann first pointed out, is amazingly like a legend 
of the death of Jesus in a Jewish work of the Middle 
Ages, though it has not yet been possible to trace the 
historical connection between the Norse and the Jewish 
narratives. This work, ToledSth Jeschu^ which has been 
ascribed to the thirteenth century, is in reality much 
older than Vgluspd} In it we are told that Jesus, aware 
of the danger which threatened His life, required an 
oath from every tree except a big stalk that grew 
in Judas's garden. Judas brings this stalk to the 
assembly of the Jews, and on it Jesus is hanged. 

Even as Baldr dreams of a danger which threatens 
his life and tells his dreams to Frigg and the other 
gods, so in a medicvval Danish ballad on the sufferings 
of Jesus, * the Son sits on the mother's knees and says 
out of his dreams : I dreamed a dream last night, that 
the Jews will condemn me.' This feature in the Danish 
ballad is not to be explained as due to the influence of 
the Baldr myth ; it has developed from the statement, 
which we also find in the Middle Ages outside of 
Scandinavia, that Jesus tells his mother of his impend- 
ing crucifixion. 

^ Sec Karpclc, 6Vj<//. d. Jiui. Lil,y i, 397, and E. II. Meyer, / t'/nf/ir, 
p. 157. 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

It was the best of the gods who was pierced by the 
mistletoe. In Gylfaginning "wt, read of Baldr: * He is 
the best, and him all praise. He is so fair and radiant 
that light shines from him.' And the whitest of all 
plants^ is compared with Bald r's eye-lashes. In this 
Scandinavian description of the highest god's son, we 
seem to have a reflection of the holy light with which 
the Christians surrounded, in pictures, the Son of God, 
the • white ' Christ (/iTt/Z/^iyfem/r). In the Middle Ages 
Jesus was represented as the whitest of all human 
beings, with golden hair ; in body also he was without 
spot. 

Of Baldr's dwelling Brei'6ablik (i.e. * what gleams far 
and wide '), we read in Grlmnismdl : 

d pvi landi 
er ek liggja veit 
fcesta feiknstafiy 

which is reproduced in Gylfaginning as follows : * in 
that place can be nothing impure.* This agrees liter- 
ally with what we read in Rev. xxi. 27, of the New 
Jerusalem : ' And there shall in no wise enter into it 
anything that defileth.* 

Baldr, like Christ, visited Hel(l), the abode of the 
dead. 

As punishment for Baldr's death, Loki was taken 
and bound, not to be loosed until the end of the 
world. This is connected with statements in Christian 
narratives from the Middle Ages, that Lucifer lies 
bound in darkness for ever. We are told that when 

' Namely, the flower BMnbrd {Anthemis cotula and Matricaria 
iModora\ which are still called by the name Baldeytbrow in northern 
England. 



xlviii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Christ descended into the place of departed spirits. He 
seized the devil and bound him, so that he still lies 
bound in hell. In Vgluspd the Sibyl says : 

Hapt sd hon iiggja . . . 
iagjarns liki 
Loka djyekkjan ; 
]>ar stir Sigyn 
h^ygi urn sinum 
ver velgl^ji^, 

' She saw a fettered man lie, like unto Loki in appear- 
ance ; there Sigyn sits over her husband, but not very 
glad.'^ In Gylfaginning vf^ are told that Loki's wife 
Sigyn sits beside him and holds a cup under the drops 
of poison which drip from the serpent placed over 
him. When the cup is full, Sigyn empties it ; but 
while she is thus occupied the poison drips on Loki s 
face. It is worthy of note that we find this mythical 
picture, in all probability for the first time, in England 
and on a Christian monument. The Gosforth Cross in 
Cumberland seems to date from the ninth century (or, at 
the latest, from about 900), and is certainly older than 
the poem Vgluspd, On the west side of this cross may 
be seen - a woman sitting over a fettered man. She 
is holding a cup in her hand in such a position that 
she appears to be pouring out its contents. The man 
is lying on his back, bound hand and foot, as it seems, 
to a rock. Close to the man's head may be seen the 
head of a snake. 

* In the poem Haustlong also, Sigyn is named as Loki's wife ; but that 
poem is, in my opinion, later than Vgluspd, 

'•* See the drawing given by Stephens in Aarbogerfw nordisk Oldkjn* 
dighed^ 1884, pp. 19 and 23. 



I 



INTRODUCTION xlix 

Every one who is familiar with Scandinavian myth- 
ology must be reminded by this carving of Sigyn 
sitting beside, or over, the bound Loki. The same 
cross on which this scene is found also represents, 
among other things, Longinus piercing the crucified 
Christ with his lance so that blood flows from the 
wound. The carvings on this monument argue, then, 
for the view that the author of Vgluspd heard in 
northern England the story of Loki and Sigyn, or 
verses which treated that story. He may possibly 
have seen the Gosforth Cross himself, and have been 
told the story of Loki and Sigyn in explanation of the 
scenes car\'ed thereon. 

In Codex Regius of Vgluspdy the section on Baldr's 
death and Loki's punishment is placed directly before 
the strophes on the places of torment of the dead, after 
which come the omens preceding the end of the world 
{Ragnanfik) ; and the text of the same poem in Hauks- 
boky which contains nothing about Baldr's death, men- 
tions Loki's punishment directly before the announce- 
ment of Ragnar^k. Similarly, in a Sibylline oracle, 
Jesus, and His death, descent into the lower world, and 
resurrection, are spoken of directly before the state- 
ments regarding the destruction of the world by fire. 

I do not lay any stress on the fact that the Sibyl in 
Vgluspd dwells upon Frigg's weeping for the death of 
her son Baldr, even as Christian accounts from the 
Middle Ages make very prominent the sorrow of the 
weeping Mary at the cross on which her son hangs 
crucified. It is of much more importance that all 
creatures wept over Baldr to get him back from the 
world of the dead : men and animals, earth and stones, 

d 



1 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

trees and all metals. This has its model in Old 
English poems on the death of Christ. In the A.S. 
poem on the Holy Rood, we read: ^All creation wept 
{w^op) ; they lamented the fall of the king. Christ was 
on the cross.' The same conception is expressed more 
fully in Cynewulfs Crist : * They saw the mute creation, 
the green earth, and the high heaven with fear feel the 
sufferings of the Lord, and, full of sorrow, they lamented, 
though they had no life, when the wicked men seized 
the Creator with sinful hands* (1128 ff). * And the 
trees also acknowledged who created them with 
abundant foliage, when the mighty God ascended one 
of them, and here suffered anguish for the benefit of 
men, loathsome death for the help of mankind : then 
many a tree under the heavens became wet with 
bloody tears, red and thick ; sap was turned into 
blood' (II 70 ff). 

Cynewulf took the idea that mute creation bore 
witness at Christ's death to His divinity from the tenth 
homily of Gregory the Great, which was composed in 
592, or thereabouts. And even as the English poem on 
the Holy Rood says that * all creation wept (or, uttered 
sounds of grief, w^op) * when Christ was on the cross, 
so Leo the Great (who was Pope from 440 to 461), 
represents Nature as lamenting over the sufferings of 
the Redeemer on the cross, and in this connection uses 
the expression universa crcatura congemuit. Moreover, 
in the Irish poem Saltair na rann^ v. 7765, we read 
that at the crucifixion 'every creature wailed.' 

Cynewulf contrasts with the sorrowing and weeping 
creation * the blind men harder than stone,' who could 
not recognise that the Lord had saved them from 



Hi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

epic story which preceded the Eddie account, namely 
BcUdr^ contributed in large measure to the later trans- 
ference to him of stories of the Christian God ; for this 
name Baldrvt^s etymologically the same as the Anglo^ 
Saxon appellative bealdoTy * the lord/ by which the 
God of the Christians could be designated in Anglo- 
Saxon. 

LoKi, Fenrir, VIthar, Mithgarthsorm. 

LOKI is a mythical personage known only to the 
Scandinavians ; the myths of the heathen English and 
German races have no mention of his name. Loki 
was created at the end of the heathen period by 
Scandinavians in the West, after they had heard 
Jewish-Christian tales from Christian peoples. 

The Scandinavians who formed the name Loki may 
have interpreted it as * the closer/ *he who ends, finishes/ 
and have regarded it as a derivative of the verb h'ika, *to 
close, end, finish.' But this name Loki, * the closer/ was, 
in my opinion, a reconstruction of the foreign name 
Lucifer^ instead of which we often find in the Middle 
Ages among certain peoples {e.g. the Irish) the form 
Lucifur, This form of the name was probably regarded 
by Christians in the West, from whom the Scandi- 
navians got the name, as Lucifur^ i.e. * the thief Luci * ; 
and this suggested the shorter Scandinavian form Loki 
The Loki of Old Norse mythology is called * a thief/ 
and there are many stories about what he stole. 

Loki was handsome in appearance. This is explained 
by statements of English and Irish Christians regard- 
ing Lucifer. The prince of the fallen angels received, 
in the Middle Ages, the name Lucifer, ' Light-bringer/ 



INTRODUCTION liii 

i.e. the morning-star, because to him were transferred 
the words of Isaiah xiv. 12: 'How art thou fallen 
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! ' Among 
Anglo-Saxons and Irishmen, Lucifer was the name 
regularly given to the prince of the fallen angels. In 
accordance with this name it was thought that the 
prince of the fallen angels was a fair and radiant 
person. .The Scandinavians retained, along with the 
name Loki, which was a reconstruction o{ Lucifer, the 
conception of the demon's exterior implied in the name 
Lucifer. The Icelandic Mariu Saga (Saga of the 
Virgin Mary) uses, with reference to Lucifer before the 
fall, the same adjectives, fagr and frfdr, that are used 
of Loki in Snorri's Edda. 

In Lokasenna, Loki, in yEgir*s hall, reminds Odin 
that in the morning of time they two had mingled their 
blood together and had become sworn brothers. This 
may be a reminiscence of the idea that God the Father, 
in the beginning of the ages, before man was created, 
made Lucifer chief in his hall, the prince of all angels — 
an idea to be. found, for example, in the Northumbrian 
poem Cursor Mundu 

According to the common account among the 
Christian Anglo-Saxons in the Middle Ages, the 
prince of the angels was transformed at his fall into 
a devil, and was afterwards bound. Terrible pictures 
were drawn of his external appearance. In the 
mythical tales of the Scandinavians, this Christian 
idea regarding the devil was partljr transferred to 
Loki*s double among the giants, Utgar'6aloki, In 
Saxo Grammaticus, Ugarthilocus is represented as 
sitting, with iron fetters on his hands and feet, in a 



liv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

hideous and filthy cavern, before which are a swarm of 
venomous serpents. Each of his stinking hairs projects 
like a horn. Thorkil and his companions pluck out one 
of these. We are here reminded of the popular stories 
of how a hair is drawn from the head of the devil. 

The connection between Loki and Lucifer is sup- 
ported by the fact that Loki is one of three brothers — 
the other two being Byleistr and Helblindu In the 
same way, in the Christian Middle Ages, three devils 
often appear together, Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Satan, 
and these three are often described as brothers. 
In the Middle Ages Beelzebub was often called, in the 
British Isles, Beelzcbuth or Behefiith, Of this Byleistr^ 
or Byleiftry the name of Loki's brother, is a reconstruc- 
tion. Since the name Beelzcbuth was explained as 
*the lord of flies,' and since it was believed that the 
devil could appear in the form of a fly, the name was 
interpreted by popular etymology in England as a 
compound of A.S. bt^o (O.N. bj\ usually byflugd), ' bee ' ; 
and the Norsemen therefore reproduced Beelzebuth^ 
Belsefuth as Byleistr^ or Byleiftr^ Byleiptr, In forming 
the second part of the word, they had in mind leiptr 
(fem. and neut.) * a flash of lightning.' This connection 
between the Scandinavian demon and a flash of light- 
ning is also apparent in Christian writings ; for in the 
Gospel according to St. Luke, x. i8, we read : * I beheld 
Satan as lightning fall from heaven.' 

Loki was thought of as the demon of fire. This con- 
ception is apparent in the names of his parents: Fdrbauti 
* he who strikes in a dangerous and destructive manner, 
and Laufeyy * foliage-isle,' or Ndl^ *the needle (on pine 
trees).' We have, however, further evidence that Loki 



INTRODUCTION Iv 

was regarded as the demon of fire in several expres- 
sions in use among the Scandinavian peasantry. In 
Iceland Loka spcenir was formerly used of 'shavings 
to light fires with/ and Lokabrenna is a name of the 
dog-star. In Telemarken, Norway, the common people 
say, ^Lokje is striking his children,' when there is loud 
crackling in burning trees.^ This conception of Loki 
as the demon of fire is based on the words of St. Luke : 
' I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,' and on 
the belief of Christian theologians, that the body of the 
demon consists of fire and air. In the Cornish drama, 
* The Creation of the World,' Lucifer says : * I am the 
lanthorn of heaven, certainly, like a fire shining.' Loki 
is also called Loptr^ i,e, * air.* 

The second of Loki's brothers is named Helblindi. 
In like manner the devil, in the Middle Ages, is often 
called blinds and the Anglo-Saxons used many names 
for the devil that begin with helle-. 

Loki, like the devil, can transform himself into a 
woman and into a fiy. Loki's inner nature and 
activity are also described in conformity with those of 
the devil. He is called * the enemy of the gods,' even 
as by the Christians the devil was called * the enemy of 
God/ Loki is also termed * the author of misfortune.* 
The epithet regularly applied to him is Iccviss^ 
' skilful in finding out how to bring harm upon others '; 
and this same quality was ascribed by Christian 
Norwegians in the Middle Ages to the devil, to whom 
they ascribed hrekkvisi, prettvlsu Loki, like the devil, 

* On Loki as a fire-demon, see A. Kock in htdogerm. Forsch.^ x, 90- 
103, where he particularly throws light on the Old Icelandic expression 
gangayjir stm Loki (corrupted lok^ Mod. Icel. logi)yfir akra. 



Ivi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

is slasgTy ' sly.' He is sometimes spoken of zsfrumkv^i 
flcBt^anna, 'he who first spoke falsehood' — a phrase 
that sounds like a reproduction of the biblical ' father 
of lies.' The devil is called in a Christian poem 
nteistari flcBf^a^ * master of falsehood.' The peasantry 
in Jutland call a certain weed ' Loki's oats/ and use 
the expression, ' Now Loken sows his oats/ of a quiver- 
ing motion in the air that blinds and confuses the eye. 
This expression, like that in earlier use in Germany, 
' Now the devil is sowing his seed/ is based on the 
parable as told by St Matthew (xiii. 38 ff) in which 
the devil sows the tares, which are ' the children of the 
wicked one.' 

Loki has, however, a double nature. He is one of the 
Asir, Odin's foster-brother from the earliest times, and 
an associate of the gods ; but his father was a giant 
(^jgtunn). The bound Loki, who is loosed at the end of 
the world, is called by the Sibyl jgUinn, This ascrip- 
tion of a double nature to Loki is due to the transfor- 
mation of the prince of the angels of light in the 
Middle Ages into a devil. Satan, the Prince of Hell, 
is also cdX\^A jotunn in a legendary tale.^ 

That the myth of Loki arose under the influence o^ 
Christian statements regarding the devil, also appears 
from the mythical stories about Loki's children. 

Loki begot with the giantess AngrbciSa (/>. *she who 
causes sorrow ') three children, who were the worst 
enemies of the gods — the \vo\{ Fcnnry or Fenrisii/fr, the 
MiSgar^^sonnr^^ndHel, the ruler of the world of the dead. 

1 I may add here that the Scandinavian myth of Loki embodies 
elements not only from the Christian Lucifer, but also from many other 
sources, especially from classical stories about Mercury; but I cannot 
discuss these borrowings in this place. 



Iviii HOME OF THE EDDlC POEMS 

voluntarily, to put the fetter on his own neck, even as 
the gods induce Fenrir, voluntarily, to bind himself 
with the fetter Gleipnir. Both in the Finnish and in 
the Scandinavian myth, the fetter is made secure by 
being fastened deep down in the earth. Both the 
captives yell horribly when they find themselves 
tricked. 

Of the wolf Fenrir we read in an old strophe* : * Two 
rivers issue from his mouth; one is called Vdn [u. 
Hope], the other Vil [i,e. Despair].' These names 
occur among names of rivers as early as in Gr/mmismdl, 
28, where F/S ok Vdn, as Professor Falk remarks, must 
be a mistake for V/i ok Vdn, since VPS has already 
occurred in st. 27. From one of these rivers Fenrir 
gets his name, Vdnargatidr, i,e, 'the monster of the 
River Van.' 

The names of the two rivers, Hope and Despair, 
show that at the outset this myth must have had a 
moral significance. Professor Falk, elaborating a sug- 
gestion of E. H. Meyer,- has shown beyond a doubt 
that the origin of this mythical feature is due to 
mediaeval Christian statements concerning Behemoth, 
or the devil. The source of these statements is Job xl. 
16 fT, where we read of Behemoth : * He lieth under the 
shady trees, in the covert of the reed and fens' (21). 
* Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not : he 
trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth' 

(23). 

In the Vision of Tundalus ' is mentioned the terrible 
beast Acheron, which is identical with Behemoth, and is 

^ See Buggc*s edition of the Elder Edda, p. xxziiL 
2 Fo/us/a, p. 151 f. 



INTRODUCTION lix 

L form in which the devil appeared.^ * Of this creation 
he holy book saith, that it is not marvellous if it 
iwallows the whole stream ; and, further, it says that 
fordan runs into its mouth. The stream is the name 
Jie holy book gives to the heathen folk who enter that 
inimal. But Jordan represents the Christians ; for 
Jiere originated baptism, and this animal will torment 
ind devour them.' * 

This interpretation agrees with the explanation which 
jregory the Great gives of the passage just quoted in 
:he Book of Job. In the Old Norse translation of his 
lomily, we read : * Thus the Lord spake to the holy 
fob, when he spake of the old enemy : He shall drink 
up the river, and he marvels not at it, and he trusteth 
that Jordan shall fall into his mouth. What does the 
river signify but the rapid course of human beings, 
who from their birth move forward unto death, as a 
river flows from its source into the sea. But Jordan 
designates baptized mortals ; for our Redeemer first 
consecrated our baptism in its water, when he let him- 
self be baptized in Jordan. The old enemy drank up 
the river ; for he drew the whole race of men into his 
belly of wickedness from the beginning of the world to 
the coming of our Saviour, so that few escaped. He 
drinks up the river and marvels not at it, for it matters 
little to him if he obtains the unbelievers. But what 
follows is sad : he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan 
into his mouth. For he dares also to lay hold of the 
faithful, after he has obtained the unbelievers/ 

* According to the O.N. translation in Du^^^als leizla^ chap, vii, in 
fleila^a Manna S^gur^ I, 337 f. 
- I.eifat\ p. 19. 



Ix HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

The name F//, * Despair/ refers to Gregory's inter- I 
pretation of the stream as a figure for the heathen, I 
those lost beyond redemption. Vdn, * Hope/ is Jordan ' 
as a designation of the baptized Christians, who have 
hope of salvation. 

In the mythical feature of the two rivers that issue 
from the mouth of the bound wolf Fenrir, we have a V 
good example of a phenomenon which often manifests 
itself in the alteration of Jewish-Christian stories into 
heathen Scandinavian myths : mystical and allegorical 
features, connected with the dogmas of Christianity, are 
changed into material parts of a graphic supernatural, i 
or romantic, picture. 

Of the bound Fenrir, it is said : ' The wolf yawned 
fearfully, and exerted himself mightily, and wished to 
bite the gods. Then they thrust a sword into his 
mouth. Its hilt touched the lower jaw and its point \ 
the upper one ; by means of it the jaws of the wolf | 
were spread apart/ ^ 

The Norwegian poet Eyvind Skaldaspillir was I 
familiar with this story ; for, in a strophe composed 
after the death of King Hakon the Good in 961,* he 
calls a sword Fenris varra sparri^ * that which spreads 
the lips of Fenrir.' : 

The idea that Christ keeps the mouth of the bound 
devil spread open by means of an object stuck into it, 
was current in the Middle Ages. 

In mediaeval German works is ascribed to the devil 
a mouth {kiuwe) like a wolf. In a poem on the life 

^ }?at er gomsparri hansy Snorra Edda, ed. AM., I, II2 = II, 275. 

^ Heimskringla^ Hdkotiar saga gJ^a^ chap, xxvii. ; Corp, Poet, BonaUy i 

n, 36, 1. 17. I 



INTRODUCTION Ixi 

of Jesus ^ we read : ' When the Lord had bound the 

monster [the soul-robbing wolf, the devil], he placed 

a block in its mouth, so that the mouth may stand 

open, and let out the souls that the monster has 

swallowed, and so that it may not swallow more.' 

Here, as in the Scandinavian myth, the monster's jaws 

are spread apart after it is bound. Another Christian 

account occurs in the Icelandic MS. HauksbSk of the 

beginning of the fourteenth century.^ In a section 

beginning with the words, 'The holy bishop called 

Augustinus spoke to the men whose priest he was,** 

we read (p. 32) : * When our Lord penetrated into the 

realm of the dead and bound the devil,, he placed a 

cross in his mouth and subdued him with it, and bade 

us by means of that victorious sign to keep off the 

devil and all evil beings.' This form of the Christian 

legend seems to have been known in various parts of 

the North. We may thus explain the figure on a series 

of Swedish bracteates, usually ascribed to the time of 

King Sverker (the beginning of the twelfth century), 

viz. a dragon's head with a cross in the wide-open 

mouth, as if it were the tongue.* 

But the heathen Scandinavians also told how Fenrir's 
mouth was spread apart in another and a different 
way. At the end of the world Fenrir is represented 
as escaping from his fetters, and advancing, together 

* Quoted from Max Dreyer, Der Teufel in der dentschen Dichtung des 
MitUlalters, Rostock, 1884, p. 19. 

'"' Fritzner {Ordbog crver dit gamlenorske sprog, s.w g6m spar ri) compared 
this with the story of Fenrir. 
- Nokkur blo6 lir HaiiksbSk, Reykjavik, 1865, p. 29. 

* Henry Petersen, Om Nordboemes Gmiedyrkelse og Gudetro^ p. 79, 
where a repro<!uction may be found. 



Ixii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

with other monsters and demons, to give battle to the 
gods. In Snorri's Edda we read: *The wolf Fenrir 
goes with gaping mouth ; its upper jaw touches heaven, 
and its lower one the earth. It would spread its jaw 
still wider if there were room. Fire issues from its eyes 
and nostrils.' The wolf meets Odin and swallows him. 
But thereupon Odin's son V/thar advances against 
Fenrir. Placing one foot on the wolfs lower jaw, and 
seizing the upper with one hand, he tears asunder the 
beast's mouth, and thus causes its death. 

In Vafprii^nismdl (53) we read: 'The wolf shall 
swallow the father of mankind (/>. Odin) ; this Vfthar 
shall revenge. He shall cleave the terrible jaws in the 
struggle.* In this connection we should observe — first, 
that in the Middle Ages the devil was called lupus 
vorax, and that he was represented in England * with 
gaping mouth,' ^ or *with burning mouth and flaming 
eyes.' - The account of Fenrir's death just given shows 
remarkable similarity to a South Slavic story which 
stands in connection with the teachings of the heretical 
Bogomilcs, and is due ultimately to Byzantine influence. 
In Archiv filr slavische Philologies V, 11 fT, is recorded a 
Serbian tale, which begins as follows: *Once Dabog 
was prince on the earth, and the Lord God in heaven.' 
(Dabog here corresponds to a being who, according to 
the Bogomiles, is the creator of matter: Satan, Diabolus, 
Lucifer.) * They agreed that the souls of sinful men 
should fall into the hands of Dabog, and the souls of 
the just into those of God in heaven. Things went on 

' Boutcrwek, Cadmon^ p. cxlvii. 

^ Mid byntendum w/?5^ and Ugenuvi iagum (Thorpe, Homilies ^ 11, 
164), 



INTRODUCTION Ixiii 

>r a long time in this way. At last God became 
reatly displeased that Dabog obtained so many souls, 
id He began to consider how He could diminish his 
3wer. He could not kill him, for Dabog was quite as 
Dwerful as the Lord God in heaven ; but to break the 
jreement was neither possible nor advisable.* 

What is here said of an agreement which it was not 
jvisable for the Lord to break, is doubtless connected 
ith the statement in Snorri's Edda (AM. ed., I, 1 14), 
lat 'the gods valued their sanctuaries and inviolate 
laces {vi sin ok grXasta^i) so much that they would 
ot defile them with the blood of the wolf, although it 
as prophesied that the wolf should slay Odin.' 

According to the Serbian tale, the Lord induced 
)abog to promise that, if a Son were born to Him, 
le inheritance of the Son would be restored. When 
)abog heard that God had begotten a Son, who was 
iren then on His way to reclaim His inheritance, he 
ndeavoured to swallow Him, and spread his mouth so 
ide in his rage that his lower jaw touched the earth 
nd his upper jaw Iieaven. But the Son of God drove 

lance into his lower jaw, and so fixed it that it also 
ierced the upper jaw. Even as Dabog's jaws stood 
hen thus spread apart by the Son of God, so they 
ave continued to stand until the present, and so they 
lall remain for ever. In this Serbian picture of the 
emon's lower jaw touching the earth while the upper 
iw touches heaven, we have exact agreement with the 
candinavian story of Fenrir. To the Son of God in 
le Serbian story corresponds Vfthar in the Scandi- 
avian myth. Just as the former spreads apart the 
louth of the demon, so that it remains open ever after. 



Ixiv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

so Vfthar cleaves the mouth of the wolf. The fact 
that the mouth of the demon in the Serbian tale is 
kept open by an upright lance^ while in the Scandi- 
navian tale the mouth of the bound Fenrir ia kept 
open by an upright sword^ is not a remarkable varia- 
tion. It was easy enough for* sword' and * lance' to 
change places in the migration of a popular story ; for 
glaive^ * sword/ means, in Old French, * spear/ and Lat 
framea^ * lance/ has a later meaning, * sword/ 

A bit of sculpture, which is unmistakably connected 
with the Scandinavian myth on Vfthar's fight with the 
wolf Fenrir, may be seen on the Gosforth Cross in j 
Cumberland. The exact date of this cross (preserved 
from the early Middle Ages) has not yet been definitely 
settled. By comparing it with Irish crosses with dated 
inscriptions, I have come to the conclusion that it is 
most likely of the ninth century. On the east side of 
the Gosforth Cross ^ we see a figure formed by the 
bodies of two snakes coiled together, with the head of 
a wolf on each side. Before the wide-open mouth of 
the head, which turns downwards, a man is standing 
with a rod in his right hand, and his left hand extended 
towards the monster's upper jaw, apparently as if to 
spread the jaws apart. The man's left foot is in the 
monster's mouth. Evidently he is standing upon the 
lower jaw. 

The agreement between this representation on the 
Gosforth Cross and the heathen Scandinavian myth of 
the fight between Vithar and Fenrir is striking, and 
supports the theory that this myth was shaped under 

^ See the reproflucfion in Aarbt^t^er for ftcrdisk Oldkyndightd^ 1 884, 
p. 16. 



INTRODUCTION Ixv 

the influence of tales of Christians in the British Isles, 
possibly also under the influence of Christian works of 
art. 

It should be observed that the Gosforth Cross is 
a Christian monument. But a Christian monument 
cannot well represent a heathen god as victorious. The 
carving under discussion does not, then, in my opinion, 
represent the victory of the god Vfthar, but the victory 
of Christ, the Son of God, over the monster ; ^ and this 
in the Scandinavian myth has been worked over into 
the victory of Vfthar over Fenrir. 

This same carving is connected also with the Serbian 
story, as is evident if we examine the sculpture on the 
west side.* Two monsters may there be seen, side 
by side, with snake-bodies coiled together and with 
heads turned downwards. Their lower jaws are turned 
toward each other, their mouths wide open, and their 
teeth are like those of ravenous beasts. In his right 
hand a man is holding a rod before one monster's 
mouth. 

This carving on the Gosforth Cross is, I believe, to 
be interpreted, in accordance with the Serbian story, as 
follows: — The figure who is holding upright in his 
right hand the rod, or pole, is the Son of God. Each 
of the pointed ends is fastened in one of the jaws of 
the double-monster. The sculptor probably meant to 
represent the mouth as kept open by the upright rod, 
as by the lance in the Serbian story. This intention is 
not very clear on the Gosforth Cross, because the artist 
there represented the dragon as double. 

* E. H. Meyer {Germ, AfyiA., p. 60) is of the same opinion. 

* See Actrh^trf, n. Oldk,^ i8i4, p. 22 ; cf. p. 19. 

e 



h 
t 

I 



Ixvi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

The historical connection between the Serbian tale, 
on the one hand, and the carving on the Christian 
North-English cross, together with the Norse myth, 
on the other, I explain thus : — The Serbian tale pro- 
bably goes back, through the Bogomile teachings, to 
apocryphal Christian representations that were known 
early in the Middle Ages in Byzantium. These same 
apocryphal ideas became widespread in the early 
Middle Ages in western Europe, particularly in Eng- 
land ; and in northern England, which had many 
points of contact with East European Christendom, 
they were communicated to heathen Norsemen. 

In the carving on the east side of the Gosforth Cross, 
the man who with his left hand is ripping up the 
monster's mouth, is, at the same time, holding in his 
right hand an upright rod. I conjecture that this 
situation represented on the east side is to be reg^arded 
as preceding that on the west side, where the man (/>. 
the Son of God) may be seen thrusting an upright rod, 
or pole, into the monster's mouth, which is thus kept 
for ever wide open. 

The figures on the Gosforth Cross throw light on the 
origin and nature of the myth of Vithar. 

I have already said that the man there represented, 
who with his left hand is spreading apart the mouth of 
the wolf-snake, and with one foot is treading on the 
monster's jaw, is holding an upright rod in his right 
hand ; and further, that a man on the west side of the 
same cross is apparently keeping a monster's double 
mouth open by means of a rod. This rod evidently 
reproduces the * rod of iron ' of the Revelation of St 
John. In Rev. xix. IS, we read: *And out of his 



INTRODUCTION Ixvii 

mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should 
smite the nations : and he shall rule them with a rod 
of iron : and he treadeth the winepress of the fierce- 
ness and wrath of Almighty God.* Compare Rev. ii. 
26-27 : * And he that overcometh, and keepeth my 
works unto the end, to him will I give power over the 
nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.' 
Also Rev. xii. 5-6: *And she brought forth a man 
child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron : 
and her child was caught up unto God, and to His 
throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness.* 

This rod of iron is, I believe, reproduced also in Old 
Norse mythology. When Thor was on his way to the 
giant Geirr^th, he stopped at the house of Vithar*s 
mother, the giantess Grfth. She lent him her rod, 
GrffSarvglr} That this rod was of steel is evident from 
what is said of it in }>6rsdrdpa,^ Vfthar is the avenger 
of the gods.* In Vpd., 55, after Vfthar slays the wolf, 
we read : * There was his father avenged.* In Vafthr., 
53 : • The wolf shall swallow the father of mankind ; 
Vfthar shall avenge this.' In Grfmn., 17 : * With thicket 
and high grass is Vfthar's land, Vithi, grown ; and there 
the son says from the horse's back that he has courage 
to avenge his father.* I suggest that this conception 
of Vfthar as an avenger is based on Isaiah Ixiii. 4 : 
' For the day of vengeance is in mine heart* In the 
preceding verse we read : * I have trodden the wine- 
press alone ; and of the people there was none with 
me.' 

' Snorra Edda, cd. AM., I, 286. 

* Mdihv%£Uan Mf skotnc^ra^ St. 6 ; j/J/i, St. 9 ; kndtli hlymp^i vi^ 
mol c^lymja^ St. 6. 
' HanH mdkalla . . . hefni — as ^o6anna, Snorra Edda, cd. AM., I, 266. 



Ixviii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Grimn.y 17, runs as follows : 

Hrisivex 
ok hdu grasi 
yifiars land Vi^i ; 
en par mggr of lask 
of mars baki 
frcskn at hefnaf^ur. 

Light is thrown on this passage (translated above) 
by Hdvantdl^ 119: 

hrisi vex 

ok hdu grasi 

vegr er vatki tr^r. 

* With thicket and high grass is grown the way, which 
no one treads.' 

Vithar, the avenger, dwells, then, in the lonely waste 
inhabited by no man, or god, except himself. The 
name of his land, F/S/, is derived from z^/Sr, forest.^ 
Vfthar is called 'the silent,'- doubtless because he 
inhabits the solitary wilderness where he converses 
with no one. 

We have here a masterly picture, entirely Scandi- 
navian in spirit, of Odin's son meditating vengeance in 
the solitary waste. We can but admire it the more 
when we recognise from what vague hints it developed. 

One of these hints may be found in Isaiah Ixiii. 3 : 

* I have trodden the winepress alofte^ and of the heathen 

^ As far as the meaning is concerned, we may compare modem Norw. 
dial. , vi{d)af used of ' the tree-limit, the highest place where trees grow 
on the mountain side ' ; also, ' forest land.' The name ViSi, with ^ort 
vowel in the first syllable, is etymologically entirely different from the 
name of the god, Vi^arr^ with long /. 

2 JIann md kalla hinn ]>£gla ds (Snorra Edda, ed. AM., I, a66); 
Vi^rs ins i>£gla (id,^ i, 286). 



INTRODUCTION Ixix 

;iit., of the people, de gentibus) there was none with me' ^ 
This passage has been brought into connection with 
the words in Rev. xii. 6, of the woman who has given 
birth to a man child who is to rule the heathen {omnes 
Rentes) with a rod of iron : * she fled into the solitary 
wilderness/ * 

In Vpd., 55, where we read of Vfthar's coming to 
fight against the wolf, Vfthar is called ' the great son 
of the father of victory, i,e. Odin* (inn mikli mggr 
Sigf^ur\ In Grfmn., 17, where his vengeance is pre- 
dicted, he is designated as *the son/ In Snorri's 
Edda also, he is called Odin's son. We may trace this 
epithet back to its starting-point in Rev. xii. 5, where 
' he who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron ' is 
called filius masculus, and where we read of him : 
' raptus est filius eiiis (i.e. mulieris) ad Deum et ad 
thronuvi eius! And this * son ' was taken (for example, 
by Bede) to refer to Christ, the Son of God. In like 
manner, Vfthar corresponds, as I have already shown, 
to * the Son of God ' in the Serbian story. 

In Grfmn., 17, the avenger Vfthar speaks from horse- 
back. According to Rev. xix. 11, he who is to rule 
all peoples with a rod of iron, * sat upon a white horse.' 
The Scandinavian myth represents the silent god as 
speaking when his time approaches. The remarkable 
expression in Grfmn., 17 : ' He himself says (Icezk) that 
he shall avenge his father/ may be due to the fact that 
the avenger, in Isaiah Ixiii. 4, speaks in the first person, 
and says : * For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, 

* These words are applied to Vfthar by E. H. Meyer, in Voluspa^ 
p. 202 f. 

* Muiier fugU in solUudinem ; xii. 14 : destrtum. 



Ixx HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

and the year of my redeemed is come/ When trans- 
ferred to Vfthar, this may have called forth the idea 
that there shall come a time when he need no longer 
dwell as a skdgarmaXir^ an exile in the lonely wilder- j 
ness. 

We read of the avenger in Rev. xix. 15 : *and he 
treadeth (calcai) the winepress of the fierceness and 
wrath of Almighty God.' In Isaiah Ixiii. 3-4 : ' I have 
trodden (calcavi) the winepress alone, and of the people 
there was none with me : for I will tread (calcavi) them ] 
in mine anger, and trample (concu/cavi) them in my I 
fury. . . . For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, 
and the year of my redeemed is come.' Even as the 
avenger here treads down the people with his foot, so 
in the Middle Ages was applied to the same Son of 
God the saying that He crushed with His foot the head 
of the serpent.^ These words brought it about that 
the figure on the Gosforth Cross, which represents the 
Son of God, places his foot in the mouth of the wolf- 
snake, and that the avenger Vithar treads in Fenrir*s 
mouth. 

The shoe that Vithar has on the foot with which he 
treads in the monster\s mouth, is especially mentioned 
in Snorri's Edda (l, 192). To throw light on this char- 
acteristic, E. H. Meyer 2 has with good reason called 
attention to a passage in Bede {Ofifi., Ill, 617) where the 
historian says (in a symbolical sense) that Christ 
appeared seeming to have a shoe on his foot.* Here 

* Compare E. H. Meyer, /W//jr/a, pp. 202-204 : Dominus conttreni 
pede caput serfefitis, 
' VoiuspOf p. 204. 
' Ittcarnatus vera Dominus veniefts quasi caUeatus apparuii. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxi 

also the mystical allegory has become, in the Scandi- 
navian myth, part of a graphic material picture. 

In Vafthr., 50-51, Odin asks: * Which of the Asir 
shall rule over the possessions of the gods when Surt's 
flame shall be extinguished ? ' And the giant answers : 
'Vithar and VAli shall occupy the dwellings of the 
gods when Surt's flame shall be quenched.' So far as 
Vithar is concerned, this conception rests on Rev. ii. 
26-27, where the Lord says : * And he that overcometh, 
and keepeth {custodiei) my works {opera) unto the end^ 
to him will I give power over the nations : and he shall 
rule them with a rod of iron.' 

Vithar's mother is the giantess Gr^r, This name 
signifies ' passionate violence,'^ and corresponds in its 
etymological meaning to the expression furor irae in 
the words of the Apocalypse : ipse calcat toradar vini 
furoris irae dei omnipotentis (Rev. xix. 15). Compare 
Isaiah Ixiii. 3 : calcavi eos in furore meo et conculavi eos 
in ira mea. The myth-making imagination of the 
heathen Norsemen has occasionally isolated the attri- 
butes of a god, and made out of them mythical persons 
who are represented as his relatives. Thus Thor's 
might {megin) and anger {md'^r) are imagined as his sons 
Magni ds\d MotSi, In the same way, Vithar's ^r/S, i,e. 
his furor irae^ the rage with which he is filled at the 
moment of vengeance, is represented as his mother 
Gn^K The fact that a mother of the avenger is spoken 
of in the Apocalypse, probably helped to bring this 
about. The rod of iron was doubtless called originally 
fjPSarvglr^ as being the rod which the avenger used in 
his rage; but later it was understood as the rod of his 

* Icel. gf'l^ means * violence, rage. ' 



Ixxii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

mother Grfth. She doubtless kept it for her son's use 
at the end of the world.* 

In the Revelation, the mother of the avenger is 
driven out into the wilderness. Vfthar's mother dwelt 
outside of the world inhabited by gods and men: 
Thor met her on his journey to the giant Geirr^th. 

I have already hinted, in the preceding remarks on 
Vfthar's fight with Fenrir, that Fenrir, as E. H. Meyer 
has pointed out, has abo adopted peculiarities which 
belonged to the beast (Jbestia) in Revelation. The 
imagination of the Scandinavians pictured the wolf 
Fenrir as the most prominent and the worst of the 
gods' enemies in ragnar^kkr^ and represented the father 
of the gods as setting out against him. Compare Rev. 
XIX. 19: * And I saw the beast, and the kings of the 
earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war 
against him that sat on the horse, and against his 
army.' In the strophe of Vgltispd, which deals with 
Vithar's fight with the wolf, the latter is called valdyr, 
* animal of slaughter.' This is a reproduction of bestia^ 
of whom we read : * And it was given unto him to make 
war with the saints, and to overcome them* (Rev. 
xiii. 7). In the same strophe, the wolf is called fnggr 
He^vrungSy * the son of Ilvethrung.* Hve^rungr is pro- 
bably a mythical representative of the raging sea* 

^ Compare the altered conception of the name Darrc^rljJiS. 

* In Ynglingatal, Ilel is called HvifSrungs mar\ but this is, in my 
opinion, in imitation oimogr live^rungs in Vgluspti, both Hel and Fenrir 
being elsewhere called Loki's children. The mention of Hv^rungr 
among the names of giants in Snorri's Edda (i, 549 ; li, 470) is likewise 
easily explained as based on the words jiist quoted from Vgluspd, It was 
probably a misunderstanding of the same passage that occasioned the 
mention o{ Hi'ir^rmigr as a name of Odin, in Snorri's Edda(ii, 472, 555). 



INTRODUCTION Ixxiii 

Compare A.S. hwecKerung, ' murmuratio/ se brynt hweo* 
f^erode, *the billows roared' The expression mggr 
Hv^nings applied to Fenrir, may, then, be explained 
by the expression de mart bestiam ascendentem (Rev. 
xiii. i). 

The name Fenrir^ or FenrisAlfr^ has been explained 
as if it were a genuine Scandinavian derivative of O.N. 
fen in the poetical meaning of that word, viz. *sea,' and 
designated the monster as a water-demon. But this 
explanation cannot be correct ; for there does not exist 
in Old Norse any productive derivative ending -nV, gen. 
-ris} Moreover, Fenrir cannot be properly called a 
water-demon. 

I have endeavoured to show that the statements 
regarding the wolf Fenrir arose under the influence of 
Christian conceptions of the devil as lupus infernus, 
combined with stories about Behemoth and about the 
* beast ' in the Apocalypse. In accordance with this 
theory, I believe that the name Fenrir^ Fenrisftlfr^ arose 
from the foreign infemus lupus, as changed in Old 
Norse by popular etymology. The weakly accented first 
syllable of infernus has fallen off in the Norse name, as 
in the Old Saxon word fern^ * hell/ from Lat. infemum, 
in the Hcliand. Fenrir is formed by means of the 
derivative ending -/>, gen. -/>, which is very much used 
in mythical names, among others in giant names. 
Fenrir is an alteration of *Fernir. The reason for this 
alteration is that the Old Norsemen brought Fenrir, 
by popular etymology, into connection with fen, in 
the meaning ' fen, swamp, mire.* The transference of 

* Words like elnr, Si^^rir, and others, do not disprove the above 

statement. 



Ixxiv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

thought was natural; for hell and the lower world 
were connected to some extent in the popular imagina- 
tion with deep or boundless morasses.^ Moreover, the 
statements regarding Behemoth, in Job xl. 16, that 'he 
lieth ... in the covert of the reed, and fens,' may 
have contributed to this popular etymology. 

In Vafthr., 46, 47, Fenrir {i.e, wolf of hell) is used to 
designate the wolf that swallows the sun. Still other 
features were transferred from Behemoth and lupus 
tnfenius to the wolf that swallows the sun. In Vpl, 
40, 41, the Sibyl says : 

Aiistr sat en aldna 
/ tarfwi^i 
ok faddi ]>ar 
Fenris kindir ; 
ver^r af ]>eim olhtm 
einna fwkkitrr 
tufigls tjugari 
i trollz hami, 
Fyilisk fjgrvi 
feigra manna, etc. 

* In the east sat the old one, in Ironwood, and gave 
birth there to Fenrir's brood ; of them all a certain one 
shall become the robber of the gleaming heavenly body 
in the form of a monster. He fills himself with the 
bodies of doomed men.' 

This account of how the wolf that swallows the sun 
gorges himself with dead men's bodies (Jjgn^i) is con- 

^ Compare the Danisli place-names Helmose^ Htlkjar^ palus letkaiis 
(Saxo, ed. MUller, p. 348). Die hell ist enmilten dd daz erirtcke alter 
sumpfigest ist (Bert hold von Kegensburg). See E. H. Meyer, German 
Mythol.y p. 173. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxv 

nected with the account in the Serbian tale of how the 
sinful go into the power of Dabog, and how he has 
devoured them from time immemorial, just as a 
German poem represents the devil as devouring souls.^ 
E. H. Meyer calls attention* to the statement in the 
book of Enoch that the monster Behemoth, who is 
nourished in the east until the day of doom, there 
shall slay and devour sons and mothers, children and 
fathers. 

While the wolf Fenrir has to some extent its proto- 
type in Behemoth, the Mithgarthsorm has its prototype 
in Leviathan. In Job xl. Leviathan is associated with 
Behemoth as a mighty creature similar in nature. In 
Scandinavian mythical stories, the Mithgarthsorm and 
the wolf Fenrir appear side by side ; they are even 
represented as brothers. The Icelanders thought of 
the Mithgarthsorm as lying in the sea, surrounding all 
lands, and biting its own tail.^ This conception is 
taken direct from the Christian conception of Leviathan. 
Bede * says : Leviathan animal terrain complectitur 
tenetque caudam in ore sua. In the Christian Middle 
Ages, the similarity between the Mithgarthsorm and 
Leviathan was so striking to the Icelanders that they 
identified the two. Thus in an old book of homilies,^ 
we find tni^garSsormr written over leviapan as a gloss. 

The idea of a dragon or snake that coils itself round 

* The word J^£rvi (nom. fJ2r) docs not literally mean * bodies.* Its 
usual signification is Mife, vital power,' Lat. anima, and it corresponds to 
A.S.ySr^ri, which sometimes has about the meaning 'soul' (e.g. n$ ]^on 
Lengf wasfeark aiklingisJUrsce bewundetty B^w., 2424). 

* rfi/uj^, pp. 149, 174. » Gylfaginning^ chap. 34. 

* De rat, ifmfor, _ * HomiliubSk^ ed. Wis^n, p. 75. 



Ixxvi HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

the whole world so completely that it holds its tail in 
its mouth, appears as early as in the work called Pistis* 
Sophia^ which was composed in Ethiopian toward the 
end of the third century.^ 

According to the Jewish story, God cast the 
dragon Leviathan into the sea; so, according to 
Snorri's Edda, the All-father cast the Mithgarthsorm 
into the sea. 

Leviathan was sometimes conceived in the Middle 
Ages as identical with the evil serpent, the prince of all 
evil, the devil. In the same way, the Mithgarthsorm 
was thought of as a form in which the devil appeared. 
This conception does not occur for the first time in 
translations of legends, like the Heilagra Manna Sggur 
(II, 4 ; cf. 10, 20) ; it is found as early as the tale of the 
death of f var VPSfa'^mi} f var is thus addressed : 
* Thou art, I believe, the worst serpent there is, the 
one that is called Mithgarthsorm.* And, directly after, 
he is called J^nKni Jmrsinn, * mighty monster.* Here 
the expression, ' thou art the Mithgarthsorm,' is practi- 
cally equivalent to *thou art the devil himself.' 

In the Middle Ages there was a widespread, oft- 
recurring conception, allegorical in nature, that Levi- 
athan, i,e, the devil, swallowed the bait of Christ's 
mortal nature, and was caught on the hook of Christ's 
divinity.* This conception we also find in Iceland in 
Christian times, e.g. in the poem Lilja, from the middle 

1 See A. Chr. Bang, in {Norsk) Historisk Tidsskrift (2nd Series), in, 
228. 

^ Fornaldar Sotpif, I, 373. 

' See Reinhold Kuhler, Germaniay XI il, 158 f ; Br^ndsted, {Norsk) 
Hist. Tidsskrift (2nd Series), ill, 21-43 » A. Chr. Bang, fV/., ill, 222-232; 
E. H. Meyer, Voluspa^ p. 146. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxvii 

of the fourteenth century, and in the Homiliubdk, edited 
by Wisen (p. 75 f). It is this same conception to which 
the story of Thor's fishing expedition points back : 
Thor makes ready a stout line, baits the hook with the 
head of an ox, and casts his line into the sea, where it 
sinks to the bottom. The Mithgarthsorm swallows the 
bait The hook sticks fast in its mouth. Thor draws 
the serpent up, but it quickly sinks back into the sea.^ 
The story of Thor*s fishing expedition was represented 
in sculpture in the early Middle Ages in England, pro- 
bably by a Norseman, upon a stone near Gosforth 
Church in Cumberland.^ It is connected with the 
words in Job xli. 1-2 : * Canst thou draw out Leviathan 
with an hook ? or his tongue with a cord which thou 
lettest down ? ' 

Several old skalds had evidently a special fondness 
for this story about Thor, and in their treatment of it 
they laid particular emphasis on the terrible moment 
when the god fixes his flashing eyes on the serpent, 
which stares at him and spews out poison. This betrays 
connection with a mediaeval idea that it was God who 
had the devil in the form of Leviathan, the sea-dragon, 
on His hook ; and we are reminded of the description 
of Leviathan in Job xli. 19 : * Out of his mouth go burn- 
ing lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.' 

Ulf Uggason^ says that Thor struck the head of the 
Mithgarthsorm in the deep. This conception, which 
was not the usual one, is based on the words of the Old 

' See Snorra Edda, ed. AM., I, 168-170; HymiskvffSa^ sis. 21-23. 

' This bit of sculpture is reproduced in Aarb<pgerf, nord. Oldk,^ 1884, 

P- 35- 
^ Snorra Edda, I, 258. 



Ixxviii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Testament : * Thou brakest the heads of the dragons 
in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan In 
pieces ' (Psalm Ixxiv. 13-14). Compare Isaiah xxviL i: 
'In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and 
strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing 
serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent ; and he 
shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.' To Thor has 
thus been ascribed the act of the Christian God. 

Instead of the mystical bait, the mortal nature of 
Christ, the Scandinavians have a purely material, 
romantic bait ; and the Norse poet who heard in the 
West the parable of God's catching the devil on a 
hook, and who shaped the myth of Thor's fishing 
expedition, introduced, therefore, from some other tale 
the feature that Thor twisted off the head of one of 
H^mir's oxen and put its head on the hook as bait. 

Of the stories from which several external features in 
the myth of Thor's fishing expedition are taken, one 
was probably an old Norwegian romantic tale still 
preserved among the Lapps.^ Stories of Hercules also 
exerted, in my opinion, some influence on the myth 
under discussion. 

In the Norse myth, the Mithgarthsorm appears along 
with Fenrir in the last struggle at the end of the world 
— a situation which is due to the influence of Rev. xvi. 
13-14, where draco is mentioned along with desfia and 
pseudopropluta in the prediction that * the kings of the 
earth and of the whole world ' shall assemble * to the 
battle of that great day of God Almighty.' 

In the description of ragnar^kkr, we read how the 

* See the siotyJtctUn og VesUgutten (The Giant and the Little Bo}'), 
from Hammerfest, in Friis, Lappiske Eventyr og Folkaapi^ p. 49 f. 



^■d 



THE homp: of the eddic poems 



Introductory Remarks. 

In the old Icelandic Edda-manuscript (of about the p. i. 
year 1 270) the Helgi-lays were given first place among 
those poems properly termed * heroic' 

The Helgi-cycle comprises the following pieces : 

1. Helgakv^Sa Hundingsbana hin fyrri (The 'First' 
Lay of Helgi the Slayer of Hunding, H. H., I) ; 

2. Helgakvi^a Hjgrvar^ssonar (The Lay of Helgi the 
Son of Hjgrvarth, H. Hj.), which contains both prose 
and verse ; 3. Helgakvi6a Hundingsbana gnnur (The 
* Second ' Lay of Helgi the Slayer of Hunding., H. H., 
II), which also contains prose as well as verse. While 
the 'First' Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani closes with 
Helgi's victory over Hgthbrodd, the * Second' Lay 
goes farther, giving an account of Helgi's death and of 
his return from the other world to converse with his 
loved-one Sigriin, who survived him. All three poems 
form a single group, not only in respect to * saga- 
material,' but also to some extent by reason of simi- 
larity in poetic treatment. 

As arranged in the MS., the Helgi-lays precede those 
on Sigurth the Slayer of Fdfnir {SigiiySr Fdfnisbani), 
a prose passage * On the Death of SinfJQtli ' {Frd dauSa 
Sinffgtla) forming the transition. With Sigurth both 

A 



2 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

heroes Called Helgi are in different ways brought into 

connection. 

As to the date of these poems, there is now practical 
unanimity of opinion. The view held by Keyscr and 
3^ 3. Svend Grundtvig that the Eddie poems arose before 
the discovery and settlement of Iceland, before the 
days of Harald Fairhair, and even before the early 
Viking period represented by Ragnar Lothbrdk, has 
been discarded. All Old Norse scholars nowadays 
agree that no one of the Eddie poems in its present 
form is older than the end of the ninth century. Several 
parts of the Helgi-cycle are supposed to have originated 
in the tenth century ; and, as to the First Lay of Helgi 
Hundingsbani, most scholars share Konrad Maurer's 
opinion ^ that it is not older than the eleventh century. 

On the other hand, the question where the Helgi- 
lays and the rest of the songs of the Elder Edda were 
composed, is still unsettled. Of late no one has been 
inclined to accept P. A. Munch's conjecture,* that the 
home of the Helgi-lays is to be found in the Swedish 
province Gautland, or the opinion defended by Svend 
Grundtvig,^ that these lays, as well as the great bulk of 
Eddie poetry, arose in Danish-Swedish lands, where, in 
his opinion, Scandinavian culture of the pre- Viking 
period reached its highest development 

With the single exception of Gudbrand Vigfusson, 
all modern investigators of Old Norse poetry have held 
that the poems of the Edda in general (including the 

' Ztsch.f, d. Philologist 1 1, 443. 
' Det Norske Folks HistoriCy I, 228. 
^ Om Nordens Gamle Literal ur (1867). 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 3 

Helgi-lays) were composed by Norsemen (f>. men of 
the Norwegian- Icelandic nation). Jessen,^ who dis- 
tinguishes sharply between the origin of the saga- 
material contained in the poems and the origin of the 
poems themselves, holds that not only are the Helgi- 
lays Norse, but that the story of Helgi the son of 
HJ9rvarth is also Norse, and that it was a Norse poet 
who brought the Danish story of Helgi the Slayer of 
Hunding and Hgthbrodd into connection with the story 
of the Vglsungs. Axel Olrik seems to be of the 
opinion ' that most of the heroic poems in the Elder 
Edda arose in south-western Norway. 

The question has, however, been most closely ex- 
amined of late by two Icelanders, Finnur J6nsson and p. 3- 
Bjom Magnusson 6lsen.3 The former holds that the 
oldest, and indeed the great majority, of the Eddie 
poems were composed by Norwegians in Norway. In 
this category of Norwegian poems he puts most of the 
Helgi-lays, to which he gives the following names : 
VgUungakvi^a en foma {i,e, the Second Lay of Helgi 
Hundingsbani), Helgakvt^a Hjgrvar^ssonar^ and Hrim- 
get^rm^l {ix. the Lay of Hrfmgerth, a part of H. Hj. 
as usually printed). In his opinion Helgakvi6a Hun- 
dingsbana (/>. the First Helgi-lay) is the latest of the 
Helgi-poems, and was composed in Greenland. Bjorn 

» Vberdie Eddalieder, in Ztsch.f. d, Phil., vol. III. 

« Sec {Norsk) Hist, Tidskrift, 3rd Series, ill, 188. 

* F. J6nsson, Den Oldnorske og Oldislandske Litteraturs Historic, Cop., 
1894 flf; see I, 66, and the treatment of the separate poems. Finnur 
Jonsson's opinions were opposed by Bjom Olsen in a dissertation Hvar 
eru Eddukva6in til orSin ? in Timarit hins islenska bdkmenta fjelags, 
Reykjavik, vol. XV (1894). This called forth an article with the same 
heading by Finnur J6nsson in Timarit, vol. xvi, to which Bjom 6lsen 
replied in the same volume. 



4 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Magniisson 6lsen, on the other hand, defends the 
theory that the majority of the poems of the Edda 
(including those on Helgi) were composed by Ice- 
landers. 

Gudbrand Vigiusson stood practically alone in his 
opinions on this subject, and I therefore state his 
view last Vigfusson held that most of the groups of 
Eddie poems, and among them the Helgi-lajrs, had 
their origin in the British Isles. He at first sought 
their home in the northerly islands, the Orkneys, the 
Hebrides, the Isle of Man. Later, however, he wrote 
of the Helgi-lays as * most distinctly southern in char- 
acter/ and tried to localise them in the islands of the J 
British Channel.^ 

As regards the authors of those Eddie poems to 
which he ascribed a western origin, Vigfusson was 
inclined to think that they were * connected with the 
Southern Scandinavian emigration.' He was of the 
opinion that they belonged to the stream of people 
of the races of the Gauts, the Jutes, and the original 
Vikings (inhabitants of the Vik or land about the 
Christiania fjord), who went over from the Skage Rack 
to the British Isles, 
p. 4. Vigfusson's idea was opposed on nearly all sides,- 
and Finnur J6nsson^ regards it as completely refuted. 
In my Studien iiber die Entstehung dcr Nordischen 

* See prolegomena to his edition of Sturlunga Saga, Oxford, 1S78, 
CLXXXVI ff; Corpus Poeticum Boreale^ Oxford, 1883, sect. 8, especially I, 
Ixiii f ; Grimm Centenary^ Oxford-London, 1886, III, * The Place of the 
Helgi-lays,' 29-36. 

^ Especially by B. Grondal in Timarit^ i, 24 ff, and by Edzardi in 
Paul-Braune, Beitnige^ viii, 349-369. 

' Litt, Hist., I, 63. 



INFLUENCE OF HELGI-LAYS 5 

Gotter- und Heldensagen} I wrote as follows with refer- 
ence to Vigfusson : * We may presume that the mythic 
and heroic stories containing motives taken from the 
English and Irish flourished earliest among Scandi- 
navians in the West. And it is not improbable that 
some of the lays which are included in Saemund's Edda 
first developed there.' Karl Miillenhoff, the greatest 
authority in Germany, opposed this theory so strongly 
as to declare ^ that I had not succeeded in pointing out 
a single example in the long period of Viking expedi- 
tions which plainly showed that foreign material came 
to the North in the Viking era and was worked over 
there. 

The main object of the present investigation is to 
clear up the question of the home of the Helgi-lays. It 
IS intended to form the beginning of a series of studies 
concerning the origin of the poems of the Elder Edda. 



II 

The Helgi-Lays in their Relation to Later 

Old Norse Skaldic Poems. 

An examination of certain later Old Norse poems of 
the Middle Ages, which betray the influence of the 
Helgi-lays in style and in the use of particular expres- 
sions, helps us to determine the history of these lays. 

^ Studicr oTtr dc ftordiske Gude- og Heltesagns Oprittdelsfj Christiania, 
18S9, the first series of studies of which the present volume is a continua- 
tion, iransbted into German by Professor Oscar Brenner, Munich, 1889, 
p. 30. 

- Deutsche Aiicriumskunde, V, 49, 58. 



6 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

I need not cumber the text here with all the details of 
[J the minute investigation necessary to show the extent 
of this influence. In Appendix I. will be found a full 
statement of the arguments on which I base the follow- 
ing conclusions : — 

1. The Helgi-lays (particularly the First Lay of 
Helgi Hundingsbani) were known in Iceland as early 
as the forties in the eleventh century, and from that 
time on. Various combinations of words and 'ken- 
nings ' in the poems called drdpur and flokkar^ com- 
posed in drSttkvcBtt^ the usual metre of the court-skalds, 
by Thj6th61f Arn6rsson, Bglverk Am6rsson, Am6r 
Jarlaskdld, and several other skalds of about the 
same period, are imitations of expressions in the First 
Helgi-lay. 

2. In the first half of the twelfth century the Helgi- 
poems were evidently still more admired and enjoyed, 
for their metrical form and mode of expression were 
taken as models in the poems written in honour of 
certain princes by Gfsli Illugason and fvar Ingi- 
mundarson. 

3. The Hdttalykill (Key to Versification) composed 
in the Orkneys about 1145 by Earl Rggnvald, in con- j 
nection with the Icelander Hall Th6rarinsson, gives 
evidence that in those islands at that time the First 
Helgi-Iay was one of the best-known poems dealing 
with the heroes of early saga. 



EARLIER OLD NORSE POEMS 



III 

The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani in its 
Relation to Earlier Old Norse Poems. 

In order to be able to follow farther back the history p. n. 
of the Helgi-lays, it is important to discover, if possible, 
what earlier Old Norse poems their authors knew. I 
confine myself, however, for the time being, to the 
First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani, and leave out of 
consideration here its relation to the Lay of Helgi 
HJ9rvarthsson. The present chapter will be devoted 
to a discussion of the use of separate words and ex- 
pressions, and to the conclusions which we can safely 
draw from them. Later we shall consider the saga- 
material embodied in these lays. 

The First Helgi-lay, which in the old manuscript is 
called both a *Poem on Helgi the Slayer of Handing 
and Hothbrodd,' and a * Lay of the Vglsungs,' is a 
poem with continuous narrative in the usual popular 
epic metre fornyriislag. Beginning with the birth 
(i-8) and childhood (9) of Helgi, the son of Sigmund, 
it next tells how Helgi killed Hunding (10) and the 
sons of Hunding (11-14). After the battle, Sigriin, the 
poem continues, accompanied by her battle-maidens, 
comes riding through the air to Helgi (15-17). She 
tells him that her father HQgni has betrothed her to 
Hothbrodd, son of Granmar, but that she has declared 
that she loathes him. Helgi promises to free her 
from Hothbrodd (18-20). He calls together warriors 



8 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

from near and far (21-25), and sails to the land of the 
sons of Granmar (26-31). Here a gross word-combat 
takes place between Helgi's brother SinfjQtli and 
Guthmund, son of Granmar (32-44), to which Helgi 
puts an end (45-46). Men ride to Hothbrodd to 
announce the coming of the enemy (47-50). He sends 
out messengers to collect warriors to aid him (51*52). 
The battle is described (53). While it is raging the 
battle-maidens come from the sky (54). HQthbrodd 
falls. Finally Sigrun congratulates Helgi, saying: 
'All hail to thee, since thou hast killed HQthbroddl 
Now shalt thou possess me without opposition, rule in 
peace thy land and kingdom, and enjoy the fruits of 
victory' (55-56). 

; This first Helgi-lay is well known to be one of the 
* latest poems in the Elder Edda, the Gripisspd and the | 
Atlamdly perhaps also the complete SigJtr^arkvvSay | 
being the only heroic poems in the collection which 
are generally regarded as later. It is full of remin- 
iscences of other Eddie poems.^ 

The author knew the verses of the so-called Second 
Helgi-lay, and he has throughout imitated the poetic 
expressions he found there. He knew also the Vgluspd. 
This comes out clearly in the word-combat between 
Guthmund and Sinfjotli, for the retorts in that scene 
borrow figures and expressions from the mythical 
world disclosed to us in the prophecies of the Northern . 
Sibyl. In other parts also of the Helgi-lay we find | 
expressions from the Vgluspd, The opening words: 
Ar var alda \ }>at cr — (* It was formerly in the ages 

^ For a full stalement of ihesc imitations see Appendix IT. 



EARLIER OLD NORSE POEMS 9 

that — ') are an imitation^ of Vpd. 3. Ar var alda \ 
{Mr er (in the later redaction in Snorri's Edda, }>at er — ). 
These introductory words are fully justified in the mouth 
of the sibyl, since she is to tell of the earliest eras of the 
world, but they have little significance at the beginning 
of the Helgi-poem. 

There are, moreover, expressions in the First Helgi- 
lay which show that the author knew of the mythic 
poems, Grlmnismdl^ Rigsl>ula^ and Vglundarkvi^a, and 
of the heroic poems, Fdfnisntdl^ Brot af Sigur^arkviSuy 
Ailakvi6a^ Gu'Srinarhvgt^ and possibly Ham^ismdl ^x\A 
Oddriinargrdtr, 

Probably our poet knew also the Eirlksmdl^ an 
encomium on Eric Bloodaxe, who fell in England in 
954. This poem was composed at the suggestion of 
Eric's widow, Gunhild, not long after his death, by a 
Norwegian, who must have lived in Northumberland. 

In order to realise how in most of the verses in the p. 22. 
First Helgi-lay notes may be heard to which our ears 
are familiar from older Norse lays, although the Helgi- 
poet has somewhat modified them under the influence 
of foreign art, we have but to listen to the fresh sound 
of the Lay of Wayland, in which we cannot recognise 
.the influence of any other Old Norse poem. 

From the fact that the author of the First Helgi-lay 
knew the older Eddie poems which I have named, we 
can draw a number of inferences as to the circum- 
stances of his life, and as to the time at which he wrote. 
Such inferences, however, cannot be certain until the 
place and time of each one of these older poems has 
been investigated. I shall note briefly but a few of these 

* Sec Sijmons in Paul-Braune, Beiircige, IV, 173. 



lo HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

probable conclusions, for most of which good reasons 
have already been given elsewhere. 

In the Lay of Wayland we find pictures of nature 
and life in the most northerly district of Norway, where 
the author must have lived in his youth. But his lay 
has an English model. It contains English words^ 
and Prankish and Irish name& He must therefore 
have travelled in the British Isles. 

In the Reginsmdl and in the Fdfnismdl we find Irish 
and English words, and there are many things which 
go to show that the saga-material utilised in these 
poems was known among Scandinavians living in the 
West. 

In Rigsjjula, Konr ungr (Kon the young), the repre- 
sentative of kingship, is given the name Rlgr on 
account of his surpassing merit — this being the name 
of the mythical founder of his race, and the Irish word 
for * king.* We are forced to conclude that the king- 
dom of which the poet was thinking embraced also 
Irish subjects, and that he himself lived among Irish- 
men. 

The author of the Grimnistndl} since he took a story 
from the northern part of Norway as a setting for his 
poem, was doubtless born in the district Hdlogaland, 
But it looks as if he must have seen the Bewcastle 
Cross in Cumberland, or one closely resembling it, 
and must have heard explanations of its sculptured 
figures. His poem shows the influence of an English 
legend, and he evidently learned in England many 
13. traditions based on Latin writings, partly heathen, 
partly Christian. The Grhnnism&l must, therefore, 

' On this and what follows see S. Bugge, Studicn^ 450-64. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE ii 

have been written by a man who had lived in the 
northern part of England. 

And, finally, the famous Vgluspd, Fantastic theories 
as to primitive Germanic mythology have hindered a 
really historical comprehension of this poem ; but the 
truth cannot be completely hidden : it was in Christian 
Britain, where the revelations of southern prophets had 
quickened the souls of men, that the great sibyl of 
Scandinavian heathendom saw her most splendid 
visions, and found words in which to make known the 
fate of the world from the earliest eras to the most 
remote futurity. 

In my opinion, all the Old Norse poems which the 
author of the Helgi-lay knew point to the life of 
Scandinavians in the British Isles, especially in the 
north of England and in Ireland. 



IV 

Influence from the British Isles on the 
Phraseology of the First Helgi-Lay. 

Certain linguistic peculiarities and poetic expres- 
sions in the First Helgi-lay, which hitherto have not 
been sufficiently examined, help us to determine where 
the author lived. 

After Helgi's birth is described, we read in H. H., 

1,7:— 

sjdlfr gkkk visi 

or vigl>rimu 

ungumfxra 

Urlauk grami. 



12 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

This passage has been interpreted as follows: — ^'The 
king himself (Helgi's father Sigmund) went out of the 
tumult of battle to bear to the young prince a magm" 
ficent Uek^ Thus the Icelandic scribe of the old MS. 
doubtless understood it, and so also the author of the 
4. Vglsungasaga^ for he writes the lines thus : Sigmumdr 
. . . g^kk meti einum lauk im6ti syni slnum^ * Sigmund 
went with a leek to his son/ But what meaning this 
'magnificent leek' can have here, scholars have been 
unable to decide.^ 

No one has been able to point out any other allusion 
to a custom by which a father gives his new-born child 
a ' leek/ And there is still another consideration wUch 
awakes our doubts as to the correctness of reading 
lauk in this passage, viz., the fact that the following 

^ In my edition of the Vgls, Saga (p. 194) I wrote as foOowi:— *This 
refers probably to an old custom not spoken of elsewhere: the led[ 
which the chieftain gives his new-born son is probably thought of as a 
sign that the latter shall grow up to be a famous hero. Laukr was con- 
sidered by the Norsemen as the fairest of all roots : ** the leek ranks first 
among the grasses of the forest," runs the Norwegian ballad on the 
•'Marriage of the Raven" (Landstad, Norske Folkeviser^ p. 633, st. 31); 
laukr { att signifies in Icelandic *' the most distinguished of a race " ; men 
and heroes are constantly likened to leeks.' 

In the Fl6amannasagay 146, a man dreams of the leeks which grow 
from his knees. They signify his children. Rassmann {Heldensage^ I, 7^) 
and Ltining ( Die EcUid) have on the other hand compared Urlauk with 
the old Germanic custom by which a man who transferred a plot of 
ground to another, gave him a piece of green turf ; or, according to the 
Salic law, chrenecrtuia, translated wrongly by * reines kraut. * Mannhardt 
(German. Mythen^ p. 591, n.) notes that the leek was used in Scandinavia 
in witchcraft. Finally, I must mention the fact that many have regarded 
Urlauk as a designation of a sword, which old Icelandic poets call 
otherwise imunlaukr, * battle-leek,' bcnlaukr^ 'wound-leek,' etc Cf. 
Grimm, D, Myth,^^ p. 1165; E. H. Meyer, Germ, Afyth.^ p. 209; 
Wimmer, Oldn, Lasebog? p. 157. Vigfusson wrongly inserts ImunloMk 
in the text (see C. P. B,, i, 490). 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 13 

strophe begins with the words Gaf hann Helga nafn, 
* he gave the name (of) Helgi/ and tells of the lands 
and the magnificent sword which the son receives. 
We cannot help asking: Why should the Meek' be 
named apart, before all these gifts? No satisfactory 
explanation seems possible, and we may therefore con- 
clude that laukr, * leek/ was not the word the poet used. 
The MS. has itr lave (with a and v run together and 
a stroke above). In other old Icelandic MSS. this mark 
is used ^ (though we more frequently find a combina- 
tion of a and with a long stroke above) to indicate 
the w-umlaut of rf, which is also written g. Further, 
the w-umlaut of short ^, is indicated in older MSS. by p. 25. 
a combined ao^ in later MSS. by a combined av. I am, 
therefore, of the opinion that lave was originally in- 
tended for l^c^ ace. pi. neut. of ldk=A.,S, Idc, neut. 
(pi. Idc^ preserved in Mid. Eng. lae, loe) — a word which 
means * gift' 

The father came to bring his son itrldk, * magnificent 
gifts.' Thereupon we read in the following strophe : 
* He gave the name (of) Helgi, [the places] Hring- 
stathir, S61fJ9ll, SnaefJQll, ... a richly ornamented 
sword to the brother of SinfJQtli (/>. to Helgi).' 

The word Idk is used to sum up the gifts which are 
named directly after. This word Idk^ *gift,' is not, and 
could never have been, a genuine Old Norse word. It 
is, on the contrary, clearly English. The A.S. Idc, 
neuter, has its O.N. phonetic equivalent in the word 

^ See Gisiason, Urn Frumparta Isknzkrar Tiingu i Fcmdia, Copcn- 
hai^en, 1846. 

- We have another example of the same thing in the same poem, H. H., 
I, 54, where ha/J^'a is for havio, i.e. //<////, if, indeed, the rij^ht form here 
Le not kvllnir. 




14 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

teikr, 'game'; but there is no tra^ In Nonray or 
Iceland of Idk with the meaning of 'gift.' Thereftve, 
if my explanation is coirect, it must have been in 
Britain that the word was carried over into NotBC. 

Just isl^kis used in the Helgi'lay of gifts presented 
by a father to his sod, so the A.S. Ue is used in the 
same way in the A.S. poem EUtu, 1200 f: Mir* s^n 
suna sende td Idee . . . gife unsgmde, * to her own son 
she sent as a present the irreproaduble gift;' And, 
further, just as the word is used in the Helgi-poem of 
a father's gifts, so we find in an A.S. hynut,/4gdins lAa 
= Patris munere.^ 

I believe, then, that the word /^, ' gifts,' was carried 

over from English into the Helgi-lay in Britain, most 

likely from an English poem. Hence we may infer 

1 that the Norse poet who used the word had travelled 

I among Englishmen in Britain, and that be bad lived 

in districts where both English and Norse were spoken, 

and where both English and Norse poems were heard. 

It may seem hazardous to make such wide-reaching 

conclusions on the evidence of a single word. I shall 

try, however, to prove that this is not an isolated 

example, but that there are many words, not only in 

5. other Eddie poems, but also in the First Helgi-lay, 

which have a similar origin.^ 

> Hymns, ed. tot the Surlees Soc., 9j, 27. 

* From the way in which the woids that the scribe &iled to undetslsiu), 
viz. the ace. pi. of Ui, 'fiiftt' (i. 7) ""d *■*/" (i, 54) are written, I infisr 
that the «-um1aut of li was indicated in the original MS., and thai thii ii 
Apioof of ilsage. This shows, moreover, that the fotms of eaiiljinteU 
ligible words in the original MS. of the poem maf often have been very 
difletcnl from those in the extant MS. , and thai the]' majr have been a good 
deal more antique. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 15 

Another sure example of an English expression pre- 
served in this First Helgi-lay, though in the guise of a 
Norse word, occurs in strophe 47, where a description 
is given of the men riding away in hot haste to announce 
to King Hgthbrodd the coming of his enemies : — 

peir afriki 
renna Iktu 
Svipu'6 ok Sv€ggjy6 
Sblheima til 
dala dgggbtta^ 
d^kvar hit6ir; 
skaif * mistar marr * 
Avar megirfiru, 

* They rode (let run) their steeds, Sviputh and Svegg- 
juth, with all speed to S61heimar, through dewy dales 
and dusky glens . . / 

The expression in the last line but one has not yet been 
satisfactorily explained. The word skalf^ 'trembled,' 
shows that the meaning intended was : ' The earth 
trembled where the men advanced.'^ The statement 
that the earth is made to tremble by the riding of men 
occurs regularly in Germanic epic poetry .^ We find it 
not only in Scandinavian ballads of the Middle Ages, p. 27. 

^ This has already been recognised by F. J6nsson. He changes marr 
to marr^ * the earth.' I cannot, however, agree with him when, with 
Egilsson, he combines Mistar megir, * sons of battle,* (from Mist, the name 
of a Valkyrie, used by the skalds to designate ' battle '). This suggestion 
seems to me inadmissible, both because of the order of the words and the 
artificiality of the kenning. 

'•^ Cf. the remark in the Irish tale, 'The Destruction of Troy,* in the 
Bock of I^inster (1. 59$, ed. Stokes) : * The earth trembled in that place 
where they came together.' 



HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



1 



but also in the Eddie poems : when Skfrnir rode to the 
dwelling of Gerth, t^e earth, we read, trembled ijot'i 
hi/ask, Skm. 14). But I would call particular atten- 
tion to the following similar lines : — 

skalf'misiar marr' 
kvar megir /dm, 

and AUakvi^, 1 3 : — 

hriitisk ^11 JJuntiwrk 
par cr har^m&igir Jiru. 

' The whole of Hunmark (or Hunwood) shook where 
the bold ones advanced,' referring to the ride of the 
Niflungs to Atli's laud. Both poems have here /<'>«. 
Juir er corresponds to hvar (originally hvars) ; /iu/fi- 
m^gir to t'lCfp'r; hristisk to ska!/; so ' viistar marr' 
must likewise correspond to Hunmgrk, and be, like it, 
an indication of the particular land over which the 
men rode.' 

I believe, therefore, that mtsiar marr is a corruption 
of A.S. tttistig mdr, 'misty moor.' In Biow., 162, we 
read of Grendel ; hMd mistige mdras, ' he held (in- 
habited) the misty moors.' The phrase, ofermSr mistig, 
occurs elsewhere as a translation of super montem cali- 
ginosum.^ With A.S. mistig, which comes from the 



I From the agreemenl pointed out here it b not necessary to presnppost 
Ibat the First Helgi-Uy was influenced by the AllakvXa. But in ^mni 
of that view we have the fact that the riders in 11, H., I, 48, are aJled 
Hniflungar, just as the men whose lide is described in the Akv. ttiopbe, 
are really Niflungs. 

* Kituale eceUs. Diinelm., ed. Stevenson, iS, 38. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 17 

asc. noun mist^ may be compared the mod. I eel. neuter 
istur^ * fogginess in the air ' ; the mod. Norw. dialectal 
:uters misir and mist^ 'heat-mist/ 'drizzle, Scotch 
ist ' ; in Eidskogen (in Norway), misty fern., * cloud of 
ist'; mod. Swedish mist {s3\d to be both masc. and 
m.), * fog ' ; so also in many West-Germanic dialects. 
.8. vtdr means both moor and mountain^ the latter 
eaning being developed from * marshy mountains,' 
tretches of fen-land.' 

The expressions used in the Helgi-lay : — * dewy p. 28. 
lies, dusky glens,' and * misty moors/ are entirely 
»plicable to the landscape in many places in Northern 
ngland, Scotland, and Ireland. 

Even if, as seems to me evident, the A.S. mis tig mor 
the original of mistar marr^ the former having been 
irnt by the Norse poet from Englishmen, the historical 
lation between the two expressions can be explained 
different ways. It is possible that a Norse poet in 
ritain took from some A.S. poem the words mistig 
dr in the form mistar mSrr, and that some Icelander 
terwards worked this over into mistar marr. Perhaps 
e latter conceived the original simple and natural 
ipression as an artificial kenning, * the steed of the 
g,' * the bearer of the fog,' i.e, the earth, on which the 
g rested. 

We have, as a result of what precedes, good grounds 
r believing that the First Helgi-lay was composed by 
Norseman who had lived among Englishmen and 
is influenced by A.S. poetry. Looking at the poem 
)m this point of view, we are able to throw light on 
veral obscure places ; and the conclusions above 
ited are thereby strengthened. 

B 



i8 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Of Helgi's youth we read in st. 9 : — 

]'ii nam at vaxa 

fyrvina lajhW^ 
dimr itrborinn 
yii^ii /j6ma. 

'Then grew up before his friends' eyes (lit,, breast) the 
high-born elm {i.e. hero) with the radiance of joy {i.e. 
joyous and fair).' That a hero, especially a young man, 
may be designated in the older Norse poetry as a tree, 
p. 39' without the addition of a genitive, I have elsewhere' 
shown. Here the young prince is called elm. This 
mode of expression by which :i hero or chieftain may 
be designated as a tree is very common in Irish poetry. 
In a verse on the Battle of Ross iia R/g,^ Cuchulinn is 
called an oak (rail). In the poem of Gilfa Comgaill ua 
Slebin of the year 1002, the King Aed ua Neill is 
apostrophised as a craeb £>f^/«(/, ' O, delightful tree!'* 
The brothers Mathgamain and Brian are called da 
dos didin, ' two spreading trees of shelter.' * The son 
of Murchad Brian is called eo Rossa, ' The yew of Ross.'* ' 
It is possible, then (though not necessary), to regard the 
use of the word ' tree ' as a designation for Helgi, as 
showing the influence of Irish poetry. 
The elm' is one of the most conspicuous trees in 

t yVilii/yr vina irjJs/i, which occurs earlier in Fifn., 7, cf. the Irish 
a hucklsUig, 'in the presence of an army.' See Windisch (Werttriuth), 
K.v. uiM, breast. 

' Aarbipgerf. nerd. Old., 1889, 29-33. 

* Ht^an's edition, 92. 

* Cogadk Gaidhel, 120. " Id., 56. ' Id., 166. 

' Ulmus moHlana, ' the Mountain Wych or Scotch Elm.' See Selby, 
Brituh Fercit Trees, 124 ff. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 19 

Scotland, as well as in the northern part of England 
and Ireland. It grows luxuriantly there in just such 
places as are described in our poem (st. 47) with the 
words : * dewy dales, dusky glens,' and ' misty moors/ or 
' foggy, marshy mountains/ The elm is less prominent 
in Norway, although indeed it is common in the 
south. 

The fact that the word 'elm' is used to describe 
the young Helgi, together with many other con- 
siderations to which I shall call attention in this 
investigation, compels us to reject the opinion of 
Finnur J6nsson that the First Helgi-lay was com- 
posed in Greenland.^ This expression proves also 
that the poem could not have been written in 
Iceland, as Bjorn Olsen thinks. For just as the 
tree itself is foreign to that island, so the pictorial 
expression by which a young chieftain is called an 
elm, is foreign to the old poetry of its people. No- 
where in Icelandic poetry is a man described by the p* 30. 
name of a definite sort of tree,* without the addition 
' of a genitive, or of an antecedent word in a com- 
pound. 

It was in a land where the poet's eye saw the elm 
strong and mighty, with magnificent trunk and wide- 
extending, luxuriant foliage, a land of dewy dales and 
dusky glens, that this lay was composed. Hence it is 
that the poet has taken the elm as a symbol of the 

^ Bjorn (5lsen (Timarit^ XV, 1894, 108*122) has, it seems to me, 
piOTcd that Finnur J6nsson*s arguments on this point are quite in- 
sufficient. 

' f>ollr (root -vowel 0) is not the name of a definite sort of tree, and 
most not be confused with /^//, gen. Jxillar (root* vowel a), ' fir,' pine. 



i 



H AE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



vigorous y uthful chieftain, the shelter of his faithful 
men.' 

Possib :he poet was also influenced by the fact that 
he was imi liliar with H, H., Il, 38 : ' Helgi surpassed 
other warriors, even i 
than thorn-bushes.' 

Of the young Hel 

(1,9):- 



iirskafiaSr) ash is higher 
: strophe 



d in the : 



' The king spared not the hoard. 
bl^rekinn, if really Old Norse, can r 



in blood,' like dreyrrekinn 
suitable here.^ 

I would suggest that blS&rekinn 



.' The word 
1 only ' washed 



( 



but that meaning is not I 
to be regarded as 1 



' Finnur Ji'ins^on b wrong in changing a/iiir Orhsrinn lo almt }rr 
bvreim, '£ig(l.=<iieneicies bogens, ein krieger. itirenn jmpit ljima = 
b«gabl mil dn woboe glanz, mit herrlicher wonne; q>. vite bertim', 
Itrborenn mit daC konnle nicht gesagt weiden.' The fonn Itritrinm, 
however, is supported by the Tact that we hive the same wocd in H. Hj., 
37 J and ifr- as the first part of the compound, by the fact that l/r-skaf^ 
is used as an epithet for aslir in H. H., u, 38, wheic Helgi is compared 
to an ash. Moreover, ytiSis IjSma is not, in my opinion, to be cortstmed 
with itrbtrinn, but is to l)e regarded as an accompanying detail to be taken 
along with nam al vaxa. In the Eddie poems drr is always used in its 
original meaning of ' messenger ' and never as part of a compotuid 
attilicial kenning for a man, as Finnur Jdnsson would me it beie. 

' Cf. reka i/iB urn gratuir tinhven. 

' The way in which the word is written would lead us to coiutnie 
' bleprtkin ' with hilmir ; but Helgi, who has not yet been in battle, can- 
DOt be called 'blood- washed.' Vigfusson and F. J6osson write itdi 
bMSrttin ; but ' blood-washed hoard ' is also an eipf etnoD which has no 
analogue. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 21 

an epithet of hilmiry ' king/ and that the adjective is a 
corruption of the expression bldtdrecen in some A.S. 
poem. The first part of the word is the A.S. blckd^ 
masc, ' abundance, prosperity/ which is used of youth . 
in A.S. poetry exactly as here. Cf. on }}dm dtrestan 
bldtde {G/SSldc, 468), ' in the first (youth's) prosperity ' ; 
geoguShddes bldd {Jul, 168), * the prosperity of youth.' 
The second part appears to me to be A.S. recen^ 
'ready, quick.' The compound blddrecen describes, 
therefore, the king's son as one who quickly (after a 
short time had passed) stood fully developed in all the 
prosperity of youth.^ Heroes in epic poetry are usually 
described as having had a much more rapid growth and 
development than other persons. 

After the battle in which the sons of Hunding are 
slain, Signin and her battle-maidens come riding 
through the air to Helgi. In H. H., I, 15, we read that 
the king saw the maidens come riding und hjdlmum 
d himinvangay * helmet - decked on the plains of 
heaven.* 

Evidently the poet to whom we owe the lay in its 
present form, understood Himinvanga as the name of a 
place on the earth to which the battle-maidens came 
riding ; for we read in st. 8 that, immediately after 
Helgi's birth, his father gave him Hiviinvanga, together 
with other places. But it is evident also that this name 
was not originally that of a definite locality, for heban- 
zvang, * plain of heaven/ is used in the O.S. poem Heliand 

* There is another A.S. expression which one might regard as the basis 
of the word, viz. bledrecen, (romd/^d, fern. = Germ. B/u/gf bloom, which is 
contained in bl^dhvai {copiosusjloribus velfructibus)^ Exeter Book Riddles^ 2. 
A.S. bnd\% often confused ^anth A.S. bl^d. 




22 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

as a poetic phrase for heaven, e.g. seal k/lag gist fan 
hebanwange cttman (1. 275), 'the Holy Ghost shall come 
from heaven (the plain of heaven).' 
t. Clearly, therefore, in the strophe of the Helgi-lay in 
which the poet describes the ' ' of the battle-maidens 
through the air, he has imitatea an older poem which 
used the poetic phrase 'the plain of heaven' to 
signify 'heaven.'^ The imitator, who mistook this 
phrase for the name of a place in the earth, decided to 
insert it in the list of places w h the father gave his 
new-born son. He could scarcely have misunderstood 
the word in this way if it had been commonly used for 
'heaven' in the older Scandinavian poetry. In the 
Hiliand, however, hebanwang is but one of many -wang 
compounds with similar meaning, e.g, godeswaiig,' God's 
plain,' i.e. Paradise ; grdni wang, ' the green plain,' i.e. 
the earth. I n A.S. poetry wang is used in the same way, 
eg. neorxnawang, ' Paradise.' The plain of Paradise 
where the Phcenix dwelt, is repeatedly called wang. 
In view of this frequent use of the word woHg in A.S. 
and of the general similarity between the phraseol<^ 
of O.S. and A.S. poetry, I conclude that heo/onwang, 
' plain of heaven,' was used as a poetical circumlocution 
for heaven in A.S. poetry also, and that the word was 
carried over, directly or indirectly, from some A.S. 
poem into the Helgi-lay.* 

' Cf. H. H., I, 54: 'There catne down /tvm heaven the helmet- 
decked wights (battle- maidens).' 

* With refeience to the pi. form Bimiitvanga ts opposed to the sing. 
htbatnoang in O.S., we may compare the similar change of the name of 
Freyja's hall F6tkvangr in one MS. of Snorri's ^V/rfn (see A. M. edition, 
I, 96)10^ 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 23 

In what precedes I have tried to show that certain 
of the phrases pecuh'ar to the First Helgi-lay arose in 
Britain under English influence. I shall now examine 
a number of phrases in the same poem, which also 
occur (or have parallels) in other Old Norse poems, p. 33. 
even outside of the Edda ; and I hope to prove that 
some of these are due to A.S. influence, or at least 
show a remarkable agreement with A.S. poetic ex- 
pressions. I shall also point out the probability of 
Irish influence on at least one phrase in the O.N. 
{x>em. 

As I shall show later (see App. II.) hjdlmvitr, 

• helmet- wights/ and sdrvitr flugay^ th^ flying wound- 
wight/ H. H., I, 54, are imitations of alvitr in the Lay 
of Wayland — a word which was understood as 'all- 
wights, wights through and through,' although it 
really corresponds to the A.S. celbite or elfete, 

* swans.' 

Rasir} * king/ occurs in H. H., I, 17, in H. Hj., 18, 
in the Reginsmdly 14, in the story of Halfdan the Old, 
and in the Hdkonarmdly in a narrower sense also in the 
artificial poetry of the skalds.^ It is the same word as 
the A.S. nisiva. Neither the O.N. nor the A.S. word 
is found in prose. The A.S. word means 'counsellor' 
(e.g. cyninges rdswa, Daniel, 417) or 'ruler' (e.g. /o/ceSy 
zveorodeSy etc., rd^swa^ * ruler of the people, army '). A 

* My remarks on rasir were written down before I saw the discussion 
of the word by Gislason, Eftcrladte Skriftcr, I, 241. He suggests a loan 
from A.S., but does not come to any definite decision. 

- In the Giymdrapa {Haraldssa^a hdrfa^ra^ ii), and in the poems 
<->f Arn«>r Jarlaskald, Markus Skcggjason, Thorkell Gislason, llallfrdh, 
Thjtjih'jlf Arnorsson, and others. Snorri also uses it. 




34 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

king is sometimes called n^swa, without any dependent 
genitive. The word comes from the substantive ri^s 
(dat. pi., j-(^ji£'«w^), which means 'advice,' 'the giving 
of advice,' and which in its turn is based on A.S. 
r&dan, 'to advise, to rule'^f . rSia. Cf. the A.S. 
rAsbora, 'counsellor, ruler, '; meoludes r<iswum 

(Asanas, 126), ' by God's guidance ' ; rdswan, ' to think. 
suppose, guess.' Since there is no trace in O.N. of any 
substantive based on rd^a from which rcBsii- covAd have 
been formed, and since there is no trace in O.N. of ra:sir 
in the more original meaning of 'counsellor,' we must 
\. conclude that the word was borrowed from A.S. ri^swa, 
and came into Norse through Norse poems composed 
in Britain.* 

In H. H., I, 51, Hpthbrodd, on hearing that enemies 
lave landed, says: Renni' raven' iillutS (with a v nn 

igether), 'let the bitted animals run.' Here, raukn 

/V/»S, neut. pi., signifies 'horses.' In the Shield-poem 
of Bragi the Old, the same words are used (in my 
opinion by imitation of the Helgi-lay *) in the strophe 

' See Cosijn in Sieveis, Beilragt, xix, 447. 

* As regards its ending, O.N. rasir bears the same letation to A.S. 
i^swa Ihat O.N. o/iir, 'prince,' bears to the synonymous v/H, A.S. 

Old Norse poels brougbl rirsir into connection with the genuine Norse 
word msa, ' to set in motion,' as is evident from Snoni's Hittatal, 17, 7, 
Uld the commentary on that passage. 

This late conception brought about the use of ricsir in the sense of 'he 
who sets in motion,' »ilh a governed genitive, in kennings for 'a man,' 
*.g. Gliim Geiiason's rasir rSgtisii, 'he who sets the battle-flame {i.i. 
aword) in motion.' 1 shall not discuss here the words yg/iirr and vhi, 
' king,' although they might sup[X)rl my opinions as to rmsir. Falk also 
(see Arkivfor Nordisk Filehgi, v, 258) regards raiir as a loan from A.S. 

' See my BiJra^ 111 den iclditc SkaUkdigtnings Hiilerit, p. 48. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE 25 

on Gefjon, who ploughs Zealand from Sweden with four 
oxen : svdt af rennirauknum \ rauk^ *so that it smoked 
from the running animals.' Here the word is used of 
oxen. In kennings for ship ('steeds of the sea') 
raukfty neut. pi., is used by many Icelandic skalds.^ 
In prose the word occurs neither in old nor in 
modem times. Its real meaning appears to be 
* animals (horses or oxen) which are used for rapid 
advance.' 

The word raukn is connected with rekinn^ which, p. 35- 
like its derivative rekningr^ is used as a poetic term 
for * ox.' * 

I have suggested that rekinn and raukn are loan- 
words from A.S. recen^ 'ready, quick.' ^ The corre- 
sponding adverb is written also reconCy recuue^ ricene. 
Thus rekinn^ raukn, appear to have been used by the 
poets instead of the O.N. prose word skjStr, * post- 
horse,' based on the adj. skjStr, 'quick' (cf. Old Swedish 
skiiity masc, a mare). 

The word mengi, neut., * a multitude,' used often (sec 
H. H., I, 26, 50 ; Brot, 9. ; Sig., 56, 66 ; Akv., 4 ; also 
in Eirlksmdl, in a verse in the Hervararsaga, in Har, s, 
hdrf.y 31 (TorfeiViar), and in Merlinusspd), but only of 

* By Thorlcik Fagri, by Thorkel Gislason in BttcuMpa, by Gunnlaug 
Leif^-son in Meritnusspd, by Snorri in Hditaial, and by Sturla. 

- Sn. Edda, i, 484. Instead of this, we find reginn in Sn. E., i, 587 ; 
n* 4^3} 5^> ^^^ ^n Upps. E., I, 484. 

* Sn. E., I, 587 ; II, 483, 866. Egilsson connects the word with 
nka. 

* So also Wimmer, Oldn. Lttsebog, 1 1, xvi f, note 2. 

' a. my Bidrag til den aldste Skaldedigtnings Historie^ p. 30. On 
bl^-^rchinn^ H. H., I, 9, cf. above, p. 21. The diphthong aii probably 
aro>e instead of e through the influence of genuine Norse words in which 
>imibr changes have taken place. 



28 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



V 

The First Helgi-Lay and the Irish Story of 
THE Battle of Ross na Ric. 

In order to determine the circumstances under which 
the First Helgi-lay was composed, and the influences 
to which the author was subjected, it is important to 
note that some parts of this poem, as I shall try to 
prove in what follows, are closely connected with Irish 
traditional tales. The story of which I shall first speak 
forms an episode in the description of *The Battle 
of Ross na Rig,* to be found in the Book of Leitister^ 
an Irish MS. written a little before ii6o.^ Ross na 
Rfg (i,e, * the Kings* Point,' or ' the Kings' Wood ') lies 
on the shore of the river Boyne in the eastern part of 
Ireland. The battle is supposed to have taken place 
at the beginning of the Christian era. 

* The Battle of Ross na Rfg ' forms a continuation of 
the great epic-cycle of the north of Ireland, the Tdin 
bS Ciialgfie (/>. * the cattle-spoil of Ciialgne '), of which 

> The part which chiefly concerns us here was first edited, with a trans- 
lation and excellent notes dealing with the literary history of the story, by 
Zimmer in Ztsch.f, d, Alt.^ xxxii, 220 ff. A large number of the Scandi- 
navian names were first explained by Kuno Meyer and Whitley Stokes. 
The whole story has been edited, with translation and valuable notes of 
various kinds, by Edmund Hogan (Dublin, 1892). 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA rIg 29 

the Ulster warrior Cuchulinn is the chief hero. The 
episode which here concerns us, is connected with p. 38. 
that part of the story which tells how the Druid 
Cathbad comes to the Ulster King Conchobar when 
the latter is overcome with grief because his land has 
been harried by the armies of Ailill and Medb from 
Connaught 

Notwithstanding the fact that the names of persons 
and places in the Irish tale are entirely different from 
those in the First Helgi-lay, there still seem to be 
points of contact between the events described in the 
two accounts. 

In the first place, such resemblances are to be seen 
in several situations, on which, however, I should not 
lay particular stress if the points of agreement were 
confined to them. The account given by the Norse 
poet is as follows: When Helgi is making ready to 
attack HQthbrodd in the latter's own land, he sends 
messengers over the sea to summon troops to his aid, 
promising them money in return for their services ; and 
a large and splendid fleet assembles. When this fleet 
sails out of the fjord into the sea, it encounters a terrible 
storm, but it nevertheless comes safely to its destina- 
tion. One of Hgthbrodd's brothers, who has been 
watching Helgi's fleet from the shore, inquires who 
the strangers are. He soon learns the truth, and 
men then ride to Hgthbrodd to acquaint him with the 
situation. They tell of Helgi's arrival with magnificent 
' ships and thousands of men. The poem concludes with 
an account of the ensuing battle, in which Helgi slays 
Hothbrodd. 

In the Irish tale, the Druid Cathbad advises King 



30 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

ConchobaTi before invading his enemies' land, to de- 
spatch messengersywith information as to his plans, to the 
Irish hero, Conall Cernachi and to his friends among the 
Scandinavians in the North-Scottish isles and elsewhere 
in the north. Accordingly, Conchobar sends messengers 
out over the sea. They find Conall in the island of 
Lewis, where he is collecting the taxes. Conall receives 
Conchobar's men gladly. * And there were sent then 
intelligencers and messengers from him to his absent 
friends through the foreign northern lands. It is then 
that there was made a gathering and muster by them 
too ; and their stores were prepared by them also ; and 
their ships and their galleys were secured in order ; and 
they came to the place where Conall was. . . . Now set 
out the great naval armament under Conall Cemach 
* and Findchad and Aed and the nobles of Norway. 
And they came forward out on the current of the Mull 
of Cantire.^ And a green surge of the tremendous 
sea rose for them. . . . Such was the strength of the 
storm that rose for them, that the fleet was parted in 
three.' 

We next learn how each of these three parts came to 
land. ' It was not long for Conchobar, when he was 
there, till he saw the pointed sail-spreaders (?) and the 
full-crevved ships and the bright-scarlet pavilions and 
the beautiful many-coloured standards and banners 
and the blue ships (?), which were as of glass, and the 
weapons of war.* Conchobar says to his men, who are 
standing about him, that he fears these are enemies 
who are coming with the great fleet which fills the 

^ The extreme point of the headland Cantire in the west of Scot- 
land. 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA RfO 31 

ith of the fjord. 'It is then that Sencha mac 
*lla went forward to the plac^ where the great naval 
lament was, and he asked them, " Who goes here ? " 
is this they said then, that they were the foreign 
nds of Conchobar who were there/ The king has 

horses harnessed to the chariots, and receives his 
nds as is best fitting. In the ensuing battle 
ichobar gains the victory over King Cairpre and 
men of Leinster. 

The chief difference in situation between the Norse 
:m and the Irish tale consists in the fact (which I 
11 discuss later) that in the former the fleet comes 
ted to the land of the enemy, whereas in the latter 
:omes to a friendly land and is in three separate 
isions, having been scattered by the storm. But the 
cement between these two accounts becomes more 
)arent when one contrasts the Helgi-lay with the 
ims on the Gjiikungs, in which we read of the doings 
individuals, not of armies, and that, as a rule, on 
d, not at sea. Even in the poems on the youth of 
iirth the slayer of Fdfnir, in which sea-life is more 
phasised, we find no great and magnificent fleets 
; those in the Helgi-lay and in the Irish * Battle of 
ss na Rig.' As Vigfusson remarked, the descrip- 
is in the Helgi-lay make us think of a land visited p. 40- 

the great Norman fleets. There the poets were 
liliar from literature also, especially from that 
tten in Latin, with the appearance of the powerful 
;ts and mighty fleets which were wont to be 
embled in case of war. Evidently these descrip- 
is cannot have been written in Greenland, which 
mur Jonsson regards as the home of the First 



[ 



32 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Helgi-Iay. Nor could an Icelander have found models ' 
for them in his native land. 

A number of expressions in the Irish prose text 
correspond to expressions in the Norse poem, and the 
agreements in some respects are so particular that his- 
torical connection between the two accounts is proved, j 
not necessarily by the different details taken separately, 
but by the whole series of points of contact The simi- 
larity in situation, just pointed out, shows that the 
connection cannot be explained by supposing that the 
Irish tale imitated the Helgi-lay. We must believe, on 
the contrary, that the Helgi-lay was influenced by an 
Irish story. For in no other Eddie lay does the 
hero or another king despatch messengers to muster j 
auxiliary troops, promising these troops payment for 
their services ; while in several Irish stories, as in ' 
that before us, we read that 'intelligencers and mes- 
sengers were sent out ' to friends. Besides, the Irish 
account agrees, in this particular, with the facts of 
history. 

Let us now compare the corresponding Norse and 
Irish expressions, I would have it understood, how- 
ever, that in those places in which I infer connection i 
between the two accounts and point out how the 
phraseology of the Norse poem was affected by that I 
of the Irish tale, I do not assert that all the Norse j 
phrases in question were affected by this Irish story 
alone, and were not also influenced, in some degree, , 
by other accounts. The discussion of this question in I 
the next chapter V'^^ *"*^^ clearer my ideas on this ^ 
point. 



34 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

of the sea are personified as mythical beings. The 
Norse poet, however, goes further, and brings in the \ 
daughters of ^gir, in whose creation the storj- of the \ 
daughters of Nereus and Occanus probably had some I 
share, 

H. H., I, 30 reads: 'The king's bil1ow~deer (ship) 
twisted itself by main strength out of Rda's hand 
{sn^risk ramliga Ran 6r hendi gjdlfrdyr konungs)' 
The name of the sea-giantess, vEgir's wife, Rdn, is | 
probably a genuine Norse word, having its origin I 
, in *RS&n, and coming from rSia, to rule.^ It was 
probably because of the resemblance between RAn 
and the Irish rdin that tlie Norse poet made Ran 
stretch out her hand in the storm against the ship; 
for in the Irish story which influenced his poem, we 
are told that rdin ^ (seals) rise up in the storm against 
the ships. 

The descriptions of the ships in the two accounts 
also show agreements, which can scarcely be accidental, 
though, it should be said, the Norse expressions which I 

I See Axel Kock m Zhck. f. d. AH., XL, 205 ;cf. Swed. tjari, neuter, 
a meimaid. 

' Irish rdtt, rami, ' seal,' corresponds to Cymric matl-ren, Lith. ritiiii, 
Lettish rSuis (Stokes-Bezienbei^er, Urktlt. Sfrachicluilt, p. 335). Zim. 
mer's Irealment of the word in Zlsch.f. d. All., xxxir, 370 f, is iorocTect 
in several respects. Irish rSn has nothing to do with O.N, krdaH, 
which can never mean ' seal ' or ' whale.' The word kreinbraul means 
' the way of the reindeer,' i.e. the land. In FlaUyjarbik, 11, 508, we are 
told how the Orkney Earls R^gnvald and Harald were accustomed nearly 
every summer to go over to Caithness and up into the woods (mtrkr\ 
there, in order lo hunt rauMyri (red deer) or hreina {reindeer). Thi» 
of course does not refer, as Zimmer says it does, to the taking of seals or 
whales. Nor need we think that the reindeer is named here instead of a 
difTerenl species of red ducr ; for Prof. Rygh has called my attention 10 



k 



38 f OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Conchob: t out the young hero Iriel to reconnoitre 

the hos lit at Ross na R(g, Iriel, who, amongst 

other qualities, was highly esteemed for his ' kingliness,' 
went up on a hill by the river Boyne, Trofn which he 
6. could see far, aciu ed the forces of the 

enemy. On his return Conchobar a descrip- 

tion of what he had s. -low, my life Iriel?' 

inquired the king. 'Igi' ord truly,' said Iriel; 

'it seems to me that t..^ not a ford on river, 

not a stone on hill, nor 'ays, nor road . . • 

that is not full of their -teams and of their 

servants.' ' 

The hostile Irish king who fell in the Battle of Ross 
na Rig by Cuchulinn's hand, was called Carpre or 
Corpre, later Cairbre. It looks as if the Norse poet 
perceived a similarity between this name and that of 
the king who falls in the battle with Helgi, viz. 
Hgthbrodd,* which was known to him from the older 
Helgi-lay. This accidental resemblance of names was, 
as I suppose, one of the reasons why the Norse poet 
transferred to the Helgi-lay features from the descrip- 
tion of the Battle of Ross na Rig. 

The Irish story seems to throw light on an expres- 
sion which Sigrun uses of Hgthbrodd in H. H., I, i3. 

' See Hogan's ed., chaps, 27, 28 (pp. 36-39). 

' In my Studiin, p. 194 {Norw. ed., p. 187), I have sliown thil 
the Scandinavian from whom came the story of Gddecus in Saxo, con- 
necled the Brilisli name Cader with the Notse H^r. The Irish inoda 
recurs in the O.N. hmkan {Sluditn, p. 571 ; Norw. ed., p. 539). With 
reference lo the vowel, note that the Irish Garmlaitk recurs m the 0,N. 
Ktrml^. O.N. 3 and f shift when medial, when r is found elsewhetein 
the word, or before a consonant ; cf. bi^mr and barmr {iitlbaSmr and 
"Wiarwj-jjA.S. iM^TW becomes O.N. ftj^fi in 5<-D/, 13; A'-*'iiii Weomes 
A^^Brw*! '*r,rri Incomes ir^ii 'j-rvarr \KS:oiaes j^varr. 



40 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Now Hgthbrodd in the Helgi-lay was, as I have 
shown, taken to correspond to Carprc nia fer. This 
surname, 'hero of men,' has about the same meaning 
as the epithet, kommg 6misan} ' the brave king,' which 
Sigrun gives H^thbrodd, in H. H,, i, i8. 

When the poet makes Sigrun say : ' I have said that 
Hpthbrodd the brave king is (as obnoxious to me) as 
Cat's son,' it is possible that he used these expressions 
because he thought of Carpre nia fer as contrasted 
with Carpre cinnchait, 'cat-head.' The latter is a 
demoniacal figure in Irish saga. He was a usurper, 
'. and therefore the land did not prosper under his rule. 
His sons were born deformed, and because of this he 
had them drowned. The Scandinavians who heard 
stories of such a personage might easily get to think of 
him as a giant. Among the O.N. names for giants in 
Snorri's Edda occurs kgttr? 'cat* Whoever inserted 
the name in this place, doubtless got it from H. H,, i, 
1 8, where he understood the word as the name ofa giant 

Zimmer has shown that the Irish episode of the 
Scandinavian troops who came to the aid of Conchobar 
in Ireland, is a later interpolation from Viking times 
into an older story of Conchobar and the Battle of 
Ross na Rig, which already had taken literary form. 

cat-heads, who had killed the crew of an Irish vessel. Id ihc OM French 
poem, BalailU Lequiftr, which has many Cellic features, Ihere appears a 
monsler with cat-head, Chapala (from Cymric taik, 'cat,' and fenlli, 
'head,' properly ' headstead,' lit from older 'h). 

' O.N. luiss means 'ashamed.' The adjective intiss is, therefore, used 
of one who does not hold back ashamed, but goes bisvely to the fioot 
and distinguishes himself, diuits can haidly mean ' blameless.' 

» SteSn. Edda, AM. cd,, I, 550; 11, 470; \\, 615. 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA RfG 41 

In that older account no Scandinavians were named. 
This IS evident from the fact that they play no part 
in the continuation of the story, although the joyful 
and splendid reception which they received is particu- 
larly emphasised. On the contrary, it is the mighty, 
heroic deeds of Conall Cernach which are described in 
the Battle of Ross na Rfg.^ 

Zimmer has also made an ingenious conjecture as 
to the reason why the episode of the reinforcements 
from the islands north of Scotland and other northern 
lands was inserted in the Battle of Ross na Rfg, which 
in its oldest form cannot have shown any knowledge 
of the Vikings. In this oldest version, the fact that 
the famous Ulster hero, Conall Cernach, did not take 
part in the first battle between the Ulstermen under 
Conchobar and the men from Connaught under Ailill 
and Medb, was, Zimmer thinks, accounted for on the 
ground that he was not in Ireland at all, but in the 
districts of Scotland which had been taken and colonised 
by the people of Ulster, and in the Scottish Isles, 
whither he had gone* to collect taxes among Gaill p. 49. 
(the strangers). This oldest version, Zimmer thinks, 
went on to say that Conall, receiving information of 
the proposed expedition of Conchobar, actually mus- 
tered his men and took part in it. Since the inhabitants 
of islands north of Scotland were called Gaill, 
'strangers,' in the story, and since in later times Scan- 

> See Zimmer, Ztsch.f. d. Alt.y xxiii, 228 f ; cf. 235-237. 

- Just as in the Irish tale of the Wooing of Emer ; see Zimmer, Ztsch. 
f. d. Aii.j XXXII, 237-241. In the earlier version of Tochviarc Emire 
(The Wioing of Emer) Gall means *a Gaul,' in the later version *a 
Nir cinan ' ; see Kuno Meyer in Rev. CcU.y XI, 438. 



4a 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



dinaviaii: dwelt in the Scottish islands, and were also 

called b' the Irish Gaill, 'strangers,' it came about 

naturall; hat a number of Scandinavian names were 

introduc into the tale. 



In th< 
which hk 
and cons 
an unhistc ai 
instead of an eari, oi t 
the historical event \ 
impress on the story ■ 
ciliaries, belongs 



renal niscences of events 
mes are fused together,' 
irical features appear in 
■hen we read of a king, 
leys. But I believe that 
bove all others, left its 
nchobar's Scandinavian 
I later time than that of 



which Ziminer, who docs not explain sutisfactonly the 
Norse names, is here thinking.* 

This event is connected with the greatest battle 
fought in Ireland in the course of the long period during 
which Scandinavians had a Brm foothold there — a 
battle which, indeed, had no momentous historical 
results, but whose fierceness and impressive shifting 
scenes fixed themselves firmly by means of poetic 
images in the minds of both Irish and Scandinavians. 



' Among Lhe auxiliaries Ihere is named a son of a daughter of 
Conchobai mac Ncssa, wlio thus would hive lived long before the 
coming of the Norsemen to Ireland. He is said to be a son of Arthur, 
and a grandson of Brude. On this Zimmer remarks thai Brude was the 
name of a mighty iiing of the Picts, who lived in lhe time of Columba 
(ts84). 

reinforcements landed at the mouth of Linn 
mer takes to be 'ein ort in der DuDdalk-bif, 
n das half, in dis dei Castletown -rivei flicsst.' 
inforcements Zimmer (ZtscA. /. d. Alt., ixxv, 
e of the landing of the Danes in Sjo at Linn 
t of Louth, according to Henness)' 



'' One division of the t 
Luachainne. This Zimi 
vielleicht am eingang ai 
In the landing of these re 
162) finds a reminisccn 
DaachaH, a harbour o 
probably DunJalk harbour. 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA RfG 



43 



I refer to the Battle of Clontarf^ at Dublin in ioi4p. 50. 
between the Norse King of Dublin, Sigtrj'gg Silkbeard, 
and the Irish King Brian. Before the battle ships and 
reinforcements had come to Sigtrygg from nearly all 
the Scandinavian settlements in the west. That this 
circumstance left its impress on the description of the 
Battle of Ross na Rfg becomes clear when we compare 
the latter with the accounts of the Battle of Clontarf 
which we possess. 

We read that, before the Battle of Clontarf took 
place, an Irish king got reinforcements from the 
Orkneys {insi Ore), the Shetland Islands (insi Cat or 
insi Cadd)y and Lewis (O.N. LJdShtiSy It. Leddiis) ; and 
this is the only time these places are named in the 
chronicle Cogadh Gaidhel. In the story of the Battle of 
Ross na Rfg we learn that an Irish king got reinforce- 
ments from the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands, and 
Lewis. 

Conchobar sought help from Siugraid Soga^ King of 
Sudiam. The latter has, in my opinion, as an histori- 
cal prototype that Earl of the Orkneys who is called 
Sigiir^r Hld^vesson in Icelandic documents. In Cogadh 
Gaidhel (p. 153) he is called Siucraid^ in the Annals of 
Loch Cc (p. 5) Siograd, In the story this Siugraid 
is King of Sudiam, a name which hitherto has not been 
correctly explained, but which is evidently the O.N. 
dative Sii^reyjuiHy from the Norse name of the Hebrides. 
In a similar way, the name Su6reyjar (nom. pi.), as was 
first pointed out by Munch, was carried over into English 
as Sodor, Earl Gille, brother-in-law of Earl Sigurth, 

' <>n these events see especially Sleenstrup, NormannentCy in, 157 fl, 
iTi'l T'"M, Cojadh Gaidhely Introd., pp. clxvii-cxcii. 



OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

SuSre}yar (Southern Isles, Hebrides) as 
I, and paid tribute to him.' 
: So^,3 1 take to be siigga, which in many 
■gian dialects means 'sow.' The king 
int of his heavy body, 
as the surname digri 
.r's reinforcements is 
)f the King of Loch- 
as the Amiaib (6Uf), 
I fought in the Battle 

; get help from two 



44 J 

ruled ov 
Sigurth'E 
'• The su 
modem 
may have beci 
just as in the /?< 
(the thick).' An> 
named Amiaib (( 
lann. He is doubtless ti 
son of the King of Loch 
of Clontarfon Sigtrygg's 

Both Conchobar and si 
chieftains, Broder^ and 3fael.* In the story we are told 
that Conall, when Conchobar sent messengers to him, 
was harrying, amongst other places, 'the ways of the 
Saxons.' According to Cogaiih Gaidhel, messengers 
were sent before the Battle of Clontarf to all the 
districts north of 'the land of the Saxons.'^ 

> See Njdissaga, chaps. S6, 9a The Irish name for Ihe Hebrides is inii 
Call, 'the Isles of the Slrangers.' The lotei Irish redaction of the Batlleof 
Ross na Rig (Hogan, p. 62) has Siogra rl Arcadia (S,, King of A.), wheie 
^rcarfiii is a corruption of Orcarfia, In an older redaction may not Siugraid 
have been described as King of the Orkne)^? Direclly after Siugraid in 
the Book of Lcinster, we have Ihe name ol Sorloiiliud Sari, King of the 
Orkneys. In an older redaction may not he hove been described as King of 
Sudlanii Sffrlaitl>udcattes^nfi%laO.'ii.Svari/i^iX. laxheSlnrlungaiaga, 
Svartij>fSi is the name of an Icelander whose falher has an Irish name. 

' Sit_^ga may still be used in Norway of a slout, portly woman. Cf. the 
name of the place Suggi'ttSin Eyslt'in'i/ardtiaff, p. 495. 

* Among the participants in the Battle of Clontarf bolh Nj&htaga 
and Ihe Irish sources name Brsdtr. Among Concholiar's Scandinavian 
reinforcements are named Brbdar Rath (i.e. raiSr, red) and Brodvr Fiuil 
(i.e. hvltr, white). 

' Cogadk Caidktl B. has Afaal, while A. has Cettmaet. 

' Saxons [i.t. Anglo-Saxons) are also named in the Annals of Boyle, 
■nd in (he Annals of Loch d. 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA RfC 45 

[n the Njdlssagay Erling is said to come from 
^aumey, one of the Faroes, to Sigtrygg. Bdre {t.e. 
M. Bdr<fXr, later BdrfSr) of Sciggire came to Concho- 
r from Piscarcarlds camp. Sciggire {i,e. O.N. 
ggjar, * bearded men ') has been explained by Kuno 
jyer as *the inhabitants of the Faroes/ since they 
re most frequently called Eyjarskeggjar} Yet the 
rd is also used of people from the Scottish Isles. 
scarcarla means 'fishers' {O^. fiskikarlar). Among 
5 names of countries mentioned in the story of 
►nchobar, we find Gothia {i.e. Gautland, in Sweden), 
d in the Annals of Inisfallen (which, to be sure, are 
ry late, and not to be relied on) it is said (p. 62) that 
k came to the Battle of Clontarf *from the most p. 52. 
itral part of Gaothland ' {0 na Gaothloighibh meod- 
nacJi)r 

In my opinion, there can, therefore, be no doubt that 
►nchobar's Scandinavian reinforcements, which came 
him before the Battle of Ross na Rig, have their 
itorical prototype in the Scandinavian reinforcements 
lich came to Sigtrygg Silkbeard before the Battle of 

For example, in Fommanna52gur^ II, 169. 

The story of the Battle of Ross na Rig is found, in a form which 
ics very much from the version of the Book of Leinstcr, in Mss. of the 
hteenth century (printed in Hogan's edition). This redaction has the 
5ode under discussion in a much shortened and evidently modified form ; 

there is one expression in it which may have belonged to the episode 
^ts oldest form, hut which is lacking in the Book of Leinster. We read 
63) that Conchobar sent out a man to collect a large number of these 
ingers * for good gifts and great payment to them.* With this cf. H. II. , 
ji, * to offer the men and their sons abutuiame of goUV {i^gfu^gan dpiar 
na). On the other hand, we read of the Scandinavian reinforcements 
:he Battle of Clontarf in Cogadh Gaidhely p. 153, that 'they sold and 
rd themselves for gold and silver and other treasures as well.' 



48 HOME OF THE KDDIC POEMS 

following events actually took place : — Sigtrygg fought 
against Brian, whose daughter he had married, and in 
the battle fell her father, her only brother, and some of 
her kinsmen. Sigtrygg and his wife stood and looked 
at the fighting, and talked together about it. But this 
is almost the whole extent of the resemblance. Sigtryj^ 
himself did not take part in the fight. 

It may be added that valkyries and other female 
supernatural beings are brought into connection with 
the Battle of Clontarf, and that battle-maidens appear 
in the conflict in the Helgi-lay. 

I have already fp. 26 f) compared the kenning which 
designates the slain on the battlefield as ' the grain of 
Hugin (Odin's raven),' in the description of the fight 
in which Helgi conquers Hothbrodd (H. H., 1, 54), with 
the words spoken by those who looked from the walls 
of Dublin over the battlefield of Clontarf, and likened 
it to a field of grain which reapers were mowing. This 
comparison is now of greater moment, since we have 
seen that the poetic description of a battle in the 
Helgi-lay appears to have borrowed features indirectly 
from the historical combat on the plain of Clontarf. 

The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani was then, it 
seems, composed ca. 1020-1035 by a Norse poet who 
had lived in Ireland, The author had before him in 
imagination pictures of the heathen world, and there 
is no sure trace in his poem that he was a Christian. 
Heathen gods and other mythical beings are introduced, 
and have a part to play. Helgi's enemies are the sub- 
jects of Odin's wrath, and Odin's dogs (wolves) rush 
about the island ; the Norns decide the hero's fate ; and 
.(Egir's daughters and Rin try to upset his ship in the 



BATTLE OF ROSS NA RfC 



49 



itorm. But the supernatural world is not treated with 
-everence. SinfJQtli says that all the einherjar in the p- 55- 
aall of the All-Father (Odin) were near fighting because 
3f one Valkyrie, and she was a great witch. Here the 
poet's disdain for the heathen supernatural world 
appears to reveal itself. 

The introduction of heathen mythical beings into 
the poem does not prove that the author was not 
baptized ; for it is only in the remote past that he 
makes the gods and other mythical beings appear, and, 
as a matter of fact, these were often referred to long 
after the introduction of Christianity. There was 
current, for example, a story that Odin visited a 
peasant at Vestfold, in the south of Norway, shortly 
before the battle of Lena, in Sweden, in 1208. 

The poem dates from the time when heathendom as 
a recognised religion, or at least as a religion person- 
ally professed, was on the point of dying out among 
Scandinavians in the west. As early as 943, King 6ldf 
Kvaran had himself baptized in England, and in his 
ast years (979) he went as a pilgrim to Icolmcill. The 
nking Broder, who took part in the Battle of Clontarf, 
vas at one time a Christian, but afterwards renounced 
he faith and paid worship to the heathen powers, 
\fter this same battle the Scandinavians in Ireland 
)egan to adopt the new religion in earnest, and in the 
lext generation bishoprics were founded in the Norse 
rities there.^ 

I have given reasons for my opinion that the Helgi- 
x>et lived for a time at the court of the Scandinavian 

* See Stccnstrup, Normannerne, ill, 172 ; cf. Zimmcr, GotL Gel. Anz.y 
1S91 (No. 5), p. 184. 

D 



50 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

King Sigtrygg at Dublin early in the eleventh century. 
Ol^f Kvaran, father of Sigtrygg, and son-in-law of the 
Scottish king, ruled both at Dublin and in Northumber- 
land, and made an expedition into the heart of England. 
It is, therefore, natural that a Norse poet at Sigtrygg's 
court should show traces of having been influenced by 
both English and Irish poetry. 



The Fikst Hkl(;i-Lay and the Irish Tale of 
THE Destruction of Troy. 

'■ From what precedes we have learned something of 
the relations of the author of the First Helgi-Iay to 
Irish literature. His lay Is by no means a translation 
of Irish stories, nor is it even a free working-over which 
follows Irish models step by step. Taking as a basis 
Germanic heroic saga-material, already treated in older 
lays, the Norse poet created an altogether new and 
original poem about the careers of certain Scandinavian 
personages, especially the hero Helgi Hundingsbani, 
— a poem in which Norse ideas and Norse views of 
life are definitely expressed. The preponderating in- 
fluence in forming his style and mode of presentation, 
and the decisive factor in determining the poetical 
form of his lay, were the older Scandinavian heroic and 
mythical poems, especially the lays on the V^lsungs, 
Niflungs, and Buthlungs, but, above all, the older lays 
of Helgi Hundingsbani. 

All these poems had themselves been subjected to 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 51 

much foreign influence. But the First Helgi-lay, with 
regard particularly to certain sections and motives 
in the action, with regard also to its development 
and scope, and to some extent its proper names, 
contains additional foreign elements. Some of these 
elements are Irish; and the Irish influence on the 
poetic phraseology has also become stronger than in 
the older poems. The foreign features, however, are 
all grouped about personages belonging to the Scandi- 
navian Helgi-cycle. The action takes place in and 
about Denmark, or, at any rate, in places the names of 
which did not sound strange to the Scandinavian ear.^ 

More light will, I hope, be thrown upon the literary p. 57- 
relations just defined by my pointing out that another 
Irish story has been made use of in the Helgi-lay. 

There are several Irish narratives of the Destruction 
of Troy, all more or less related to one another. The 
oldest known version is that found in the Book of 
Leinster, a MS. of about the middle of the twelfth cen- 
tury.- Part of another version, closely related to the 
first, though not drawn from it, is preserved in a MS. of 
the fourteenth century or the beginning of the fifteenth.^ 

' It is instructive at this point to compare the influence of Roman litera- 
ture on Irish literature. The Old Irish imrama, or tales of sea-voyages, 
such, e.g.f as that in which Matlduin is the central figure, arc, as Zimmer 
has shovra, in great part composed with Virgil's ^fteid as a model, 
although the events narrated are ascribed to Irish characters, and domestic 
saga-material is used. See Zimmer in Ztsch, f, d, AIL, xxxiii, 328 fT. 

' The Book of Leinster (Dublin, 1880), fol. 2i7a-244b, and Togail Troi. 
The Destrtution of Troy, transcribed , . . and translated » . , by Whitley 
Stohes, Calcutta, 1 88 1. 

3 In MS. H. 2, 17, Trinity College, Dublin. Edited, with translation, 
by Whitley Stokes in Irische Texte, II (Heft l), Leipzig, 1884, pp. 1-142. 
Fragments of the same version in a record of the sixteenth centur}' in the 
V^ioV of Leinster. Cf. Zimmer, Gott, Gel. Anz., 1890, No. 12, p. 501. 



53 HOME OF THE ED DIG POEMS 

The chief source of the Irish Destruction of Troy is 
the Historia de Excidio Trojae of Dares Phrygius ; ^ but 
the original is treated very freely and much extended. 
The Irish author has embodied in his work many 
features, some of which he took from other Latin 
writings and from Irish tales, others which he himself 
invented in accordance with Irish ideas. The narra- 
tive style, with its richness of phraseolc^y {e^. in the 
descriptions of battle, sailing,- equipments, etc), and 
numerous alliterative epithets, is the same as that used 
in contemporary Irish accounts of domestic affairs in 
Ireland at that time. 

The story begins by telling of Saturn, his sons and 
descendants. Among them was Ilus, who first built 
Troy, and his son Laomedon. It then goes on to speak 
of Jason and the expedition of the Argonauts, in which 
Hercules took part Laomedon offended the Argonauts 
by chasing them away from the harbour of Troy. In 
the next section Hercules is the leading figure. In 
order to revenge the dishonour which the Argonauts 
had suffered, he collects an army and ships from the 
SB. whole of Greece, and sets sail with his fleet to Troy. 
He is victorious, kills Laomedon, and destroys the city. 
Then follows the main part of the story, an account of 
the second destruction of Troy in the reign of Priam. 

In my opinion, the Irish version was known by the 
author of the First Helgi-lay, who borrowed, particularly 
from the section which deals with the Trojan expedition 
of Hercules, a number of motives, expressions, and ( 
names, which he used especially in the last part of his 

* On this work cf. my Stitdien iiber die Efttstehung der NonUulun 
Goiter' «. ffeldemagen-, see Index, p. 585 (Norw. ed., p. 567). 



I 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 53 

account of Helgi's war with H9thbrodd. The story of 
the Hercules expedition was thus used together with 
the similar story of the Scandinavian reinforcements in 
the Battle of Ross na Rfg. 

The story of Hercules, like that of the Battle of Ross 
na Rfg, resembles the Helgi-poem in its general fea- 
tures. Hercules, wishing to revenge the wrong done 
him by the Trojans, goes about to the various parts of 
Greece to assemble troops to aid him, and when ready, 
sends out messengers bidding them come to the place 
where he himself is. The great fleet assembles and 
sails out among the islands of the sea. Aided by a 
favourable wind, the ships soon reach the harbour of 
Sigeum. When Laomedon learns that a hostile fleet 
has anchored there, he hastens to the harbour, and 
makes an attack on the Greeks. But Hercules had 
meanwhile marched with half his army by another 
route to Troy. In Laomedon s absence they storm the 
city, and, after securing great booty, commit it to the 
flames. Then they make their way to the ships. 
Laomedon, learning of the destruction of his city, 
turns back to attack Hercules and his men. There 
ensues a battle, which is described at length in glowing 
colours. It results in the complete defeat of the 
Trojans and the fall of Laomedon by the hand of 
Hercules. The latter then divides the booty, and 
gives Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, to Telamon. p. 5< 
Hercules and his allies return to their several homes. 
All are friendly to Hercules when they separate. 

It is worth noting, as regards the general situation, 
that, while in the story of Ross na Rig the fleet lands 
in three divisions among friends, Helgi's fleet, on the 




contrat 
agrees n^ 
with the 
united to 

In the I 



:s in a single body to a hostile land : this 
ily with the older Helgi-story, but a!so 
>- of Hercules, whose fleet also comes 
and of his enemies. 

ving ^.i ' " details I follow prin- 

[rish story, that in the 
,y call A. The later 
nted in Irische Texle, 
rs are those of Stokes, 
:ules : 'When he had 
ness and promptitude, 
s and princes, to the 



cipally the c 
Book of Lemsie 
version in the M.i. wnici 
we may call B, The line 

In A 527 ff, we read 
all things in readiness ariu 
he sent messengers to the 1 

chieftains and champions, who tiad proposed with him 
to go on the journey. When notices and messages 
had reached them, they came at the call of Hercules. 
. . . When they had all arrived at one stead, they took 
counsel.' 

In comparing with this certain strophes of the Helgi- 
lay, we must look at the matter as a whole. 1 do not 
imply that these strophes can (strictly speaking) prove 
that the Norse poet knew the Irish story ; and we must 
also bear in mind the relations already pointed out 
between the poem and the Battle of Ross na Rig. 
H. H., r, 21-22, reads : 'Thereupon the king sent mes- 
sengers , . . over the sea to beg for help, and to offer 
the chieftains and their sons abundance of gold. " Bid 
them go quickly to their ships and be ready at{?) 
Brandey." There the king waited until the men came 
thither (?) in hundreds from Hethinsey.'' 

' H. 11.. l,21,i(«ifi<irM, and A i,7.-],rofmd techta, l)olh mean the same 
thing ; 'sent messengers.' With the O.N. brggnum oklmruni fttira, 'to 
chieflains and their sons.' cf. the Iiish coma rlpi ocus cestia Hgdamna, 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 55 

Farther on in the Helgi-poem, we read that twelve p. 60. 
hundred men have sailed into Qrvasund (l, 25), and 
after the arrival of the fleet in the land of their enemies, 
we learn that there are seven thousand out in the fjord, 
while fifteen companies^ have landed (l, 50). 

This way of giving the number of ships and of the 
crew of great fleets seems to have come into Old Norse 
poems partly from foreign literature, partly from a 
knowledge of the large western fleets.* According to 
the Irish story, the ships of Hercules and his allies 
numbered 106. There were 1222 ships (A 1207) in 
the Greek fleet which set out in the second expedition 
against Troy. In B 135, we read: 'The kings, who 
had promised, came unto him with thousands and hosts 
and armies/^ 

A 528, * to kings and princes.* With skjStliga^ 'quickly,* II. II., I, 22, 
cf. i n-Hmtf *in quickness,' A517 ; with biinat 'ready,* cf. i n-ttrlaimi^ 
* in readiness,' etc 

1 There seems to be a connection between the ' fifteen companies (////&) * 
in H. H. and the expression * qnittdena simul vexilla micantia vidi,* in 
a verse in the saga of Frotho in Saxo (ed. Mliller, v, p. 237). On the 
contrary, I do not dare to suggest any connection with the statement of 
Dares Phrygius (chap. 3) that the fleet of Hercules consisted of fifteen 
ships, since the Irish account says that the ships of Hercules and his allies 
were 106 in number. 

' Cf. A. Olrik, Sakses Oldhist.^ II, 249: *To this tendency to make 
modem by fulness of description (in the story of Hagbarthus in Saxo), 
belongs also . . . the statement of the number of the fleet of the sons of 
Sigar. The numbering of ships occurs elsewhere only in the O.N. sagas 
in Saxo.* 

' When Helgi's fleet assembles, the king announces that 1200 faithful 
men have come sailing in into Qrvasund, but that twice as many are 
/ Hdtilnum (H. H., I, 25). It is from this scene that the name was, in 
my r>pinion» carried over to I, 8, where Hdtiin is named among the places 
which the father gives his new-born son (just as, directly after, Ilimiu- 
raw^-a was carried over from the scene in I, 15). Finn Magnusen tliinks 



56 



WE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



i 



p- *i. The s 

not in }■ 
galleys 
Tyrrhene 
furrowed, 
undivine i 

Here I 
for 'shij ariu 
resembles the /an^i 
I, 24, 'the long-beaked 
Here also we have the a 
is a loan-word from O.Is 



ig is described only in the Book of Leinster, 
In A 535, it runs thus: 'Those ships and ■ 
e then set on the strong, heavy-stormediB 
;a and on the blue deep main, and on them 
r\^-^A^A ;,-u.„j ^„,jjjj,y, Qj- their uneternal. 



na Rig), the expression 
oii^a oats ua laidenga, 
und lifSundum in H. H„ 

with seamen aboard.' 
ion on /. Irish laidtng 
ngr, ' a levy of ships for 



war,' which is related to Hbendr, ' seamen.' 

The Norse poet introduces Rdn and vEgir's daughters, 
dwellers in the sea. The Irish narrator names 
Neptune. The expressions which he uses to describe 
the sea might well have been models for O.N, ken- 



HAtun, H&tiSnir, the same as Tuhi, a district by the Kjt^e Bajr in Zea- 
land. This explanation seems to mc improl)al)le, since il docs not eiplain 
the initial kA. I suggest the following eiplaration as another possibililf : 

In the Irish Destruction of Troy the Greek Heet, which in Priatn's time 
is to set out against Troy, is assembled in the harbour of Athens, A IIIO : 
(e airirphoTl na halhainc {K Alkatne), 'to the harbour of Athens'; 
A 1160, la airtrphort na hathaim, 'at the haven of Athens.' 'One 
could,' we read, 'see the sea Riled with ships, when one stood on the 
beautiful htighls of Athens ' {/vr arddaib imatbda na hathaim, A 1 146). 
The name Hitiiii, 'high-lying town,' may be a Noise notking-over of 
that name. In Ilym. 19, we lind hiSliSn, 'high-lying enclosed place,' 
used as an appellative. 

If ff4fila in H. H., I, 25, be another name for Athens, //J/iia in 
II. II., I, 8, may have been mentioned among the places which Sigmund 
gave his son, because the Wolfdietrich poem which influenced the 
poet, may have memioned Athens among the places given to Wolfdielrich 
by his father ; for Athens occurs in several German Wolfdielrich poems 
as a city ruled by Hugdielrich. Cf. p. 8q (roaigin). 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 57 

nings.* But the Norse poet followed the Irish account 
of the Scandinavian reinforcements in making the 
fleet encounter a violent storm, while Hercules had all 
the way a favourable wind. 

In A 538 f, we read: 'They sailed and they rowed 
unweariedly and untiredly.' Likewise in H. H., I, 26-27 • 
' The chieftains hoisted the sails to the masts, . . . the 
vikings rowed ; the king's fleet with the nobles on 
board went whizzing from the land.' 

After the storm Helgi's ships lay in the evening 
together in a bay by the sea-shore (H. H., I, 31). The 
fleet of Hercules anchored /// the night in the harbour 
of Sigeum. Hercules marched with half of the army 
against Troy, whilst the second division, under Castor, 
Pollux, and Nestor, remained by the ships. When p. 62. 
Laomedon was told that a Greek fleet had anchored at 
Sigeum he was very angry, and set out immediately 
against his enemies. In the Norse, HQthbrodd also was 
informed that a hostile fleet had come. * Fifteen com- 
panies went up on land, but seven thousand were still 
out in the fjord.' Thus, here too the army was divided 
into two parts, of which one remained by the ships. 

The words which I have translated ' out in the fjord ' 
read in H. H., I, 50: — 

er i Sogn tit 
sj'au piisundir. 

Here Sogn must mean a fjord or a harbour.^ There is 

* Cf. * Neptune's land * (//r Ncptuin) with * Ran's land * {land Kanar), 
• the lilue land * {ferand forglas\ with bh\m(xrr^ used by Eyvind Skalda- 
"j'illir. Biaamyra, * the blue mire,* is, however, still used in Norway. 

- In lWsN»i,'asai^a we read : vi9 ey pa, er Sok hcitir^ where the wt)rd 
Soy: is altered, and ey shows that the passage was misunderstootl. 



I 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

icate that the word as an appellative had 

J in ordinary prose at the time when the ] 

Tiposed, although Sogrt, used in Nor- 

me of a fjord, rivers, and farmsteads, 

. ' ~ ' ■ "' ' i is related with sog, i 

ogn in the announce- j 

been used for some 



t is said: 'Thereafter 
ist of Greeks had seized 
of Leinster has here 
)laces the form Stgi; 



such a n 
poem V, 
way as 

'suction, sti 

ment to 
particular reason. 

In the Irish story (E 
Laomedonwas told that : 
the port of Sigeum.' T 
I purl S^gi, and in two otn 
while B has twice (140, 144) Svgei. This was its form, 
as I suppose, in the Irish MS. from which, directly or 
indirectly, the Helgi-poet learned to know the stor>-. 
Dares Phrygius has : ' Laomedonti regi nuntiatum est 
classem Graecorum ad Sigeum accessisse.' The Norse 
poet introduces regularly native, or apparently native, 
names for the foreign ones before him. For the port 
Sygci, 'the harbour of Sigeum,' in the Irish there wa.s 
no native name nearer than the adjective sygnskr, and 
Sygnir, ' the people by the Sogncfjord,' which comes 
from Sog7i} It was for this reason, in my opinion, that 
the Norse poet let the announcement be given that 
Helgi's ships lay out / Sogti, ' on the Sogncfjord,' the 
63. expression being modelled after /sr/ Syget, 'the har- 
bour of Sigeum,' where, as it was reported to Laomedon, 
the Greek fleet had anchored. 

When Hothbrodd learned of the coming of his 1 
enemies, he sent out riders to summon help. To the 

' Pontius (PilaleJ becomes in O.N. ena Poiiivirski % Ihe Irish imi Ort ' 
becomes O. N. Orkit^jar, where « is added. I 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 59 

strophe of the Helgi-lay which tell of this, the Irish 
account of Laomedon afTords no parallel. On the other 
hand, the latter, before telling how Hercules sent out 
messengers to induce his allies to come to him in haste, 
says that he himself went about in Greece to get 
promises of help ; but the Helgi-lay reports nothing 
similar of Helgi. 

But even here the Norse poem seems to show con- 
nection with the Irish tale ; for the strophes which tell 
how Hgthbrodd sought help appear to have been 
influenced by the Irish account of how Hercules sought 
help. We read of H9thbrodd in H. H., I, 5 1 : 

Renni raukn bitlii^ 
til regifi]>inga. 

* Let bitted trotters ^ run to the great meetings.' The 
word reginj}inga is used to denote the meeting-places 
frequented by many men. Then follows : 

en Sporvitnir 
at Sparinshe^i, 

* (The steed) Sporvitnir (/>. * the animal which is 
spurred ') to Sparin's heath.' ^ No satisfactory explana- 
tion of this place has hitherto been given. The Irish 
tale of Hercules seems, however, to throw light on it. 

A 474, reads : * Then he went to beseech the kings and p. 64 
the captains and the champions to go with him to 

* Riders are not named in connection with Hercules. On the contrary, 
we read of laomedon : cum equestri copia ad mare venit et coepit proeliari ' 
(Dares, ch. 3). The extant Irish versions, however, do not mention riders, 
!i;it only tr«^K>ps in general. 

* Cf. Grant rann at fyintri^ Guthr., II, 4; nu\ sej^'r . . . at Sii^^tri^ 
. . . hefssi til things ntSit, Seem. Edda, p. 24 1 . 



6o 



E OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



avenge ■ he Trojans his sigh and his groan.' He 
went firs the kings of Sparta {co Hgv Sfiarfe^). In 
Sparius . r I sec a Norse working-over of Sparta. 
The Norse name was formed in its first part to resemble 



n the same poem ; and 
amiliar native look and 

ercules goes for help is 
Sparta, which in the 
with Hercules, became 
ch was named in con- 
here we have another 
read : corrlg 



irinsfJQr^r anc 
an attempt w 
sound to the lor 

The second place to 
Salaiiiis. We have sec 
Irish tale is named in cor 
in the O.N. poem a plac 
nection with Hothbrodd, i 
example of the same thing. 

Salaiiiii/ta, 'to the king of Salamana," in A 489 Sala 

iiiona, in R 8[ in the Accus. Salamiam, in B 90, 94, in 

the Gen. Salamiae, in Dares Salaminam. Now the 

place in which Hothbrodd is when the messengers bear | 

him the ill news of Helgi's coming, is called SdUteimar , 

(see H. H., I, 47). In my opinion this is a Norse 

nodification of Salamona, or rather Salaimiia. This 

odification was due to the fact that SSllieimar as the 

me of a place was familiar in both Norway and 

:eland. The name of the foreign city could have \ 

' A 477. 'Sfartam ad Castorem el I'ollucem venit' (Daies, ch. 3). 
* In Layamon's Bntl (cd. Madden, 1, p. 26) we rend : 
fit Mug (Paniiraim] sendi nra ividi 
I nun Ictle kis richc, 

I i: keihie euhic men i 

Jit mikle ridttt o}?tr gan 
ta jyatu laslle of Sparatin {594 IT). 
Sfai-imi in SparinsheiSr might be thought of as lelaled to sfara is 
MuHt'nn lo miiiia, or as Huginn to hygg;a, kiigaf. Therefore, the poet 
•n»y possibly have conceived of Sparimhti^r t.% ' ihc heath sparsrly 
settled.' As to the grammatical form, cf. Figintbrtika. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 6i 

become by popular etymologfy the name of a place p. 65. 
whose second part was the A.S. hdmy corresponding to 
the O.N. fuimr^ * a home, a dwelling-place.'^ Salamina 
is the name of Telamon's royal abode ; that of King 
Hothbrodd is called SSlheimar} 

Directly after having named the places to which the 
messengers are to ride with all speed to get help, 
Hothbrodd says (I, 51): 

Idii^ engi mann 
eptir sitja 
}>€ira er benlogum 
bre^Sa kunnu 

* Let no man sit at home who knows how to swing 

* Cf. O.N. /<riJr«OTr=M.H.G. poder&m from hippodromus. In the 
Grettissaga^ p. 203, porsteinn appears instead of Tristan. As regards the 
k in Solheima^ cf. on the one hand Trollhanta from Triduana^ and note on 
the other that A.S. hdm and O.N. heimr as the second clement of a word 
may lose their h. The vowels in the first syllable presented no aljsolutc hin- 
drance in the way of the modification, for in the first place Snorri connects 
(incorrectly) S6leyjar with S2lvt^ and further, as I have previously pointed 
out, c)5r is a modification of Adon, See my remarks in Forhandlingcr 
faa dit andet nordtske Filologm^e, p. 326, where I have also given several 
examples of the change oi a in foreign names to O.N. J. 

' Hercules goes, in the third place, * to the prince and emperor of 
Moesidia {i.e. Magnesia?),' co rurich ocus imper MoesidhuCy B 96. (The 
name of the place has fallen out in A ; Dares has : ad Phthiam. ) In 
H. H., I, 51, after Hothbrodd has given commands for one steed and 
rider to run to Sparinsheifir, he continues by naming two steeds : MtHftir 
{i.e. the steed with the bit) and AIflnir{i.e. the steed with the halter) who 
are to ride */// Myrkviikir* (i.e. to Mirk-wood). This AfyrkvifSar may 
I>»SNibly be a Norse modification of Moesidhiic ; but I hesitate to say so 
definitely. At any rate, the word is so inclusive and indefinite that 
Miillenhoffwas wrong in saying (Z/jrA./.</.>4//., N. F., xi, 170) : *Myrcvi^'r 
bow cist dass auch die ** siidliche " Sigrun hier als eine deutschc j;cmciiU 
i:nd 711 nehmcn ist.* This supposed proof is no proof, for, as may be 
been in Frilziier's dictionary, myrkvi^r^tzs used as an appellative, and the 
word occurs as the name of a place in both Norway and Sweden. 



62 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

swords.' This is modelled after Telamon's words to 
*■ Hercules in the Irish story, when the latter came to the 
former for aid. In B 90 we read; ' With us . , . shall 
go the inhabitants of Salamia, whoso shoU take spear in 
his liantl and is fit to know how to wield weapons! In 
A 490 ff, the passage runs thus : ' 1 will go with thee 
and the dwellers of Salamona both old and young, 
whosoever is fit to take arms and is daring to cany 
weapons.' 

The sending out of the messengers in the Helgi- 
lay is immediately followed by the description of the 
battle in which Hothbrodd falls. In my opinion this 
account was influenced to some extent by the detailed 
pictorial description of the battle between Hercules and 
Laomedon in version A of the Irish story. 
I There Hercules in the heat of battle is thus described : 
(A 599 AT): 'Then came the rage and the might and 
the great wrath of the soldier Hercules, and his bird of 
valour rose over his breath and kept flying round his /lead, 
and he made a savage rush (?) at the Trojans, like the 
outburst of a Rood, or like a flash of lightning." • This 
representation of the battle-bird occurs also in Irish 
traditional tales, and is connected with the belief that 
the war-goddess or war-fury Morrigan appears as a 
bird,* In the description of the battle before Troy in 
Priam's time, the Irish tale has united both ideas: 
' their birds of valour ascended over their breaths . . . 
white broad-mouthed battle-goddesses rose over their 
heads.' ^ 

' We read of Achilles also when in Ihe battle (A 2033) : ' His bird of 
valour rose up until it was flying over his head.' 
' See Hennessy in Km. Ctll., 1, 3a-57- 
= AlrachlaSar badba bdna bilUthna esa reniiaih, A 1706-1708- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 63 

Instead of these wild Irish conceptions, the Helgi- 
*t inserted the nobler pictures of the battle-maidens 
ning armed from the heavens, when the battle was in 
^ess, to protect Helgi, and strike down his opponents, p. 67. 
e Irish 'bird of valour' became *a flying wound- 
jht ' {sdrvitr fluga^ I, 54). 

The Irish story concludes one section with the account 
Laomedon's fall and the defeat of the Trojans. In 
687 flF, we read : * Thereafter they {i.e. the Greeks) 
umed to their own country, and each of them bids 
ewell to the other, and all separate in peace and 
ddwill from Hercules. Finit' Then begins certain 
ronological statements on entirely different matters, 
the other version (B 170), the passage runs as 
lows : • So when all that came to an end, each leader 
them went to his land with victory and triumph.' 
The conclusion of the Helgi-lay represents Sigriin, 
*lgi's victory-genius, as congratulating him on his 
:tory and on the fall of Hgthbrodd. The last line is : 
\ er sSkn lokit, * then is the fight over.* ^ This may be 
mpared with the closing word Finit in version A, or 
th the words * when all that came to an end * in 
rsion B. 

Though the author of the First Helgi-lay knew older 
Tses which told of Helgi's fate after HQthbrodd's 
11, he nevertheless brought his poem to an end at this 
)int, being influenced, as I believe, by the fact that 
e Irish story closed with the account of the defeat of 
c Trojans and the fall of Laomedon. He has thus 
ven us a well-rounded poem with a very effective 

* This line certainly belonged originally to the poem, for it was imitated 
/li var iokn lokit (Fms., VII, 49) in a verse by Gisli lUugason. 



64 HOME" OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

ending. We see the hero in the closing scene radiant 
witii the glow of victory. 

The last section of the Irish story, which deals with 
the expedition of the Greeks against Troy when Priam 
was king, seems to have had no definite influence on 
the Helgi-lay.' 
8. Zimmer has shown that the story of the Destruction 
of Troy belonged, as early as the close of the tenth 
century, to the repertory of Irish story-tellers.- Stokes 
remarks that the Annals of the Four Masters mention 
a man named Darici the Learned, who died in 948,* 
and Zimmer notes that the Ulster annals call a certain 
hero, who fell in 942, the Hector of tlic western world. 
Moreover, according to Zimmer, the Destruction of 
Troy in the Book of Leinster may go back to the 
beginning of the eleventh century. 

My supposition, that the Norse poet, about 1020-1035, 
learned to know the Destruction of Troy in Ireland, 
most probably in Dublin, agrees therefore completely 

' Yd it b perhaps possible Ihal what the messenj^is of Priam lell the 
king regarding the Gicck fleet which has asscmlikd and put to sea igainsl 
him, as well as the desciiplion of ihe Hcct sailing towards Troy, which tbc 
i. Irish author expands and piints in glowing colours, may, in conoeclico 
with other similar Irish tales, have influenced the Norse poet when he de- 
scribed Helgi's fleet, which assembled and put to sea in like manner, anl 
when he made Granmar's sons bring to Hnthbiodd inrormalion of Itac { 
coming of the enemy, — Cf. l.ff., brimd^ btdsvgrty H. H., I, 50, ' Hoe- 
black surf-deer,' with tiiithi . , . degdiiha, A t}40, ' bright-black ships.' 
In IL H., I, 23, I surest beii sv^rl, 'black ships,' as a better reading. 
In A 1402 the ships have applied 10 them (among others) the adjediics 
'blue, glittering.' In A 1401 Ihey are said to be 'arrayed with 
shields' ; cf. II. H., i, a; r Aral/ rgnd m'tf r^iui, 'shield crashed against 
shield.' 

» Ciiit. Gel Atis., tggo (No. 13), p. 500 f. 

' See prelace to Togail Troi. 



AUTHOR OF FIRST LAY 65 

ith all that Irish literary history has to tell us of the 
story of this document. 

It appears, then, that the author of the First Helgi- 
y was a literary, and, so far *as the times and the 
rcumstances of his life allowed, what we may call a 
amed man. He was evidently a poet by profession, 
^e have every reason to believe that he either wrote 
3wn his poem himself or dictated it to a scribe. 

Nor do I now see any reason for denying that the p. ^• 
jcm, as it lies before us in the Edda collection, goes 
ack through many intermediaries to a form arranged 
y the author himself. In my opinion it is not necessary 
) suppose — it is even improbable — that the poem as 
e have it was written down in Iceland after the oral 
indering of a poem which had earlier been preserved 
tfy in the memory of reciters. True, the text contains 

number of corruptions, and several lines have fallen 
ut ; but these defects can be easily explained by the 
laccuracy of the scribes. Taken as a whole, the poem 
ppears to have been completely preserved, and no 
iterpolation of any length is manifest. 

By a comparison of the Norse lay with the Irish 
tory of the Battle of Ross na Rfg, by which the 
lorse poet was influenced, we see the difference, which 
ammer has pointed out, between the Celtic and the 
rcrmanic poetic style and mode of literary presenta- 
ion. The Irish records of traditional heroic saga take 
he form of prose stories interspersed with verses of 
lyric or dramatic character. The Norse poet, on 
he contrary, treats his subject in the rhythms of the 
leroic lay. 

E 



} 



66 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

A Norwegiao in Norway would scarcely have intro- 
duced the Sogne^ord among places unknown in Nor- 
way, such as Moinsheimar and Sparinske^r. The 
author of the Helgi-lay, however, may well have done 
so, for he lived in the west, far from Norway. Yet 
this name seems to be a reminiscence of the poet's 
native land, for there is another name in his poem 
which makes it highly probable that he was bom in 
the western part of Norway, and that in his early da)'s 
he himself knew the Sognefjord. In St. 39, SinfJ9tli 
says to Sigmund : ' Together we got at Sdga-ness {d nesi 
Sd^t) nine children, who were wolves.' This name 
recurs in the name of a country-seat, Saagiics (pro- 
nounced Saones or Sanes), in the west of Norway.* 
The older written forms of this name, which Professor 
Rygh has kindly noted for me, are: saaghontss, Bj. 
Kalfsk., 2Sb, sug/iorws, Bj. Kalfsk., 52b.- I may add 
that in western Norway there still exist places with the 
names Soieim (cf. H. H., I, 47, SSlkeitna tif), ArasUinn 
(cf. H. H., I, 14), and }>^rsnes (cf. H. H., I, 40).> 

> Gaaid-Nr. g| in B^ Sogn, Ilytleslad Pnestegj^ld, near the Sognesf, 
Nordic Bergen hus Amt. 

' So in MS., not taghmus hs in the edition. Sanenei in an addition to 
the Cedix Diplem. MonaitiHi Manra/ivensis of the sixteenth century tn 
D. N., XII, 313, is doubtless a mistake for Sauirus. Saffms in 1563; 
Sagpms in 1603 ; Sogitu! in 161 1. 

' ilj/ej'm— country- seals ore so-called in Dale Sogn, Vtre Holmedil 
Hened, Nordre Beigenhus Amt (Malr. Gaard-Nr. 96); La\-ik (Gaard- 
Nr. 9) in Vite Sogn ; Aarstad Sogn (Matr. Gaaid-Nr. 7) in Nordhordtand. 
— Armlrin, a country-seat in Ylre Holmedal (Gaard-Nr. 34) ; cf, O. 
Rygh, Treiidhjemiki Gaardnavm, II, 159 f.— /tStjikj is well known as a 
place-name in the district of Beigen. It occurs, as Professor Rygh informs 
me, in Balestrand, Sogn, and in Jondal, Haidangei.— That the uncommon 
word ei!a'uU{\\. H., I, 17) was used in S<^ in western Norway we see 
from the name of the river Eisand in the district of Borgund. 



STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 67 



VII 

The Relation of the First Helgi-Lay to the 

WOLFDIETRICH STORY. 

Various High-German poets celebrate Wolfdietrich, 
the son of Huge Dietrich (or Hugdietrich). Miillenhoff 
has tried to prove ^ that this legendary hero had his his- 
torical prototype in the Merovingian King Theodebert 
(f 547), son of Theodoric (f 534). Theodoric is referred 
to in the Quedlinburg Annals ^ of the beginning of the P- 71. 
eleventh century as ^ Hugo Theodoricus^ , . . id est 
FrancuSy quia olim omnes Franci Hugones vvcabantur 
a suo quodam duce Hugone* Widukind (the second 
half of the tenth century) says (l, 9) that Thiadricus 
was the son of Huga. The so-called Poeta Saxo (about 
890) testifies (v. 1 19) that this Theodoric was the sub- 
ject of songs {Theodricos . . . canunt). There can be 
no doubt that the Huge Dietrich of poetic saga got 
his name Huge from the Prankish Theodoric. This 
name must have been applied to him in some Prankish ' 
form of the heroic poem. But originally he was, I 
suppose, intended to represent the East-Gothic Theo- 
doric ; and the poem, which in its oldest form must have 
been Gothic, originally treated of his birth and his early 
life in the Balkan peninsula.* The Wolfdietrich-saga 
is now chiefly known to us from several High-German 

1 See Ztsch.f, d. Alt.y vi, 435.460. 
' Mon, Germ.f SS, III, 31. 

* I hope to give my reasons for this opinion at another time. Cf. W. 
Muller, MythoL d, d, Heidensagf, pp. 202 flf. 



STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 69 

D is in the Alemannian dialect, and was written in 
northern Swabia immediately after 1280. 

All these versions of the Wolfdietrich-story are com- 
posed in a modified form of the Nibelungen strophe. 
They are not much affected by * courtly ' art, but have 
many of the special features of popular poetry.^ These 
German versions were influenced by French epic poetry.^ 
The Middle-High-German poem Rother adopted some 
motives from the Wolfdietrich-story. 

The main contents of this story (of which versions A 
and B concern us most) are as follows: Wolfdietrich 
was the son of the Greek King Hugdietrich.^ When 
a new-born infant he was found uninjured among a 
number of wolves, — hence his name. He grew up 
under the care of the old and faithful Berchtung von 
Meran. On the death of his father, the kingdom was 
divided among the king's sons ; but Wolfdietrich was 
at once repudiated by his brothers, who were unwilling 
to recognise him as their father's legitimate son, and his 
faithful followers were imprisoned. This was brought 
about, according to A, by the faithless Sabene. Wolf- 
dietrich then set out for foreign lands and had many 
adventures, among others one with a mermaid. He 
killed a serpent which had caused King Ortnit's 
death, and married the latter's widow. Long after- 
wards he returned from his wanderings, freed his 
men, imprisoned his brothers, and recovered his 

^ Cr., besides the edition, F. Vogt in Paul's Grundriss, and E. II. 
Meyer in Z/sch. f, d. Alt., xxxvin, 65-95. 
* See Ileinzc], Ostgof. Hc/dcfisarre^ pp. 77-82. 
^ Son of Trippell, according to C. 



70 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

There were also Low-German poems, now !ost, about 
■3. this same hero. As I have elsewhere* pointed out, 
the Danish ballad of Gralver (Grundtvig, No. 29), i.e. 
Grdulfr or Granuol, i.e. grdnulf, is based on a Low- 
German poem tpresumably of the thirteenth century) 
which told how a serpent was killed by 'Graywolf' 
{i.e. Wolfdietrich), 

A church door, which cannot be older than 1180- 
1 190, from Valjjj6fssta6ir in the eastern part of Iceland, 
has carvings which represent a knight conquering a 
dragon, and thereby freeing a lion. This knight is 
evidently Wolfdietrich ; for in the accompanying runic in- 
scription he is designated as ' King of the Greeks.' This 
Icelandic story had also, doubtless, a North-German 
source. We have the same account in the ptTSn'As- 
mfig'a, which here follows a Low-German authority, and 
Hn a Danish ballad about Diedrich of Bern. 
V The Anglo-Saxons also knew the stories of the 
VFrankish Theodoric, for in the poem Wtdsl^, which 
f refers to a great many heroic sagas, and contains 
reminiscences of events of the sixth century and earlier, 
we read (1. 24); ' Theodric ruled over the Franks.' 
Among those whom the minstrel visited at the court of 
'Eormanric, he mentions (1. 115) Seafola and Theodric; 
but Seafola is certainly, as MullenhofT has pointed out, 
the same person as the faithless Sabene in Wolf- 
dietrich A. The stories of this Theodoric, who 
corresponds to Wolfdietrich, and of Seafola, must have 
come to the English from the Franks. 

This saga of the West-Germanic Franks was also 

' la A riiv for turd. Pilot., xn, 1-29. 



STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 71 

inherited by the French. Heinzel has proved ^ that a 
French chanson de geste^ ^ P arise la duchesse^^ preserved 
in a MS. of the thirteenth century, shows great similarity 
to Wolfdietrich, not only in separate features and names, 
but also in the whole course of the story. In general, 
the French poem resembles most the German redaction 
A, as, for example, in the feature that the hero's mother 
is slandered and obliged to leave the land. In certain p. 74- 
features, however, the French poem is closer to B ; we 
read, for example, in both that the child had a cross on 
the right shoulder. 

It has not hitherto been noticed that the Frankish 
Wolfdietrich-story, doubtless in the form in which it 
was known by the English, also exerted some influence 
on an Irish story. I refer to the story of Connads Births 
preserved in the Book of Bally mote, an Irish MS. of the 
end of the fourteenth century.^ The main features are 
as follows: King Art, son of Conn of the Hundred 
Battles, comes, the night before his death, to the house 
of the smith Olc Acha, and sleeps with Etan, the 
latter s daughter. He tells her that she shall bear him 
a son who shall become King of Ireland, and he in- 
structs her how she is to act in regard to the child. In 
the morning he takes his leave, bidding her carry her 

1 Vbcr die ostgothische HelcUnsage, pp. 68 f, 78. 

' Ed. by Martonne, in 1836, and by Guessard and Larchcy, in i860; 
see Paulin Paris in Hist, Litt,^ xxil, 659-667. 

• This MS. has been jniblishcd in facsimile. Ballymote lies in Sligo in 
Connaught The tale is edited by Standish H. O'Grady in Silva GadcUca 
Tixii, pp. 253-256 ; trans, pp. 286-289 ; cf. p. xi. Kuno Meyer (in 
A'ez'. Celt., xiv, 332) gives a number of corrections based on a new 
examination of the MS. Whitley Stokes informs me that *The Yellow 
Book of I^can ' contains a copy of the same piece. 



73 HOME OF THE EDDIC fOEMS 

son, whom she is to call Cormac, to his (Art's) friend 
Lugna in Corann in Connaught, to be brought up by 
him. That same day King Art falls, as he had foretold, 
in a battle against Lugaid mac Con. 

When Etan feels that her time is at hand, she sets 
out to go to Lugna ; but on the way gives birth to her 
child in a forest Lugna hears a sound as of thunder 
in the air when Cormac is born. He then utters a 
poem on the child's coming greatness, saying : ' Now is 
born the son of the true prince, Cormac the son of 
Art,' and at once goes in search of him. 

The mother falls asleep after being delivered. The 
maid who accompanies her also falls asleep, and a she- 
wolf then comes and bears the infant unnoticed to her 
P- 75- cave. The mother laments when she wakes and does 
not find her child, Lugna soon comes to her, and she 
^ accompanies him home. 

^^ Lugna offers a reward to the finder of the babe. 

^V Grec mac Arod, wandering one day in the forest, comes 
^m upon the wolFs cave, and sees the little boy moving 
W about on all-fours among the young wolves. He tells 
' this to Lugna, who returns with him to the place and 

takes both the boy and the whelps. The child is 
brought up by Lugna, who calls him Cormac in accord- 
ance with Art's wish. 

Once when Cormac was playing with Lugna's two 
sons, he strikes one of them, who thereupon taunts the 
young hero with not having a father. Much distressed, 
Cormac tells Lugna what he has heard. Lugna reveals 
to him his parentage, and adds that it was prophesied 
that he should become king. Cormac, with his wolves, 
then makes his way to the royal residence at Tara. 



K*MSa 



STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 73 

He is accompanied by Lugna and by a body of men 
who have been in Corann because too heavy a fine has 
been laid upon them for a murder. In Tara, Cormac 
is received as a foster-son. 

Some time after, King Lugaid mac Con pronounces 
an unjust judgment in a legal dispute. Cormac speaks 
out against this and proposes another decision which 
the whole people approve. They cry out : * This is the 
true prince's son.* Mac Con is thereupon driven away, 
and Cormac is made king. 

Cormac is a genuine Irish saga-king. He is said to 
have been born in the year 195 of our era, and to have 
reigned as High-King of Ireland from 227 to 266. He 
had the reputation of being one of the wisest of the 
ancient rulers of Ireland, and was famed as a judge and 
lawgiver. 

The Book of Leinster, which was written before 
1 160, contains a story called The Battle ofMagMucrime^ 
(the battle in which King Art fell when fighting against 
Lugaid mac Con). Here we find the first part of the p. 76. 
story of Cormac's Birth along with information as to 
Art's death. Yet Art's friend, at whose house his son 
is to be brought up, is merely described as one of the 
men of Connaught, neither his name nor that of his 
dwelling being given. The story also tells of Lugaid's 
unjust and Cormac's just judgment in Tara, which 
occasioned Cormac's call to the throne. 

I take that part of the story which the tale of Cormac's 

^ Edited with Iranslation by Stokes in Rev. CcU.^ xiii, 426-^4 ; and by 
O'Graily in Si/i'a Gaddica^ 310-18, transl. 347-59. On the places in oilier 
old Irish documents where this battle is described, see Stokes, p. 429. 



74 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Birth in the Book of Baflymote has retained from the 
older account of the Battle of Mag Mucrime (preserved, 
among other places, in the Book of Leinster) to be 
original Irish tradition. Zimmer has set forth the 
view' that it is a story from Munster and Leinster, and 
that, since it shows no connection with the saga-king 
Finn, it is somewhat older than the year looo. 

An Irish poem by Cinaed hua Artacain, who died in 
975, mentions the death of Art and Lugaid mac Con, 
and the grave of Cormac, son of Art.* 

In the story of Cormac's Birth (which Is found in no 
MSS. that are earlier than the end of the fourteenth and 
the fifteenth centuries) between the two original Irish 
sections which tell, the one of Art's death and what 
takes place directly before, the other of Cormac's 
appearance at Tara, a section is introduced describing 
Cormac's birth and his youth spent with Lugna. This 
section appears to me to be for the most part an 
imitation of some English poem on VVolf-Theodoric 
(Wolfdietrich), which poem the Anglo-Saxons must ( 
have got from the Franks. I 

The form of the Wolfdietrich-story which influenced 1 
the Irish tale must have agreed with the German version | 
B in representing the hero's mother not as his father's | 
queen, but as a young girl with whom he had secret 
intercourse. In German B 104-109, Hugdietrich talks 
f. in the night with Hiltpurc, at whose side he is 
sleeping. He tells her that she shall give birth to a 
> Ztsch.f. d. A/l.,\x\\, 8, 114 ff. >6i; Giia. Gel. An:, 1891 (No. S), 



' A lejtt from about the year looa 
grandson of Conn,' among [he well-kaoum 
in Ztsih./. d. Alt., XXXV, 126 f. 



I 

"I 



STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 75 

child, decides what name the child shall have, and 
gives her further instruction as to how she shall act.^ 
Next morning Hugdietrich departs (B 124 AT). The 
English redaction of the Wolfdietrich-story which in- 
fluenced the Irish tale must have contained practically 
the same form of this motive as that in German B. The 
obvious similarity between the original Irish tale of 
Cormac and the Germanic story of Wolfdietrich in this 
striking feature was one of the reasons why the former 
came to be influenced by the latter. The same thing 
may be said of another point of resemblance between the 
two accounts: Hugdietrich on his deathbed confides 
Wolfdietrich to the faithful Berchtung (B 262, A 256), 
just as King Art before his death decides that his son 
Cormac is to be brought up at the house of his friend 
Lug^a. 

Let us now compare that section of the Irish tale 
which is essentially an imitation of the Germanic story 
of Wolfdietrich, with the various forms of the latter. 

Cormac's mother makes her way after Art's death to 
the latter's true friend Lugna. In like manner Wolf- 
dictrich*s mother, in German A (278), betakes herself 
to Hugdietrich's faithful follower Berchtung. But 
there is a difference, in that Cormac's mother sets out 
in accordance with Art's instructions, and before her 

* This motive, as well as several others in the stories of Wolfdietrich and 
Cormac^s Birth, occurs elsewhere in popular poetry, as e.g. in the Nor- 
we^n ballad of I/uga^a// {Bugge, No. 5 ; Landstad, No. 18). Here the 
hero, when he acts roughly towards other boys, is taunted with the fact 
that he docs not know who his father is. His mother then tells him his 
. Other's name. This ballad has also the motive in common with the Wfd.- 
siory that the illegitimate hero must fight with his brothers, the legitimate 
sons of the king. 



76 



E OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



, whereas Wolfdietrich's mother, after her 
is forced by Hugdietrich's brothers to 
y to Berchtung. In one respect, the Irish 
?es withiheJ'KDch poem, for in the latter 
, sets out for a foreign 



to her son In a foresL 

)m the trees and lays 

re the Irish story shows 

"rench poem, in which 

When Farise cannot 

iis make her a bed of 



child i 
son is 
make I 
?. 78. tale here 
Parise, 
land b«i i 

Corinacs m^ 
Her maid breaks 
them under her. 1. 
a close agreement 
Huguet is born out m 
travel further, her cc 
branches and leaves. 

In the Irish, a she-wolf finds the child and carries it 
to a cave surrounded by bushes, where her young are. 
So in German B (152-154) a wolf finds the child, carries 
it away to a high mountain in which there is a cave, 
and lays it down before its whelps. German A, which 
here is in general different, agrees, nevertheless, with 
the Irish in that the child is borne away while the 
mother sleeps. In both the Irish story and the Ger- 
man poem (A 121 ff, B 183 f) the mother is in despair I 
over the child's disappearance. So in the French I 
poem, where also the child is removed while the | 
mother sleeps, : 

Cormac is found among the wolves, like Wolfdietrich | 
in B. In the Irish, the child is taken from the wolfs 
cave by a man wlio first saw it there when he was 
about in the forest, and by Lugna the true friend of 
' In Ihe Irish, Elan mikes ihe journey in a carrioEC, When Itanil 
comes upon her she rTcE^cends (ion> ihf vehicle and ^ves biclh to lier soo. 
This feature may be due lo the name of the hero Corimar, which in 
Coimac's Glossary (trans, p. 29) is ncplaincil as ' The ten of a cbarioL' 



STORY OF WOLFDI K TRICIi 



/ / 



Cormac's father. According to B, Wolfdietrich is 
found one day, when his mother's father is hunting, by 
one of the latter's hunters. In A, Berchtung carries 
the child away from the wolves to a hunter. Cormac 
is brought up by the faithful Lugna ; Wolfdietrich, 
according to A, by the devoted Berchtung. Both the 
Irish and the German accounts dwell on the young 
hero's beauty and strength. Both tell of his violence 
and of his striking other boys. 

One of Lugna's sons taunts Cormac with having no 

father. In distress Cormac seeks his foster-father, who 

informs him who his real father was. In the French p. 79 

poem it is a knight who taunts the boy with having 

neither father nor mother. In A, Wolfdietrich goes 

first to Berchtung and afterwards to his mother, and 

demands information as to his origin. He wishes to 

be no longer 'without a father.' His mother then tells 

him that he is the son of King Hugdietrich. So in the 

French poem it is the mother who reveals to the hero 

his parentage. 

While Cormac is being brought up by Lugna, a 
usurper, Lugaid mac Con, reigns at Tara. While 
Wolfdietrich is being cared for by Berchtung, he is, 
according to A, driven from the land of his inheritance. 
After Cormac has learned his parentage, he sets out 
with his wolves, accompanied by Lugna, to the royal 
residence at Tara. He has also with him a body of 
warriors who have been in Corann because too severe 
a penalty had been imposed on them for a murder. 
These followers belong to the original Irish story of 
^ Cormac ; ^ but when the latter was fused with the 

' Cf. O'Curry, 7^ Manuscript Afaieriah of Ancient Irish History , p. 286. 



T 



jS HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

German story, they were identified with Berchtung's i 
sons, who help Wolfdietrich to regain his inheritance. 

The form of the Wolfdictrich-saga which influenced / 
the Cormac story agreed with B in one important 
point, viz. that it did not know of the untrue Sabene. 

Both the French poem Parise la duchesse and the 
Irish tale of Cormac's Birth, taken in connection with r 
the mention of Seafola in the Anglo-Saxon poem, ■ 
prove that even among the Franks there existed quite I 
different forms of the story of Wolfdietrich, and that I 
some of the most significant variations between the I 
German poems A and B already existed in Frankish \ 
accounts,' I 

It has not hitherto been recognised that the Helgi- 
poems in the Edda were influenced by the heroic saga 
=).of\Vo]f-Theodoric, or Wolfdietrich. In what follows I 
shall try to prove that the beginning of the first 
HeJgi-lay is an imitation of a lost A.S. poem on Wolf- 
Theodoric, which poem also, and at about the same 
time, influenced the Irish tale of Cormac's Birth. 

The lay begins thus : ' It was early in the ages, when ' 
eagles were screaming, and holy waters streamed from I 
the Mountains of Heaven, that BorghiJd gave birth to I 
Helgi the stout-hearted in Brdlund.' 

' Holy waters ' is (as we see from the GrhnnismAl, 2% 
where the same expression occurs) a heavy shower of 
rain which streams down during a thunderstorm. In 
the story of Cormac's Birth, which was here influenced | 
by an English poem on Theodoric's birth, we read that 

I Jiinicke's opinion [If'ol/diet., u, xl.) 15 different fiom mine. Ht 
thinks Ihat the twelfth ceatury minstrels introduced these varialiom in the 
slory on their own lesponsibility. 



f 



80 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

predict the greatness of the new-born king's son, and 
even before his birth it is prophesied that he shai! 
become king of Ireland. In A, Wolfdietrich's mother, 
before her child is born, hears a voice which bids her 
carry him to a certain hermit immediately after his 
birth. The hermit baptizes the boy, and says that the 
child shall later win a queen and a kingdom. That 
this motive of the Norns' coming is, however, more 
closely connected with another story, I shall point out 
in what follows. 

The Norns predict that Helgi shall be accounted 
'the best of the Buthlungs' (H. H., r, 2). In both the 
First and Second Lays he is called bu^lungr} Helgi 
the son of Hj(jr\arth is also called by the same name.' 
This has some connection with the fact that Wolf- 
dietrich's mother, according to A, was a sister ol 
Botelunc von Hiunen, who elsewhere corresponds tc 
the Bu^li of early Old Norse poems. 

The Norns tied the threads of fate 'whilst castle 
were broken in Bralund ' {}>d er borgir braut, I, 3) 
The same night in which Helgi was born a battle tool 
place, during which his father stormed hostile castles ; 
82. for we are told that the morning after Helgi's birtl 
his father came ' out of the tumult of battle * {dr vigprimu 
I, 7) to give his son a name and rich gifts. 

' 11. II., I, 12; [,56 (twice); 11,30; 11,44- 

" The use of bulSlungr in the Ynglingatal aod later poems is lb 
genec.il meaning of ' king,' is kss original, and is due to imitation of Ihi 
Helgi -lays. 

' The meaning of the expression pi er hrgir braut, which has hitberlt 
been misunderstood, is clear from /<j var . . . borg broiin, Oddi., iS; 
nam brJSta Vinda borgir, Reksl,, 3 j ha/ptburgum brtilna, in Brale wrf 
Bu^e, Runvener, Stockholm, 1891, no. 98, and other similar places. 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 8i 

This motive was emphasised by the poet to show 
that Helgi belonged to a race of valiant warriors ; but it 
stands in connection with the story (in Wfd. A) that Hug- 
dietrich was on a military expedition when Wolfdietrich 
was born. In the Irish tale, a battle takes place the 
morning afterCormac is begotten,and in it his fatherfalls. 

The poet's statement that * castles were broken ' fits 
in well with the life of the Scandinavians in Britain, 
but would be remarkable if the poem had been com- 
posed in Greenland or Iceland. 

There is an historica- basis for the fight on the night 
of Helgi's birth. Theodoric, Wolfdietrich's historical 
prototype, was born, according to Jordanes, on the 
very day on which a messenger came to the house of 
his father Thiudimer bearing from Thiudimer's brother 
Walamer the glad tidings of a victory over the Huns. 

According to the Norse poem, the threads of fate for 
the new-born son of the king are fastened under the 
heavens. He is to have lands between east and west 
(/>. from the farthest east to the remotest west), and 
the Norns say that the thread which hangs towards 
the north {d nofSrifegd) shall always hold fast. This 
seems to mean that Helgi's reputation shall always live 
in the North.^ Similarly in the Irish verses, the 
coming greatness of the new-born Cormac is expressed 
in strong terms, which may be translated as follows : 
*filius cui caelum eiusque collaudatio proderit.'* 

It is in the night-time that Helgi is born and that the 
Xoms decide his fate. This is related in the first four 

^ Or, that Helgi shall win a kingdom in the North, which never shall 
be wrested from him. 
' ^fac dororba ncm a chommdidim, 

Y 



.fi 



I 



82 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

strophes. The fifth strophe, the beginning of whid 
has not hitherto been correctly understood, carrie 
us on to the early morning, when day is breaking. 
translate the passage thus : ' There was nothing for 
J, 83. harm to the descendant of the Wolfings ■ {i.e. nothin 
which harmed the new-born Helgi), who was born ( 
the maiden as the fruit of love.'' Quoth one raven t 

' The connection deRia.ni35 this meaning. The author, who endi b 
poem by praising Helgi'e victory and success, cannot here be refening I 
the hero's early detith. Most probably w- should read : NbiTT utr 1 
aiigri. The pronoun luitl b not commcbly used in Old Norse in ll 
meaning ' nothing,' un [ess a negation prr.cedes; hut this use does ocn 
as I ha\'e shown (Sievers, Seil., urii, 124) in SigvrfSarivilSa, Si, ; 
II is due to the influence of Ihc A.S. k^h. Both H. 11., I, and tl 
Sigurth-lay were much influenced by the English. The Ms, may ha> 
ha.d Sill for NeitI, as the MS. of BCmmlf has in line 949 anigrx fi 
tiatiigra. In Neill var at atigti \ Ylfinga niS there is a crossing of tl 
alliteration. Yet possibly the original expression was : Etke vas 
angrc, cither so that ^a'js did noi form a syllable, or with a irisyllab 
' sinking ' ; see Sievers, Mttrik, % 43, 5, b. That in this place there w 
originally a negative expression, is supported by the reading Id K. II; 
10, where angr alliterates with ekki, and that in H. H., II, 46, whe 
angrlj^ alliterates with engi. Egilsson tried to express the same tDeaoii 
when he read : Eilt var-al angr, 

' The MS. has the meaningless ylfinga niji tr juire meyie er iitvm 
f^ddi. The word munu^ [not mumtlS, since thai word is written in Ha 
79 mvngS) cannot mean ' the loved child, darling,' or the mother's lo 
to the child. I would read as follows : 

Ylfinga Hi}, 
er j^ire meyia 
QT mvnv)! f^ddiz. 
i'lfinga niSr'a here (as in It, S) Helgi, The yioiA/gddi is a corruptii 
of f^ddiz, as i.g. verpa (in U Vpa, 45) of verpaz. With faddist ^ 
tiiq'Jti, cf. Jarii borinn, aliiin diam, Hildi Var Hddlfr um gitim 
Hyndl. ig,/Jrsi 111& vel, haim virtSisi nignnum vil, and (he like. Wil 
Sr muiiut faddist, cf. af munuS{= af Ajiitiap) bytjoSr, m£6 ntao, 
gelinn ; aftiiuniiS may be used instead of ir muaUS, just as one said bel 
dfvja 6r iiiriii/i and ifeyj'a af einhvtrju. 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 83 

ther, as he sat on the high tree without food : " I 
w something. Mail-clad stands the son of Sigmund, 

night old ; ^ now the day is come ; he has flashing p. 84. 
s like warlike princes; he is the friend of the 
ves ; we two shall be glad." * 

Vhen we see that the new-born Helgi is here called 
2 descendant of the Wolfings who was born of the 
den as the fruit of love/ we perceive that the poet, 
ike the author of the prose piece On Sinfjotli's 
itb, cannot have thought that Sigmund was married 
Jorghild when he got with her the child Helgi. He 
5t, on the other hand, have supposed that Borghild 
; Sigmund's concubine, or else a young maiden 
>m he visited in secret. Light is thrown on this by 
Ifdietrich B, where we read that Hugdietrich, clad 
I woman, obtains admission to Hiltpurc's dwelling, 

gets with her his son Wolfdietrich. Likewise in 
Irish tale. Art sleeps with the unmarried girl Etan 

night before his death, and gets with her his son 
mac. Wolfdietrich's historical prototype, Theodoric, 

the son of his father's concubine. 
[elgi is called *the descendant of the Wolfings,* and 

raven says, * he is the friend of wolves ' {sd er 
ra vinr). From the point of view of later Icelandic 
try this latter expression must be regarded as 
ling but a poetic way of saying that Helgi is to 
>me a valiant warrior, and give the wolves many 

t is not uncommon to read in popular stories of a hero born clad in 
ar (sec Danmarks gamle Folkevisery 11, 645). The fact that liclgi 
il-clad may possibly be connected with what A says of Wolfdietrich, 
wrhen baptized by the hermit he got a silk shirt, which was lo render 
uiN-ulncrable, or with the statement in A 245, that Wolfdietrich's 
r set aside a suit of armour for him. 



f 



84 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

corpses to eat ; it must be taken to mean no more than I 
the expression varghoUr, 'friendly towards the wolves,' ^ 
which is used of a king in Rekstefja, 3. But when it , 
is said of the new-born Helgi, who has not yet been I 
in battle, that 'he is the wolves' friend,' I am of the 1 
opinion that this remark points to a saga-motive which ^ 
the Norse poet knew from an English poem on Wolf- 1 
dietrich. 

In B the child, immediately after birth, is found in 
the wolf-den among the whelps. According to A, thL | 
p. 85. little child was laid in the bushes beside a well. In | 
the night, when the moon is shining forth through the ' 
clouds, there come a pack of wolves with open mouths; 
but they do the child no harm. They lie down in ai 
circle about him, their eyes shining as the light ofl 
candles, The child goes to each of them; he wishes | 
to seize the light; and the wolves submit patiently. 1 
Thus the child goes about among them until morning, 
when they run away. In the Irish tale, the new-bom 
Cormac creeps about on all-fours among the young 
wolves, who sport and play around him. Both he and 
the whelps are taken out of the cave. His wolves 
followed him to Tara, and Cormac always kept them 
with him, "and the reason why Cormac was so much 
attached to wolves was that wolves had nourished him.' 
The Norse poet transferred to the new-born Helgi the 
motive that he was the friend of wolves ; but he thought 
at the same time of the wolf as the animal of ihcj 
battlefield, Odin's animal, who followed the valiant/ 
warrior. Therefore the raven said, 'he is the fricndm 
of the wolves,' the raven itself also being the animaiofl 
the battlefield, and the animal of Odin. 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 85 

This expression used of Helgi gives us, moreover, 
the right explanation of the statement, 'Nothing harmed 
the descendant of the Wolfings.' In Wfd. A, it is said 
repeatedly that the wolves, like all other animals, did 
the child no harm.^ The words * Nothing harmed the 
descendant of the Wolfings' imply, therefore, that the 
new-born child had been in the night among wolves 
[this may possibly have been described in a strophe 
since fallen out between four and five), but that in the 
[Homing it appeared that the child had suffered no 
liarm : the new-born Helgi and the wolves were, on 
the contrary, good friends. 

Let us now compare the words used of the young 
Helgi, 'he is the friend of the wolves,' with other state- 
ments in the poem. It will be seen that the poet 
brings wolves into close connection with his hero. 

When the battle between Helgi and the sons of 
Handing is about to begin, we read (I, 13), 'Odin's p. 86. 
logs {i.e. wolves) go corpse-greedy {i.e. greedy for the 
xxlies of fallen men) over the island.' 'Wild dogs' 
s a regular Irish expression for wolves. From the 
expression *over the island,' it looks as if we must 
x>ncludc either that the poet imagined the battle-place 
!n a large island, or that the poem itself was composed 
cm an island, since the battle is said to have taken place 
(tf Logafjollum, * at Flame-fells,' and these words hardly 
allow us to think of a small island. 

After the combat, Helgi sat down under 'Eagle- 

* In A 100, we have: tdten dcm kinde niht\ in A 102, die ivolve dir 
Ifiont kein un^ernaih ; in A 105, dirst der Itp vil unbenomen ; in A 106, 
^ die ar-^cn vjolve fridt habent gcgeben\ cf. A ill, A 113, A 210. 
M.U.G. un-^emach has about the same meaning as O.N. angr. 



88 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Theodoric, of which Jordanes writes as follows: Eo 
vtox die nuniius veniens feliciorem in dofHO Tbiudimer 
repperit gaudium. ipso si quidem die Tkeodoriais eius 
fiiius, quamvis de Erelieva conctibina, bonae tameti spd 
puerobis tiaUis erat} The Norse poet makes more pro- 
minent the fact that the new-born son of the king is 
to be a warlike hero, and therefore puts the expression 
of joy at his birth into the mouth of the raven.- 

In H. H., I. 7, we read : ' He (Helgi) seemed to the 
courtiers to be of the race of a king (literally, of the 
race of Dag)': dr6tt }>6tU sd doglingr vera. As to 
Cormac, his father's friend says directly after his birth 
that he is the true king's son. He repeats the same 
statement just before the boy Cormac makes his way 
to Tara ; and this is the cry of all the people when 
! Cormac first speaks in an assembly there. 

It is said of Hclgi in I, 7, 'they said that good times 
had come among men' (viz. with him): ' kvdSu mt!6 
giimnum gS^ ar komin! ^ VVIien Cormac was born, his 
father's friend sang: ' A king's birth ; increase of grain 
. . . grain and milk shall be a result of Art's visit to 
Olc's house,' and in different stories we learn of the 
good times which the people enjoyed under Cormac's 
rule : the water was full of fish, and the forest of 

' Jordanes, Gtlua, ed. Mommsen, chap. Lli, pp. 127. 

' Inlhepopular poetry of many nations birds predict the fate of new.boTD 
children. In a Serbian ballad, e.g., two pigeons converse l^ethcr at a j 
child's birth, and in thcit conversation they predict its fate. See Nerd. | 
Tidikr. f. File!., New Scries, 111, 129; cf. 131. It is, of course, not 
necessary to suppose historical connectioti between the Irish tale and the 
Helgi-lay in tiiis particniar feature. 

' I now prefer this reading ; yet foCJr koininn does not seem lo offend 
against the metre. See Sievers, Altgerm. Metrik, % 37, 3. 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRIC H 89 

acorns. Wild game was abundant, and from the 
heavens streamed honey. In the Norse poem, the 
statement that Helgi s birth was to bring good times 
is somewhat idle, since we nowhere learn that such 
happy days really came.^ This inconsistency is readily p. 89. 
explained by the theory that the poet, in his treatment 
of Helgi's birth and youth, took motives from the story 
which influenced the tale of Cormac's Birth, while the 
Helgi-lay as a whole was not based on this latter 
account 

The Hclgi-poet continues (l, 7): 'The king himself 
went out of the tumult of battle to bring the young 
prince magnificent gifts,' In the following strophe we 
hear that the king gave his son the name Helgi, several 
different places, the names of which are given, and a 
splendid sword. In the Irish tale. King Art decides 
before his death what name his child is to have, and 
tells the boy's mother that her son shall become king 
of Ireland. According to another Irish MS.,- Art gives 
his son's mother (of course, for the son) his sword, his 
golden ring, and his state-dress. The supposition that 
the Helgi-poet took this motive of a father's giving his 
new-born son a sword from an A.S. poem on Wolf- 
Theodoric, is supported by the fact that Hugdietrich, 

* Vet in the Lay of Ilrfmgerth (II. Hj., 28) wc read of the company 
of Valkyries, at whose head rode Svafa, the betrothed of Ilclgi, the son 
of Hjon'arth : * Their steeds shook themselves ; from their manes fell dew 
in the deep dales, hail on the high trees; from that come good years 
among men.' It was a common l>elief among the old Irishmen that when 
a king was worthy of his high position good years were enjoyed by his 
people. See 7'hc Battle of Maj^h Rath, ed. O'Donovan, and accompany- 
ing notes. The same Ijclicf occurs in the story of the O.N. king Ilakon 
Uakf»nvs«.»n, and elsewhere. 

- AVr. G//., XIII, 455, note 2, 



go HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

according to A 245, says before his death that he has 
kept a coat of armour and a sword for his son Wolf- 
diet rich. 

1 have already shown (pp, 13 fF, above) that Idvc, 
H. H., I, 7, used of the gifts which the father presents 
his son, was doubtless borrowed from Idc in an EngHsli 
poem. We see now that in all probability that poem 
was one which had Wolf-Theodoric for its hero. As 
Helgi's father, when he gives his son a name, gives 
him also different places which are enumerated in the 
poem (l, S), so Hugdietnch, who also (according to 
German B) decides upon his unborn son's name, pre- 
sents to his sons before his death certain places which 
are expressly mentioned. To Wolfdietrich he says: 
Kunsinopel sol wesen din. The O.N. poet, however, 
introduced new names, most of which presuppose the 
conception of Helgi as a Danish king. 
D. If we combine the prOse passage On Sinfjptli's 
Death with what is related in the Helgi-Iay, we 
must conclude that the father Sigmund was still alive 
after all the events in the First Lay took place. But 
one gets a different impression from the poem itself. 
After the bestowal of the name and the gifts, Sigmund 
is not mentioned. The next strophe relates how Helgi 
grew up among his friends, just as if his father were 
dead. And there is, moreover, no mention of Sigmund 
in the following strophe, where we learn that Helgr, 
when fifteen years of age, killed Hunding, who had ruled 
long over the lands and people, The Lay seems there- 
fore to indicate that Helgi's father was dead before the 
boy was grown up. We may suppose that Hunding 
killed Sigmund, and then took it upon himself to rule 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 91 

the kingdom. He occupied the throne until slain by 
Helgi, who thus avenged his father's death. 

This remarkable disappearance of Sigmund from the 
poem after he has given a name to his son, is evidently 
to be explained by the fact that the Helgi-story, as we 
know it from the Edda, is made up of different com- 
ponent parts. We can here trace their joining. In 
the prose On Sinfjgtli's Death, Sigmund is represented 
as living long after Helgi's birth. This seems to be 
due to a combination of saga-material ; Sigmund was 
also the father of Sigurth Fdfnisbani, and Helgi was 
thought to be Sigurth's elder brother, and to have died 
before him. The author of the First Helgi-lay, how- 
ever, followed the story of Wolf-Theodoric, in which 
the hero's father dies when the boy is in his infancy. 
As we have seen, Cormac's father dies before his son's 
birth. This motive was not borrowed from the Wolf- 
dietrich-story, but was in the original Irish tale. 

We read of Helgi in I, 9 : * Then grew up before his 
friends' breast {ue, in the midst of his friends) the 
noble elm, radiant with gladness {yn'Sis Ijdmay It is 
said of Cormac that he grew up at the house of his p. 91 
father's friend, and the passage runs : * The lad verily 
was a pasture of the eyes of many,' and all good 
qualities were ascribed to him. In the lay sung after 
Cormac's birth, he is called the *manchild of splen- 
dour.' ^ 

When Helgi was fifteen years old, he slew Hunding, 
who had ruled long over land and people (I, 10). 

* ThLs is Whitley Stokes's translation. The MS. has fcrtnac nane (not 
as in 0'Gt3Lily,/ormac ndinc), Mr. Stokes remarks : *1 lake the first n 
in n-dm to be a scribe's mistake. ' 



R 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



92 

Cormac'. r fell the morning after he had begotten 

Cormac, battle against a certain Mac Con, or 

properly id (Lugid) surnamcd mac Con, This 

Mac Con tiicreupon became king in Tara, where he 



ruled until 

Then the ne 

and just _ nent 1 

drove away Mac uon i 

stead. 

Afac Con means Ho\ 
exactly to Hunding, for 
-ing in historical Old Noi 



:r in early manhood. 
1 Cormac's wise aspect 
; true son of the king, 
; Cormac king in his 

This corresponds 
he derivative ending 
-.15 ' the descendant of,' 
the same ending -tug in A.S. means ' the son of,' • 

It is certain that the name Mac Con was In the Irish 
story before the latter borrowed anything from the 
Germanic story of Wolf-Theodoric. I am of the 
opinion that Wolf-Theodoric's enemy in an A.S. poem 
was called Hunding. This opinion is strengthened by 
the fact that Hundingum (dat. pi.) occurs in the A.S. 
poem IVhfstS, v. 23 and 81 (in v. 23, directly before the 
prankish hero Theodoric). 

The agreement in meaning between Hunding and 
Mac Con was doubtless the chief reason why the 
Cormac story borrowed features from the story of 
Wolf-Theodoric. 

Helgi and the sons of Hunding challenge one another 
". to do battle ; then, as we read in the First Lay (sL 1 3) : 
s/eU Fr6!Sa frits 
fjdnda d milli. 



' In Icelandic sagas, Hundi and Hvelpr occ 
Gaelic name Ctiilen, which, as an appelUtivi 
Munch, Norskt Folks Hislonc, l, h, 134, note 1. 



s translations of the 
L«m» 'whelp.' See 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETR ICH 93 

* The peace of Fr6thi was broken between the enemies.* 
An Irish record in the same MS.^ as that which 
contains the tale of Cormac's Birth, says of Cormac's 
rule : * There was peace and quiet and happiness. There 
was neither murder nor robbery in that time.' And in 
a somewhat later MS.^ we read of Cormac : * He made 
Ireland into a Land of Promise; for there was there 
in his time neither theft nor robbery nor violence.** 
Now, the * peace of Fr6thiMs described in Old Norse 
saga as follows : * No man did any other man harm at 
that time, even if he met his father's or his brother's 
murderer ; at that time there was no thief nor robber 
either.* It seems to me probable, therefore, that the 
author of the Helgi-lay used the expression, the * peace 
of Frothi,' because the foreign story, which he was 
imitating, ascribed to its hero a similarly peaceful 
reign.* 

So far, then, as I have been able to trace it, it is 
only the beginning of the First Helgi-lay — up to and 
including the account of Helgi's fight with Hunding — 
which shows the influence of a story about a saga-hero 
corresponding to Wolfdietrich. This story had points 

* The Tale of the OrdealSy cd. with trans, by Stokes in Irischc Tcxic, 
III, 185 and 203, after the Book of Ballymote. 

- The Panegyric of King Cormac ^ ed. O'Grady in Silva Gadelica 
Texts, p. 89 f, trans., p. 96 f, after MS. Egerton 1782, in the British 
Museum, written at different times from 1419 to 1517. 

' For similar stories cf. Joh. Steenstrup, Normanncrne, i, 342-49 ; 
in, 154; Olrik, Sakses Ofdhistorie, ii, 212; Lappcnljcrg's note I in 
Pcrtz, Mon. Germ,^ Scriptores, xvi, 395. 

* In what follows I shall try to prove also that there is a weak bond of 
connection, only partly traceable, between the First Helgi-lay and the 
Wulfdietrich-story as regards Helgi's relations with the batlle-maiden 

Qitrriin 



THE STORY OF WOLFDIETRICH 95 

ibout a certain person's birth {genemain^ also compeirt^ 
iterally : how a person was begotten). 

While Icelandic sagas, in agreement with Irish tales 
ind Celtic stories in general, usually describe the birth 
md early boyhood of their heroes, mediaeval Danish 
stories, as Axel Olrik remarks,^ which develop in ac- p. 94. 
:ordance with traditional tales and prefer to recount 
separate disconnected episodes, show reluctance to 
describe the youth of their chief personages. Starkath, 
for example, was really an East-Scandinavian hero ; 
but the stories of his birth and early youth arose later 
and in West Scandinavia. 

I would, however, make one reservation as regards 
the relation between the account of Helgi*s birth and 
the Wolfdietrich-story. In what follows I shall try to 
prove that the author of the First Helgi-lay in its 
present form was not the first Norse poet who trans- 
ferred saga features from Wolf-Theodoric to Helgi, 
and that not merely Norse but also Danish poets in 
Britain have had to do with the development of the 
Helgi-lays. Therefore, although I believe that the 
description of Helgi's birth belongs in its essentials to 
the Norwegian poet who was the author of the whole 
lay, yet I dare not deny the possibility that the poet in 
this description may have relied on some older Scandi- 
navian (Danish or Norwegian) poem in which Helgi 
was already identified with Wolfdietrich. 

The striking contrast in poetic merit between the 
two poor strophes on Helgi's fight with Hunding and 
Hunding's sons, and the splendid stanzas which begin 

* Sahes Oldhistorie^ I, 15-18; II, 148. *The stories which are cer- 
Lainly I>ani5h are silent as regards the childhood of the kings,' i, 72. 



THE STORY OF MELEAGER 97 

The Norns come to the king's court when Helgi is 
born, and decide the hero's fate. This poetic-mythic 
feature appears here, as part of an heroic story, for the 
first time in the North.^ It was, however, already 
known in classical heroic story. The account in the 
First Helgi-lay resembles very closely a part of the 
story of Meleager as told by Hyginus ^ : Cum Althaea 
Thestii filia una node concubuerunt Oeneus et Mars ; 
ex quibus cum esset natus Meleager^ subito in regia 
apparuerunt Parcae, Cut fata ita cecinerunt: Clotho 
dixit eutn generosum futurumy LacJusis fortem. With 
this we may compare H. H., I, 1-2: 'Borghild had 
given birth to Helgi the stout-hearted in Brilund. It 
was night in the court. The Norns came, those who p. 96. 
decided the fate of the prince. They said that he 
should become the most famous of princes, and be 
regarded as the best of the Buthlungs.* 

The two passages resemble each other even in details. 
O.N. / boe^ * in the court,* corresponds to in regia ; O.N. 
nornir kvdmu to parcae apparuerunt ; O.N. l}(er er g'6lingi 
aldr urn skdpu, * those who decided the fate of the prince,' 
in connection with the following b<ffSu, *they bade 
(said),' to cui fata ita cecinerunt. The O.N. poem has, 
like the Latin, two adjectives : fortem could be taken to 
correspond in meaning to Helgi's surname enn hugum- 
stSray * the courageous ' ; generosum^ * noble,' resembles 
beztan in meaning. O.N. bd&u . . . vef6a, * said that he 
should become,' corresponds to dixit eum . . . futurum, 

* The sib}'l {v^lva) in her prophecy (Vpa, 23) indicates 6VtJr, VW^^andi 
and Skuld as those who decide the fates of men in general, and in 
Fdfnistndl (12, 13) the Norns are said to come to women in travail to 
deliver them. ' Ilygini Fabulae^ cd. M. Schmidt, p. 27. 

G 



98 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

I have tried to prove that the author of the First 
HelgMay lived in Ireland, probably at the court of the 
Scandinavian king of Dublin ; that he understood 
Irish, and not only associated with Irish poets, but also 
borrowed poetic motives from them. We know with 
certainty that the Irish were acquainted with several of 
the Latin collections of classical, mythic, and heroic 
tales made partly in the early Middle Ages. It would 
not, therefore, have been remarkable if the author of 
our lay heard Irish poets teil orally the story of 
Meleager, possibly in part as it was to be found in 
Hyginus, and if he reproduced the mythical Parcae 
in the Norns who visit the new-born Helgi. 

An historical investigation of the Norns and of their 
general relations to the Ft'es of Romance nations, the 
Parcae of the Romans, the j-l/u/Va/ of the Greeks, would 
lead us too far at this time. But in this connection 1 must 
point out the resemblance in expression (to which Dr. 
Hj. Falk has called my attention) between H. H., I, 3: 
Sneru Jxer of afli ^rtgg . . . f>dttu, ' They turned with 
strength the threads of fate,' and Ovid, Meiam., Vlll, 453; 
staminaque impresso f alalia pottice nentes of the Parcae, 
tripliees sorores, in the story of Meleagcr's Birth ; and 1 
should like also to explain the expression which is 
used of the Norn in H. H., I, 4, viz. nipt Nera, ' Neri's 
(female) relative,'^ This name Neri has the same 
meaning as Ngrvi. According to the Gylfaginning} 
7- the father of Night was the giant Ngrvi or Narfi? la 
Vaf}>rii^nismdl, 25, and Alvlssmdl, 29, he is called in 

' I have given up an earlier conjecliire, thai nera might be =«rf™. 
' Chapter 10, Snorra Edda, 1, 54. 
' The Uppsala-Edda writes ttari. 



■»- -r . 



THE STORY OF MELEAGER 99 

lative Narvik for which we must postulate a nom. 
". Neri arose from *N^rviy as gera^ * to do/ * make/ 

g^rva. The name is to be explained from an 
:tive ^ngrr. In Norse, ^ngrr meant * narrow/ like 
:orresponding A.S. nearu} The form Neri^ ^N^rvi 
le side of Nari^ Narvik Ngrvi^ is to be explained 
le primitive Germanic declension of the adjective, 
the declension of «-stems in Gothic : nom. ^nanvus^ 

which ^ngrr\ definite form, *narwtja, from which 

le name of Night's father (who is thought of as 
like her), Ngrr or Narvik could thus mean ' the 

>w,' and could be explained by the fact that nearUy 
in A.S. and O.S. poems is an epithet applied to 

t on account of its oppressive darkness, and also to 
This nearu^ nam is usually interpreted as * narrow, 

essive/ ^ 

here is a trace of the adjective, e,g, in mod. Iccl. uir/il/, a miser, and 

ly names of places, in the elucidation of which Prof. O. Rygh has 

jood enough to help me : N<t>rva-sund (in the MS. also tiorva-^ 

f-, ftaurfa-)^ the straits of Gibraltar ; Nyrvi^ the small island in 

n^r, in Western Norway, on which the town of Aalesund now lies ; 

now Naaren, a little and rather narrow island on the inside of Vtrc 

in Nordre Bergenhus Amt ; Njerve^ a country-place in S0ndre Undal, 

and Mandals Amt, on the narrow Spangereid in S.W. Norway. 

Meyer 'Die Eddische Kosmogonie^ p. 104), has explained Narvi as 

-word from A.S. ruaru, 

f. Jyykkr — }>jukkr, g4>rr—g2rr^ kyrr — Old *Gutnisk* (language 
1 in island Gotland) qvery etc. 

fi. nearo nihiw(uo, nihtes ncarvuey etc. ; see Grein's Glossary. In the 
•discovered O.S. Genesis-fragments, 286, we have narouua naht, 
tias already been pointed out by E. H. Meyer, and by Golthcr 
Ibuch d. germ. Myth.^ p. 522). Kogel {Gesch. d. dent. Lit., 
nzungshefl ' to vol. I, pp. 12 flf) finds in narouua naht a stem 
:-, 'dark,' which is, he thinks, different from narwa-y * narrow.* 



too 'ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

But - H. Meyer and GoUher have pointed out, what 

I mysi !iad previously noticed, that the pedigree of 

Night 11 Snorri's Edda is based on the Greek and 

Roman jsmogonic genealogies, such as occur earliest 



in Hesic 
known in 
doubtless a 
with them, 
p. 98- The third son of jV 
just as Gt'es {Hemera) 
first son of Night is A. 
a Norse adaptation of 
Nox. The Norsemen 



edigrees were, I suppose, 
Latin work, and it was 
orsemen became familiar 



it,' is called Dagr, ' Day,' 
orn of Hex {Nyx). The 
desolate.' This name is 
T, who was the son of 
ust have heard Aetlur in 
Britain and have changed it into ^«5r, knowing that 
the A.S. t''i\e, 'desolate,' corresponded to au^r in Old 
Norse. Nigiit is married a second time to Anarr or 
Onarr^ and has with him the daughter /(-/-S, 'earth.' 
In the genealogies of the classical cosmogonies we find 
Terra,' z^xtW (Tellus, Ge)Ax\d. hovt, Amor (Eros).^ Jo^ 
is here a translation of Terra, and as for Anarr or 
dnarr, in which the Norsemen doubtless thought oi an 

1 Gen. W«ni, in a verse by Hiillfrelh in Snorri's Edda. 

- .■f«arj in full-rhyme with ^nKH«f,Thjolh6lf in Fms.,vi, 140. (>«jriin 
full-rhyme with ^if/tn, Halirreth inSn. Edda, 1,3x0 (wrongly SHrMrr-^nrnwi 
in MS. 757, aitas-grana in U} j dimrs in full-rhyme viiih.gr6Hu. Gulhom 
Sindri in Hiikanar saga gJSa, Hcinnk. (chap. 9, ed. F. Jonsson), In 
Sn. Ed., 1, 54, W has anarr, V enarr, t alone incorrectly aKjia/r. E. H. 
Meyer is wrong in holding to this form. 

' The foUowiog passage is taken from a l>ook, ' On the Nature of ihe 
(iods,' wriUen in Greek liy Cornutus (Iwrn ca. 20, +68 A. D. J is given in 
a modern Latin translalion : Phornuli spaulatia dc Natura Diffrtm. 
Jodaeo I'elareo inttrprele, YA. Lugd., 1608, p. 158: ' Pioinde fabnlaii 
sunt Ckao! esse genitum, quemadmodum describil Hesiodus. Post Iioc 
Terrain et Tartariini el Amoreni, at ex Chao Eribum et Noctim piodiisse^ 
vel ex Nocle Aithtra el Diim.' Cf. p. 158 a. 



THE STORY OF MELEAGRR loi 

or ofi^ * without/ I agree with Golther that it is an 
altered form of Amor} 

The giant N^rvi, who is father of Night (called in 
A.S. nearu\ and black and gloomy like his daughter, 
is, as E. H. Meyer has already observed, a modification 
of Erebus^ who is named in Cornutus directly before 
black Night, and who, like her, came from Chaos (the p. 99. 
Scandinavian Ginnungagap), 

But if N^rvi is Erebus^ then the Helgi-poet's designa- 
tion of the Norn, who comes in the night, as nipt Nera, 
i.€, * the female relative of Neri (N^rvi),' must also have 
had its origin in the cosmogonic genealogies of the 
classics. In Hyginus- the three Parcae are said to be 
the daughters of Nox and Erebus. The author of the 
Helgi-lay must have become acquainted with this 
genealogy in one of the British Isles.^ 



The theory that there is historical connection be- 

* Cf. mesopotania^ Gislason, Prtpver^ p. 409 ; epineus for Opimius, 
Pr^z'tr^ p, 118. As regards the ending, cf. Old Irish pudar from Lat. 
putar^ Old Irish sdupar from Lat. stupor, I had written down the ex- 
planation of Anarr as Amor several years before I read the same in 
Golther, Handbuchy p. 523. 

- In the lieginning of Hygini Fahulae, He names Faium among the 
children of Nox and Erebus, 

' The goddess Hel is called nipt Nara^ * Nari\s sister,* in Egil's /Iofif6- 
lausrtj 10; j6dis tilfs ok Narfa, * the sister of the wolf and Narfi,' in 
Yns^Iin^atal, 12. In Snorri's Edda (cf. the prose piece after the Lokasenna) 
Niri or Narfi is said to be the son of Loki, whose daughter is IIcl. This 
connection also lietween Hel and Nari or Narfi is probably due to genea- 
logies in the classical cosmogonies. Hyginus has: Ex Noctc et Krcbo : 
I'atutHy Mors. 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



tween tb 

fact that 
shall poi 
another m 
knew the I 
in the secona p 
coming of the taie-maia 
their predictions as to 
Meleager-story by m 
1. talcs.* It is to be notea 
was attached in the Midoi 



IS in the Helgi-lay and the Parcac in the 

^ is supported, in the first place, by the 

thor of the Norse poem knew also, as I 

in my discussion of the Hrimgerth-lay, 

Latin form, just as he 

truction of Troy ; and 

at the incidents of the 

le new-born child and 

ire, passed from the 

It ways into popular 

larly that this motive i 

ges to other persons 



among West- European peoples, partly through the 
influence of Celtic works. 

In the French romance Amadas of the thirteenth 
century, which, according to Gaston Paris,^ is of Breton 
origin, three prophetic sisters appear at a child's birth 
and decide its fate. 

In the fourteenth century French poem of Ogier k 
Danois, which was influenced by the Arthur- romances, 
fees come to Ogier at his birth. Ogier here shows 
special likeness to the Melcager-story in that the fit 
Morgue presents the child with a sword, decreeing that 
his life shall last as long as the blade is not corroded, 
This coming of they^'c^r is not found in the older poems 
on Ogier. It appears, however, again in the prose story 



• Cf. Golther, Handbiuh dtr German, Mylhal., pp. lo6 f. 

- For example, in Mortem (Ireek tales. See B. Schmiiit, Crieiiis.ii 
Mdrchen, No. 3 (p. 68) and No. 5 (pp. 74 {) ; cf. B. Schmidt, Dai Veiis- 
leben dtr Neiisriahen, 1, p. 211 f (communicated by Fiof. MoliLt 
Moe). 

' !.a [Jit. />am: an fioytii .Igr, jnd ed., 9 «. 



^ 



THE STORY OF MELEAGER 103 

of that hero which dates from the beginning of the 
fifteenth century.^ 

The most interesting occurrence of this incident in 
Old French is in the fourteenth century romance of 
Brun de la Montaigne?' There we read that, in accord- 
ance with a time-honoured Breton custom, Butor has 
his young son borne to the fountain of marvels in the 
forest of Broceliande. That night itizxiy fies assembled 
at the fountain. Their three leaders pondered long 
over the future of the child. The first gave him beauty 
and grace, and decreed that he should be conqueror in 
tourneys and battles. The second, however, thought 
this liberality too great, and as an offset decreed that 
he should have pain and sorrow in love. The third, 
conceiving a very strong attachment for the child, 
promised to aid him whenever he was in need of help. 
She wrapped him up in silk clothes and put a gold ring 
on his finger. Then all vanished, for it was nigh cock- 
crow. 

The son of Maillefer^ also was visited hy fdes at his 
birth. After having partaken of a repast prepared 
specially for them, they dispensed gifts to the child. 
The first decreed that he should be valiant and hand- 

' Vigfusson {Corp, Poet. Bor.y i, cxxx) compares a number of features 
in the Helgi-story and in that of Holger (Ogier) the Dane ; but only two 
of hit parallels deserve any attention : (l) the/f« at the birth of Ogier 
(just discussed), and (2) the rescue of Ogier by a/^(f in a terrible storm 
at sea. These motives do not belong to the oldest story of Ogier, and 
cannot therefore be regarded as * echoes of the old Hclgi myth. ' 

- Ed. Paul Meyer {,Soc, des am, textes f ran fat's) ^ Paris, 1875. 

^ See Le Roman de Cuiliatime an Court Nez in I.e Roux de Lincy, 
Uvre des iJgendes, Paris, 1836, p. 257. On the whole matter concerning 
fUs sec particularly Alfred Maury, Les ft^es du moyen dgc, Paris, 1843; 
Hertz, Spiel manmbuck^ Die Bretonischen Feen. 



I04 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



nd^ 



some, govern Constantinople, be King of Greece, and 
convert the Venetians. No animal should have power 
to poison him, The other two also gave him similar 
good gifts, and all disappeared at dawn. 

In the romance of Huon de Bordeaux} finished in 
1454 and printed before 1516, we read that Oberon 
received marvellous gifts at his birth from the /m 
invited to his christening, but that a wicked f^e, who 
was not invited, decreed that he should not grow after 
his third year. 

In Ysaie k Trtste^ also, //ct appear in the nighfeJ 
beside the new-born child and give it good gifts. ^ 

In Perceforesi, a French romance of the fourteenth 
century, Lucina, Themis, and Venus visit a girl at her 
birth. 

We have a similar incident in the Icelandic tale of 
Mcerjjoll^ preserved in a MS. of ca. 1700. Three sisters 
'blAkipur' are invited to the baptism of a new-born 
girl. The eldest two give good gifts ; but the youngest, 
who had been treated with less consideration, lays a 
curse on the child. 

Professor Moltke Moe calls my attention to a related 
Norwegian tale, Trolln^tet, 'the witch's claw,' taken 
down by J^rgen Moe in Bygland, in S.W. Norway. 
This points even more distinctly to the Meleager-story, 
A strange woman comes to the cradle of a queen's 
child, and says : ' Yes, handsome art thou ; but yet 

114" ;cf. p.89*- 
aur Aiail., vill, | 

,98. I 

■ Dunlop-Liebiecht, p[>. 86, 90. I 

• In Jon Amason, hi. fy'iHSsi-giir, It, 414 ff; Maurer, /:/. SWliMSi', I 

|>p. 284 f. I 



THE STORY OF MELEAGER 105 

shalt thou become an adulterer and murderer, and shalt 
be sentenced to death. And thy mother shall not live 
after this candle is burnt out' The queen arouses the 
nurse, and bids her extinguish the candle, which is 
afterwards preserved. The prophecy, nevertheless, was 
fulfilled. 

In Germany also we have early evidence of the 
belief under discussion. To Professor Moltke Moe 
I owe the two following references. In Hartmann 
von Aue's Erec (v. 9900), written at the end of the 
twelfth century, Frau Saelde (Good Luck) comes to 
the cradle of the new-born child, and gives it gifts. 
In the confessional of Burchard of Worms (f 1025), 
the question is asked : * Do you believe, as some do, 
that those whom people call Parcae, still exist? . . . 
That, when a child is born, they decide what shall 
happen to him.' 

In Scandinavia the story of Meleager's birth in- 
fluenced, as is well known, the Nornagest (him to whom 
the Norns came). 

Saxo tells (Bk. VI, p. 272, ed. Miiller) that it was the 
custom in olden times to question the Ndlrns {Parcae) 
as to a child's fate. Thus Fridleif (Fridleuus) acted 
when he wished to know the destiny of his son 6ldf 
(Olauus). The first Norn gave the boy beauty and 
favour among men ; the second, liberality ; but the 
third, who was malicious, decreed that he should be 
miserly. Olrik,^ who shows that the story was 
taken by Saxo from an Old Norse source, thinks 
^hat the third Norn laid upon Olaf the curse that 

* Sakses Oldhist.^ I, 71 f. 



HOME OF THK KDTilC POEMS 



he should be betrayed by the servant he trusted , 
most. j 

>. The account in the Helgi-Iay differs from most tales i 
of fate-maidens coming to a new-born child, in that 
Helgi receives no bad gift. ] 

That the Wo!f-Theodoric story which influenced i 
the Helgi-poet in his account of the hero's birth, con- 
tained a prophecy of the future greatness of the new- ' 
born child, appears probable after comparing the j 
German poem with the Cormac story. It was doubt- . 
less this agreement which suggested to the Norse poet ' 
the introduction of the fate-maidens, the earliest | 
e.\ample of whose appearance at an infant's birth b 
preserved in the story of Meleager.' It is just possible, 
however, that our poet was influenced in this borrowing I 
by finding other points of contact between the Meleager j 
and Helgi stories. Sigrun, for example, may have | 
seemed to him to resemble Atalanta, Meleagei^s love, ; 
who was a huntress, and one of Diana's maiden- • 
nymphs,^ and who, armed as a man, took part with the j 
men in the chase of the Calydonian boar.' In the First 1 
Helgi-Iay, Sigriin rides with a company of battle- : 
maidens, all of them birnie-clad and armed with ' 
helmet, spear, and bow. When Helgi helps Signin, he j 

' III tlie Irish Tale of the Destruction of Troy Hercules seeks help, I 
among other places, at Sparta and Salaniina. In Hre'nis \Fab. I7J, I 
p. 2g in M. Schmidt's edition) Sfaria and Salamiii arc named among ibe I 
places which sent Oeneus help against the Calydonian boar. 

' Atalanta is called, t.g. in Myth. Vatic, 2, 144: summa vtnalrii, 
Dianai sdtuci laiiies. Be it noted further thai diianalrinn (in IJ^. i.\ 
is translated by tdts Diane (in Hiit. Nerveg.). 

' Note thai Irish Irialh and tan, as well .is the O.N. jofiirr. mean bulk 
wild-boar and king. 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 107 

dlls her relatives ; when Meleager helps Atalanta, he 
dlls his mother's brothers.^ 

It is perhaps also worth mentioning that Meleager is p. 103. 
railed a son of Mars, and that the Helgi-poet represents 
lis hero as sprung from a race of famous warriors. He 
nade him a son of Sigmund, the hero specially pro- 
:ected by the Battle-God Odin, and of Borghild, i,e. the 
>attle-maiden dwelling in the castle. Naturally, then, 
Lhe poet felt impelled to let fate-maidens predict the 
hero's greatness even at his birth. 



IX 

English and Irish Influence on the Second 

Helgi-Lay. 

Passing on to the verses now known collectively as 
the * Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbanr,'* I would first 
call attention to certain expressions peculiar to that 
poem, which seem to throw some light on the question 
where its author lived. 

The so-called Second Helgi-lay is made up of a p. 105. 
series of strophes, brought together in recent times, all 
of which are in the metre fornyr'^islag^ with the excep- 
tion of St. 29, which is in ljS6ahdttr. These strophes, 

* Ilia cum MeUagri fidem imphrasset^ Hie intervenit et amorem cogna- 
tUni {uiuposuit atnmculosque sues occidit (Hyginus, Fables ^ ed. Schmidt, 

174, p. 29 M.). 

' After the First Helgi-lay, there follows in the old MS. the story of 
Hdgi, the son of HJ9rvarth, introduced by an account of his father. 
Then Ilelgi Hundingsbani reappears. 



io8 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

which to some extent do not agree with one anotbet 
and which do not form a complete whole, are introdiicei 
by a bit of prose headed ' On the Vnlsungs." Pros- 
passages, moreover, are scattered here and there through 
out the poem, uniting different strophes; and the con 
eluding words are also in prose. 

The first four strophes present scenes from Helgi' 
feuds with Hunding. The latter is slain. In st. 5-1 
we have the first conversation between Helgi am 
Sigrun, the daughter of Hogni. Inst. 14-18, which u 
a prose passage are said to belong to ' The Old Lay 9 
the Vi.'lsiings,' Sigrun comes to Helgi, and embrace 
and kisses him. She tells him that she loved hin 
before she saw him, but that she is betrothed tc 
Hothbrodd. Helgi bids her not be afraid : she shal 
live safely with him (Helgi), Next, a prose passa^ 
tells of Helgi's sea-expedition to the land of the son; 
of Granmar. A little of the conversation betweer 
Sinfj'otli and Guthmund follows, with a reference totlw 
First Helgi-lay, which, as we have seen, had ahead) 
found a place in the Ms. Then comes a prose passagi 
which records the battle in which Helgi overcomes tht 
sons of Granmar and their allies, Hogni and his kins 
men. In st. 35 Sigrun's conversation with the dyin{ 
Hothbrodd on the battle-field is given ; and in st. :6 
29 that between Sigrun and Helgi. Then, after thi 
words '}>etta tva\^ Gu^mundr Granmars sour,' come foui 
strophes (19-22) which have no relation to the context 
These contain the retorts in the word-combat betweer 
Guthmund and Sinfj'otli already mentioned, but in 1 
different form from that first given, along with tuD 
strophes (essentially the same as H, H., I, 45-46), i" 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 109 

rhich Helgi puts an end to the dispute (23-24). The 
irords in these strophes were, for the most part, abbre- 
viated by the scribe since they corresponded pretty p. 106. 
losely with what he had already written in the First 
^y. A prose bit follows, in which we are told that 
lelgi marries Sigriin, and is afterwards killed by her 
>rother Dag, who thus revenges his father's death. In 
it. 30-38 Dag informs Sigriin of Helgi's murder, where- 
jpon Sigriin curses Dag, and lauds Helgi. The 
lead Helgi is now associated with Odin in the 
rule of Valholl. He bids Hunding do servile labour 
there (st. 39). Helgi comes after sunset as a dead man 
to his grave-mound, where the living Sigriin embraces 
him. When day dawns, he rides back to ValhQll, never 
more to return (st. 40-51). In the prose conclusion we 
are told that Sigriin soon dies of grief. 

There are several words in these verses which point 
to the British Isles. 

When Sigriin meets Helgi on the battle-field after 
the battle, in which most of her relatives have fallen, he 
says to her (H. H., il, 28) : 

Liggja * at iorddn ' 
allraflestir 
niiSjar fii/iir 
at ndm or^nir. 

In O.N. this can only mean : ' By Jordan lie the great 
majority of thy relatives, become corpses.* That the 
poet should have imagined the slain as lying by Jordan^ 
is most remarkable. Therefore editors have altered 



no HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

the text to Liggj'a at j'or^ii, which they take to mean 
'lie on the earth.' But, though at, 'by,* can well bfi 
used before the name of the river Jordan, 'on the 
earth ' m O.N. is a (not af}jorSu. If, now, djortiu were 
the original expression, it would not be easy to explain 
how the scribe came to write at iorddn. It seems to 
me probable, therefore, that the original expression was 
>o7' the A.S. Oft eortian, 'on the earth,' and that this the 
poet took into O.N. in the form at Jorddtt, " by Jordaa', 
We should thus have merely another example of the 
tendency to introduce fantastic names of places which^ 
is evident in the Helgi-poems— as, e.g., when the place 
where Atli, King Hjnrvartli's faithful man, dwells, is | 
called at Glasislundi [H. Hj., I), i.e. 'by the tree with , 
the golden foliage.' 

If this conjecture is justified, then it follows V 
that :— I 

1. The first line in H. H., Il, 24 is a working-over of ' 
a line in an A.S, poem. (Possibly the same might be 
said of the following three lines, although we should be 
entirely unjustified in postulating an A.S. model for ' 
the whole poem.) i 

2. The conjectural A.S, line was probably not in the 1 
Northumbrian dialect ; for a Leyden MS. of one of the - 
Kiddles has the Northumbrian form ofaer eot^u, ' over f 
the earth,* while the Exeter Book writes {in the same m 
riddle) o/er eor^an. I 

3. The Norseman who first carried over en eor^an | 
and wrote it in O.N. at Jorddn, had heard the Palestine | 
river mentioned in Christian stories. J 

4. The Norse poet who adopted the line Liggja at\ 
Jorddn must have learned the A.S. mode! of this verse | 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY iii 

Din an Englishman in England, or elsewhere in 
ritain.* 

In H. H., II, 20, Sinfj9tli, in conversation with Guth- 
lund, says of Helgi : 

hann hefir ^ e}>lV 
attar }>innar 
arf ^ fiorsunga^ 
und sik prungit. 

He has subdued the inheritance of thy race.' It is p. 108. 
enerally acknowledged that etili must mean here 
inherited property, allodial possession ' ; but it cannot 
»e proved that e^li had this sense in pure O.N. In 
).N. the word means *race, origin,* and 'nature.* 
Mnnur Jonsson changes the MS. ej>li to 6 pie. But e'Sli 
n this line may have been carried over into O.N. in the 
neaning ' allodial possession, inherited land,* from the 
^.S. /5/^, dative of e^ely which has that meaning. Like 
*-crddn^ eplt points to a West Saxon form.^ 

The word ^figrsunga * is gen. pi. of fjgrsungr, the 
lame of a fish.^ The name recurs as Fjcersing^ Fjcesing, 
Fjesing in modern Norwegian dialects, but, it should be 

' Bjom Olsen says, in Timarii, 1894, pp. 30 f, that he has sought 
Sligently in all the Eddie poems without being able to Hnd a single word 
Or a angle word-form which, in his opinion, is not or has not been Ice- 
In what precedes, I have pointed out several words and word- 
in these poems which are not Icelandic, and I shall point out many 
io the continuation of these investigations. 
' In Northumbrian ffSel has the form oSil, and on the Franks Casket 

have the dative ot>l<e. 
' In Sn. Edda, i, 579, fjorsungr occurs among names of fishes : the 
IMthor of the verse doubtless knew the passage in H. II., i. The 
^KouTcnce of the word as the name of the hawk in Sn. Edda, ii, 488 and 
571, is possibly due to a wrong explanation of the word in the Lay. 




noted, only in the most southerly part of Norway, 
in modern Danish dialects (see the dictionarie 
Ross, Molbech, and FeilbergJ. It designates a fish 
large stripes, tmchinus draco. In the Helgi-pas 
fjorsnnga is used to designate Hgthbrodd's race; 
why the members of that race are called by this r 
the poem does not explain, and this remarkable 
signation is still entirely obscure. Since cNi, a 
seems, is an English word, wc are at once prom 
to seek the explanation o'i fjgrsunga in Anglo-Sa 
I am bold enough to conjecture that it was introdi 
by the Norse poet instead of an A.S, ^iviersinga 
(land) of worse men, (the land which had fallen int< 
hands of) men of an inferior race. An A.S. *wier. 
"ivj/rsmg, does not occur in the extant literature, 
would be a perfectly regular derivative of wii 
9. ivyrsa, 'worse.'' This conjecture is supported by 
fact that 'ivyrsa, 'worse,' is actually used in A.S. h« 
poetry to refer to men of a foreign race to whom 
feels one's self in opposition, and on whom one k 
down.* 

' Desigiialions uf persons in -ing ate formed from adjcclivcs, 
earmiiig, lytling. That such words can also be formed from compan 
may be seen from Ihc Midde Dulch ouderiiic, 'senior,' Q.ti . fcSrieIn 
'a person who is better than his father.' To account for the aim 
of A.S. wiersinga into O.N. fjonuiiga, we may say that the former 
was probably not understood, and that lu and /shifted readilj ' 
/preceded. (Here A.S. hrfe (O.N. arp, doubtless preceded the 
viitrtinga. ) 

- In 5c<ra/H^, after the fall of Iljgelac in the land of the Franks,*? 
wigfrtian wal rja/edon (1. 1212), 'worse warriors robbed the !« 
field.' In the same poem, Beowulf remarks that his old King IW 
needed not to seek among foreign peoples ivyrsan vilgfruaH, 'n 
warriors' (I. 2496). 



i 



} 



THE SECOJ^D HELGI-LAY 113 



The Norseman who introduced fjgrsunga into the 
i text may have been thinking of the characteristic feature 
I ascribed to fjcesing in Smaalenene (S.E. Norway), viz. 
poisonous fins. It is beh'eved in Lasso that a prick of 
the fjaesing's fin in hand or foot causes pain and swelling, 
and the inhabitants say of a very angry person : * He is 
as angry as a fjaesing.' The Norsemen thought also 
perhaps of tales of men bom of fishes.^ 

When the dead Helgi has to leave his grave-mound, 
to which he has come for one night from ValhQll to 
meet Sigrun, he says : 

skal ekfyr vestan 
vindhjdlms bHtar^ 
dfSr salgofnir 
sigrjyjc^ veki (11, 49). 

* I must be west of the bridges of heaven ^ before p. no. 

^^ salgofnir'' wakes the einherfar! Here salgofnir m\xst 

< be either a poetic word for ' cock,' or the name of the 

cock in Valholl. It occurs elsewhere only in a verse 

in two MSS. of Snorri's Edda ^ among poetic names for 

cock, and the author of that verse almost certainly 

knew the word from the Helgi-lay. An analogous 

^ poetic expression for cockSy with the same initial part, 

£ appears to be preserved in salgaukar^ Grott. 7, * cuckoos 



I 



* In an Irish tale, a salmon of the red gold made St. Finan's mother 
Becnait pregnant when she was bathing after sunset {Kev. Ceit.^ 11, 200). 
Iq Bjamarsaga Hltdonlakappa (ed. Friffriksson, p. 42), a malicious verse, 
which Bjom sings about Th6rth Kolbeinsson, tells how Thorth's mother 
•as supposed to have conceived him after devouring an ugly fish. Other 
<iinilar tales could be cited. 

* One cannot understand brtlar as gen. sing, without changing fyr 
^^fyrr, 

* QcA. A. M., 748, 4to (Sn. Ed., ii, 488), and Cod. A. M., 757, 4to 
fSn. Ed., II, 572). 

H 



114 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

of the hall.' ' The second part of the compound, viz. 
go/nir, has not, however, hitherto been satisfactorily 

explained. 

In my opinion salgofnir had its origin in *saIgopnir} 
This word is derived from the Irish ^u/, 'beak (of a bird), 
mouth, snout '—^o/«/>, 'gopnir, is a poetic coinage, like 
most other words in -nir. It means 'the beaked one,' 
i.e. the bird ; of. the name of the steed Mdnir (H. R, , 
11. I, 51), from ;«('/, 'bit.'' Irish ^0/, later pronounced ^ui, 
went over into English, especially the Scottish dialect 
of English, as gob, 'mouth' The word is still famOiar | 
in some parts of America also. In Mod. Icel. gopi, 
' gap, opening,' is used ; haltti firi gopann A Jijer, ' shut 
up, keep quiet.'* Here we have probably another 

' Or of salgautar. The author of the prose bit on Grolli in Cod. r^. 
and 1e^ of Sn. Edda misunderslood the word here— taking it to mam tbt 

= A poetic name for Ihc eagle is written in Sn. Ed. in U {u, 354), 748 
(11, 488), 757 (11, 572). le^ (n, 597), Cod. reg. (r, 490, where the forau 
in U and 748 differ), gallapiir. But gatlopnir in lej9, Sn. Ed., II, 598; 
and the form with / is in Jiirsdriifa (Sn. Ed., I, 292, in Cod, reg. and 
Worm.) made certain by its rhyming with /flH/n«m, 1 leave it undecidtd 
whether the change from 'salgopnir to salgofnir is to lie explained bj 
the influence of the analogous word ofnir (cf. the name of the cock, 
viSo/nir), or from the fiicl thai the syllable to which p belonged, had ■ 
secondary accent ; pn can also readily be misread fot/n. Thus in Sigrdr. 
13, in Cod. reg., earlier editors read by mistake heddropnh for ktii- 
rofnis. Note sopti(t=$ofna In Cod. A. M. 673 A, 410; hipni^kifni, 
himni ia Eirspennill, fol. 177a. 

• Cf. Aadhrlmmr, krim; Stariimmr, riim; Falkofnir, kffr; 
On words in -nir, cf. Sieveis, ' Ueber Germanische Nominal bildu ngeu io 
-aja-, -eja-,' in fConigl. Siiehs. CiseUsch. d. Il'iis., Silziiiig vam nJnS, / 
1894, pp. 148-50. 

* 'Stringe rostrum' (Bjorn Haldorsen). Egilsson has already ei[ 
Salgofnir by Salgepiiir, 'a. gapa hiare, gopi hiatus, qs. in aedibus hisWr 1 
apcrto rostro canens.' 



. _ t . -'_ 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 115 

loan-word from Irish gap, *beak, mouth/ ^ ScUgofnir 
thus designates the cock as ' the bird of the hall/ as 
' the house-bird/ 

The cock that wakes the einherjar in Valhgll is 
known not only from the strophe here under discus- 
sion in the Helgi-lay, but from VgluspA, 43. It is 
important for the history of the Valhgll myth that 
this idea is expressed so early in a strophe which 
contains an Irish word.^ 

It should be mentioned that the einherjar in the 
same strophe (49) of the Second Helgi-lay are called 
sigrffjc^^ and that that compound, which never occurs p. 112. 
elsewhere in O.N., corresponds to sigep^od^ * victorious 
people/ or * people who overcome in battle/ which is to 
be found in Beowulf, 2204, 2i"d frequently in A.S. poetry. 

Further, in the same strophe, vindhjdlmr^ *the wind- 
helmet,* i.e, * the heavens/ or, better, * the air,* agrees 

^ In Mod. Icel. gopi, tlie Irish word is probably smelted with a true 
Norwegian word. Aasen h^&gop (open o\ neut., *a great deep, an abyss,* 
from Norddalen in Sondm^re ; Ross from Hornindal, Nordfjord. Or can 
the Norwegian word have arisen from the pi. form of O.N. gap ? 

* Whitley Stokes, to whom I had communicated my idea of sa/gofnir, 
regards (Bezzenb. Beitr,^ xxi, 126) gofnir as a genuine Scandinavian 
word, related to Irish gop. But against this view we can oppose both the 
vowel and the circumstance that the word occurs only in a skaldic 
kenning in II. H., 11, and nowhere else in O.N. literature, and that it is 
unknown to the dialects of modern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 

' Finnur Jonsson inserts sig}*jc^, * battle-people.* This change does not 
«eem to me necessar>'. In the artificial skaldic poetry not only sig- but 
»lso sigr- has the meaning 'battle* as first element of such a compound 
(sec Gislason, Efterladte Skrifter, I, 99, 102, 274, 281). This meaning 
^ developed through words like sigrpjdfS from the older meaning, * over- 
Powering force in fight ' (especially * victory *). That in the Eddie poems 
*Uo, sigr- has the same meaning as sig- is shown, e.g., by Sigrlinn along- 
**dc Sigmundr. 



ii6 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

with A.S. modes of expression. In the rather late Icel. 
religious poem Le^arvhati, 30, 45, the heavens are 
called lopthjdlmr, ' the helmet of the air ' ; sd/ar kjalmr, 
'the helmet of the sun,' and similar expressions with 
hjdlmr, occur in Icelandic skaldic poetry as designa- 
tions of heaven. In A.S. the atmosphere is called 
lyfthelm, ' air-helmet ' {Gnom. Colt., 46 ; Exod., 60), lyfU 
helm. Riddle, 4^, These AS. designations accord with 
many other A.S. poetic expressions in which helm is 
used of shelter, covering in general. But since O.N 
hjdlmr, ' helmet,' is not used in so wide a sense, the O.N. 
poetic expressions for ' air ' and ' heaven ' which I havr 
named, appear to have arisen in imitation of A.S, forms. 
Sigrun says of Helgi (in Ii, 38) after his death; 
' Helgi towered up above the chieftains as an ash with 
its splendid growth over thorn-bushes, or as a young 
stag, wet with dew, who strides forward, higher than 

3- all deer, with horns glittering against heaven itself 
By 'all deer' is certainly meant smaller animals of the 
deer race, like hinds or roes.- The exaggerated poetic 
expression 'whose horns glitter against heaven itself 
does not force us to think of a mythical stag. 

I We find the same picture of the stag in GuSr., 11, ;, 
where Guthriln says of tlie dead Sigurth : 'So was 
Sigurth above Gjuki's sons as the green leek, grown 
up above the grass, or as the high-limbed stag above 

■ Sz-il l-ar Htlgi 1 af hiMiHSl"" I -J"" UntaJniSr \ aikr af f-yrm, \ ^ 
sA dyrkAlfr \ lins" stimginn \ er ^fri ferr | Qllum dJruiH j oi kir* 
gl6a I vft) kimia sjJlfan. The imitBlion in JCenrMirim., 
thai Jyymi w«i uaderitood as Ihe dal. of f-ytnir ; but I talte il ralhc 
be the dat. of a neiilei fymi, 'hriar-lhicWet,' for it /ym/V hail been 1 
it TTOutd most likely have l>een put in Ihc |i1ura1. 

* Bjorn 6lsen (TVmariV, iSch, p. 59), siys '=skiEan!ir. sjtisIaWip 
nldir.' 




M^ 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 117 

the grey deer, or as red gold in comparison with grey 
(impure) silver.'^ 'The grey deer* are probably, as 
Bjorn 6lsen suggests, roe-deer, which are of a greyish- 
brown colour in winter. The evident likeness between 
the stories of Helgi and Sigurth makes it probable that 
one of the strophes in which the dead hero is likened 
to a hart was the model of the other. The expression 
in the Guthrun-poem seems to be the simpler, and is 
possibly, therefore, the older.^ 

That the comparison of a hero to a stag was a p. im* 
common one in O.N. heroic poetry we see from the 
fact that it is (inappropriately) applied to a woman : 
Thora BorgarhJQrt, Ragnar Lothbr6k's first wife, was 
so called because she was fairer than other women, as 
the stag is fairer than other animals.^ 

' Svd var SigufiSr \ uf sonum Gjiika \ sem vari grann latikr \ or grasi 
vaxinn \ ^Sa hJ2rtr hdbtinn \ urn hgsum djtrum \ ^a gull gld^rautt \ of 
grd silfri, Hgsum is a correction by F. J6nsson of the hvossom in the 
MS. I had independently decided on the same correction. F. J. takes 
it to refer to wolves. Bjorn Olsen, however, opposes such an interpreta- 
tion. To his reasons I add the following : if the expression referred to 
wolves, it would \iy this picture descril)e Gjuki*s sons as Sigurth 's enemies ; 
but Guthrun's account shows that they are not to be considered at that 
time otherwise than as Sigurth's retainers. 

* Sijmons (Paul-Braune, Beit., iv, 200) and Mullenhoff {Deut. Ait.j 
V, 392) are of the opposite opinion. 

* Fomaldarsggur^ I, 237. On * Hart * as a surname for a man, cf. 
Fritzner, Ordbogy 2nd cd. Landstad, Norske Folkeviser^ p. 401, has a 
strif (lyric poem) from Tclemarken in which men arc likened to harts. 

Hjorten spelar i heio nor^ 

han spHkjer si klo. 

Hau so gjere alle del Herjus s<pttinn 

som giljar ma or, etc. 

Bui this verse was doubtless not originally composed in Norway. Corre- 
sponding verses are to be found in Sweden and Denmark, where they have 
^«cn joined to ballads partly or wholly lyric in character. Sec R. StcfTcn 
'n Uppsalastudier,, pp. 107 f. 



ii8 WE OF THE 6DD1C POEMS 

To c are a hero who surpasses other warriors to 

the an d stag which towers above other deer in a 

herd, wa: atural in a land where the stag was commoti 

and whe stag-hunting was the habitual pleasure of 



chteflain 
with so at 
think, thai 

Iceland.* ror i u 
the Helgi and tjutnrui 
occurs, were composed 
be denied that in ancit 
Norway, especially in th, 
nothing to indicate that tliey 



makes the comparison 
as to show clearly, I 
have been composed in 
n, it is improbable that 
IS, in which this simile 
way. It cannot, indeed, I 
les there were stags in 1 
item part ; but there Is V 
:h thought of by 



lis- the people. Besides, both the Helgi-poem and (more 

plainly) the Guthn'tn-poem appear to contrast the roe- I 

deer with the stag; and the roe-deer has scarcely ever j 

been wild in Norway.^ On the other hand, the stag I 

has from an early period played a prominent part in ' 

life and in story among the people in the British Isles. ' 

Stag-hunts are particularly described in old Irish heroic , 

sagas; and therefore the comparison of the hero to a , 

stag might easily have arisen in Ireland.^ I 

There are thus several words, expressions, and images i 
in the Second Hclgi-lay which appear to show that the 
Norse author of the poem lived among Irish and 

■ Herein I am M one willi V. Ji.nsson (Lf/r. Ilisl.. I, 258) as oppo^d 
lo Bj. 6lseii (Timaiil. 1894, ]). 59). Thai Hie hat! may lie mentionnl 
hy a modern IcelandEc poet caniiol be used as an atgiimenl again!l m)' 

'■' See R. CoUell in O. J. Broch's SlaliHiii Arhogfer Kongiriget Ntqi, 
p. 604. The name of ihe Norwegian tivcr ffiria appears to be deritd k 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 119 

English, and understood to some extent the language 
of both peoples.^ 

The other pictures from nature which appear in the 
Second Helgi-lay do not, indeed, necessarily point to p. 116. 
Ireland or England, though they agree with natural 
scenery and mode of living in these lands. Some of 
them, however, forbid us to think of Iceland as the 
home of the poem. 

In II, 23, SinfJQtli says to Guthmund, who has spoken 
of battle and revenge: 'Rather shalt thou, O Guth- 
mund ! tend goats and climb rough mountain-cliffs 
with hazel-pole (heslikylfu) in thy hands/ True, there 
were goats in Iceland, but a poet who had never been 
out of Iceland could scarcely have composed this 
strophe. In Norway were to be found both goats and 
hazel ; but in Norway old historical writings say 
nothing of special herdsmen for goats : to be a goat- 
herd was no distinct occupation, for the same person 
usually herded both goats and sheep.*-^ In Rigsfyula^ 12, 

^ In the First Helgi-lay there also occurs an expression which seems to 

point to stag-hunting. In I, 49, rakka hirtir (stags of the parral-ropes) 

is more probably a designation of the masts than of the ships themselves. 

The word rakki means a ring put in the middle of the sail -yards, by 

which the sail is fastened to the mast, and which runs up and down with 

the sails. But rakki means also a dog. The expression in the poem 

contains a play on words. The mast on which the ring, which is called 

rakki^ runs up and down, is compared to the stag, on whom the dog in a 

hunt runs up, only to Ix: cast down again. Rosenberg explains the 

expression somewhat differently in Nordboernis Aandsliv^ I, 401, note. 

'^ In a ballad from Telcmarken we read of a herdsman : han gjatte ha 
i9uir d gjeitar (he herded Iwth sheep and goats). In Norway the names 
'>f places which begin with Geits- appear, indeed, to argue for geitir^ * a 
g'xuherd ' ; but the word docs not occur in that meaning in the old 
Jucraiurc. 



^ 



lao HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

the sons of the thrall herd goats. So in Danish 
compositions of the Middle Ages goat-herding is re- 
garded as one of the most contemptible of occupations. | 
According to Saxo, a witch sets Sigrith (Syritiia) I 
to herd goats, and this occupation of hers is also I 
mentioned in an inserted verse.' In like manner, I 
Kragelil or Kraaka herds goats in a Danish ballad.' | 
It is hard to say how far this feature is due in these 
cases to the influence of Eddie poems. In later 
Icelandic fabulous tales, as well as in ballads 
from the Faroes and Teleniarken, goat-herding 
is mentioned with the greatest contempt, just as 
in the Helgi-lay.^ This agrees with the situation 
in Ireland, where goat-herding was a despised occu- 
pation.* 

Compare H. H., Il, 37: ' Helgi had made all his 
enemies and their kinsmen as timorous as goats, which 

' Snxa, ed. MiiUer, Bk. vn, p. 331 ; cf. Oltilt, Saisii 0/.IAiit., IJ, 
234- 

' Grundlvig, Damn. gl. Foliev., No. alA, 7, g, 11 ; No. J3A, 9. 

' Cf. Fyrr mii'ilu verUa geilahirVir 4 Gaullandi, inn }<ii hafir luikal 
XfirMi Jttssa itatiar {Ilr6ifs Gaulriissi^a in FornaManigur, lii, 98). In 
Ihe ballad of Henno Idde from Telemarken : tg Unkti, han Uti tin 
gjtiUhirrc [—giiltthirair) seal dita dei andrt fieirt {\a Landstad, p. 208, bj 
mislake, gtysleherrt). In (he Faroe ballad, Jlermundur ill! : Tinum hihi 
■••itdi eg itiiaS, ei tlnnm gtilasvthii {Far. Aiilhel., 1, 70). See ilso 
Friliiicr, Ordbog, s.v. geil. 

* See Zimmer in (7.'«. Gtl. An:., 1891 (No. j), p[i, 179 f, who cat-, 
Ihe following places from Aita sand. Hib., 18S8 : 'Qu.Miam lempore 
Fimanus era! in scoli^ sanctl Comgalli, qui ijuodam die jussit ei ul &iii> J 
capias |iasceiel. Quod officium minime honestum Finlanus pulans, onvii J 
Ul capre vetterenlur in bovea, quod el (actum esl.'— Col. 227, 5. 'lift ' 
quadam die puer Lugidus missus est ut gregem caprarum cusiodiiet; 
scd grex ovium crat qunndiu Lugidus custodiclNlt cam.' — Col. iti;, 
16. 



. kT _^ . . - . 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 121 

•un wildly before the wolf down from the mountain, 
full of terror.' ^ 

In the Helgi-lay we read that the goatherd has a 
hazel-pole in his hand. This feature, too, may have 
been borrowed from life in Ireland. In a tale which 
belongs to the old north-Irish epic-cycle, it is said of a 
man who accompanied the war-fury Morrigan : * a two- 
pronged stick of hazel-wood was on his back, while he 
drove a cow before him.' * 

We may also note that tending swine is likewise 
spoken of in the Helgi-lays as a contemptible occu- 
pation.* The Irish regarded swineherds with contempt;* p. 118. 
but other peoples had the same feeling, so that this 
expression proves nothing as to the home of the poem. 

Other pictures which the poem presents us are, 
briefly stated, as follows : the ash rising high above the 
thorn-bushes (H. H., II, 38) ; the eagles sitting on the 
ash after sunset (il, 50) ; a bear-hunt (II, 8). When 
the poet calls the birds of prey *the goslings of the 
Valkyries' (II, 7), he refers to the custom of keeping 

* In Irish works also, at any rate in later times, the hero who rushes 
in upon and chases his enemies is compared to a wolf. In Joyce, Old 
Celtic HomanceSt p. 205, we read : * Fiona overthrew them . . . like a 
wolf among a flock of sheep ' (in the tale called * The Fairy Palace of the 
Quicken Trees,* after Mss. of the eighteenth century) ; Cath Huis na Rlg^ 
p. 72. But the picture meets us also among other peoples — e.g. Dudo 
^ys (27s) of the Normans : * velut lupi per bidentium ovilia occidens et 
Rfostemens hostium severiter agmina ' (cited by Stcenstrup, Normaitnerttey 
\ 362). In the Iliad^ 16, 352 ff, and elsewhere. 

* In the story Tdin b6 Regamna in Windisch, Irische Texte, ii, 2, 
Pp. 243, 249 (after the Book of Leccan of the fifteenth century and Egerton 
'782, of the sixteenth century). 

* See H. IL, i, 44; 11, 39. In Klgs}?ula^ 12, the sons of the thrall 
^^*nii swine. Cf. Allamdly 62 ; Hervar.^ II, st. 14 ; Fins, vi, 258. 

* Sfc Zimmer in Golt. Gel. Anz.^ 1891 (No. 5), p. 180. 



I 

laa HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

geese as house-birds, The maid-servant stands by 

quern and grinds valbygg (i.e. barley from Valli 
II, 3). This word is now in use in the interio 
Norway (Buskeruds Fogden, Hallingdal). 

Side by side with the expressions in the Second 
which seem clearly to show A.S.influence.there are otl 
which agree with A.S. expressions, but where the ag 
ment is of such a kind as to afford no proof of borrow 
from English. These expressions, however, des< 
notice, for they at any rate support the idea that 
Helgi-poems stand in close connection with A.S. wo 
The word hermegir {\l, 5), 'warriors,' occurs nowt 
else in O.N., but in the A.S. Genesis 2483, we h 
lureuKecgas. That A.S. m^cgas is not grammatic. 
identical with O.N. megir is of little consequence. 

Sigrun is called dis skjoldunga in II, 51 ; and Bi 
hild has the same name in Brol, 14. Yet neil 
Sigri'in nor Brynhild is of the race of the Shieldii 
Cf A.S, ides Scyldinga, Beow., 1168, used of a Shi' 
ing queen. Here the A.S. expression has a n 
original meaning. O.N. dis, 'woman,' does not, indi 
correspond in form with A.S. ides, 'woman'; bu 
agrees in meaning, and the two words are so r 
9. each other in sound that dis could very easily 
inserted instead of ides, if the A.S. expression v» 
carried over to the Norse lay. 

The dead I lelgi says of Sigrun's tears : 

levtrtfellr m^ugl 

d brjbst grami 

lirsvall 'i.wfiaigl' 

(kka jjrungii (ll, 45). 



rwrnt v _ ^J- 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 123 

tear falls bloody on the king's breast, ice-cold 
rdened with sorrow.* The most probable ex- 
on yet given of innfjdlgt is * pressing in deep.' 

meaning for the word is not, however, according 
f. usage ; but the reading is supported by the 
transitive use of the verb which corresponds to 
'/{?,* to conceal.'^ 
ody ' as an epithet of tears of sorrow and despair 

also in Irish. We read, e,g.^ of the Druid 
.d : ' He wept in streams great red tears of 
so that his chest and bosom were weL'^ But 
pression proves nothing as to the home of the 

for bloody tears are mentioned also in German 
r poetry^ and in the Persian epos. We still 
^rcede sine blodige Taarer* * to weep one's bloody 

:n Guthmund has seen the enemies who have 
to his land, he says : * battle-redness spreads 
Dver the vikings' (verpr vigrd^a um vikingd). 
>rd vigrd6i^ * battle-redness,' means a red gleam in 
which foreshadows battle.* Similar expressions p. 120. 
n Irish tales. In the Book of Leinster we read 
uchulinn, when the hostile hosts from south and 
irried war over the borders of Ulster, * saw from 

ic in lie feU, *ut non inhcream/ Psalm, Surt., 68, 15 ; cf. A.S. 

A, 'penetrated.' 

Cath Ruis tta Rig for Boitm, ed. K. Hogan, p. 2. 

sdfrietslied '. *Sic weinte aus ihren Augen alle Tage das rote 

>efore the battle of Stiklestad : vigroflSe lystr a skycii fyrr en blo^ 
oriSena {dlafssaga helga^ Christiania, 1 849, chap. 91). By imita- 
H. H.: vlgrd^ verpr a hlyrniy Mcrliny 2, 68; vlgrd^a viJSa 
r6mti [StjoniU'Odda draumr^ ed. Vigfusson, Copenhagen, i860, 




him t rdent sparkling of the bright golden weapt 
over heads of the four great provinces of Erin 

befon fall of the cloud of even.' ' 

In II, 42. the chieftain is called f6lks ja^arr. 'the 
, here used figuratively, 
ige, border,' and in that 
h used in Norse. It is in 
S. eodor, ' fence,' and cor- 
l.H.G, eter, 'geflochtener 
Rand iiberhaupt' We 
; in Fdfn., 36, /lers ja^rr, 
s called dsajaiiarr, 'the 



people's pr ' -iot ' 

literally means in 

meaning is very old ; 

reality the same word a: 

responds to O.H.G. eia 

Zaun, Umzaunung ; Sa 

have the same figurative 

and ill Lokas., 35, where '. 

chieftain of the gods,' This may be compared with 

poetic expressions in other languages, ancient and 

modern, as when Frederic IV. is called in a verse, 

' Folkets v<£rtt og gj<erde ' (the people's defence and 

fence), or when Aj'ax is called in the Iliad, epxoi; 

WjftuStv. So the king in Beoivulf is called eodor 

Scyldinga, Ingivina; in the Gnomic verses, Ex. 90, 

eodor (gHeitnga, ' the (de)fence of the Shieldings. 

Ingvins, high-born men.' English influence is here 

probable, but it cannot be proved.- 

Of the dead Helgi we read in li, 42 : dolgspor drtyra, 
' the wounds bleed.' The word dolg, ncut., oftenest used 
in composition, means in poetic language 'battle,' but 
more originally 'hostility.' By ddlgspor wounds are 
artificially designated as 'battle-tracks.' But, on the 
other hand, that word appears to have originated 
under the influence of A.S, dollisiv^, ncut., in the pi. 



'. Cell., 



■r { FoslbraWrmaga and Gliima) should bi 



THE SECOND HELGI-LAY 125 

olhswd6uy * scars/ which is a compound of A.S. dolhy 
olg^ neut., 'wound/ and swc^^ neut, pi. swatSu, 
tracks.' 



The Second Helgi-Lay in its Relation to 

OTHER Eddic Poems. 

The Second Helgi-lay shows the influence of the pp. 121-3. 
Vayland-lay (VglundarkvitSa), probably also that of 
he Second Guthriin-lay (GutSninarkviSa, ll). In its 
urn, it affected several of the Eddic poems — Brot of 
ugurtiarkvitSUy the complete Sigurth-lay, and the First 
lUthrun-lay ; probably also Oddrimargrdtr^ Hyndlulj&S^ 
nd Atlamdiy 

This shows us that the Second Lay was composed 
inder conditions similar, with regard to external 
nfluences, to those which affected the First Lay. 
These two lays, then, consist of several parts or 
ragments belonging, so to speak, to the same 
terary school, traditionally associated with one 
nother. The verses of the Second Lay are, how- 
ler, somewhat older than those of the First Lay, 
ince the author of the latter was influenced by 
lem. We get the impression that the younger 
ly was composed perhaps half a century after the 
Ider. 

* For the detailed discussion on which these statements are based, see 
ppcndix IV. 



^ 



OF THE EDniC POEMS 



HeLG [UNDINGSBANI A DANISH KiNG. 

13. The Helgi-lays a cal poems, and Helgi, 

as he appears in lo way an historical 

(^personality. Nor is <.■■ -story a popular tale 

,' which involuntarily suffe; changes, natural and 

necessary, in stories pres* ly tradition. It was 

evidently put into form ; anged by poets wfaO' 

were conscious literary arti 

Hclgi is brought into connection with places which | 
exist only in the realm of poesy.^ The names of some 
of the places are poetic forms easily understood. Cer- 
tain poetic names of essentially the same kind are to 

■4- be found in the A.S. Beowulf, e.g. Hrefnawudu or 
Hrefnesholt, ' Ravenswood,' where a bloody fight takes 
place between the G6ats and the Swedes.^ Similarly 
in the Helgi-poems a battle — in which the wolf is sated 
— takes place at FrekasUini, ' by Wolfstone.' * The 
king sits down tired after a battle — in which the eagle 
gets corpses to eat — unii Aras/a'm',' under Eaglestone' 
(I, 14 ; cf above, p. 70), just as the G^ats find B^wulf 
dead after his fight with the dragon when they come 
under Eagle-ness {under Eaman<es).* Ships sail out 

' r. E. Miiller has already said [Sagaiibliolhek, 11, 56) ihat the niajorily I 

of names in Ihe llelgi-laya appear (o be allegorical. Vigfusson also nolrf f 

that Ihc ge<%raphy of [he llelgi-poet was, on Ihe whole, merely ^lutk f 

(C. P. B., I. LX). ' 

' Cf. my notes in PaiilBraune, Beit., Xll, II. I 

" H. H., I, 44 ; 1, S3 ; 11, Zl ; II, 26 ; H. Hj., 39-cf. above, p. 86. T 

* B/mv., 3031. Much puis il otherwise in Ztuh.f. d. All., xxxtll, 1. | 



HBI.OI A DANISH KINO 



J2J 



l^nsnts, 'Stem-ness' (l, 23), and assemble at 
(l, 22), 'Brand-isle' (from brandr, a beam in 
^s prow). When the ships come from the 
lea into calm water, they lie i Unavdgum,' in 
rts' (una meaning ' to be at rest'}. The poet 
also regarded a( Logafjglluvi (I, 13, 15) as a 
ttne — that of the place where the battle takes 
hveen Helgi and the sons of Hunding — for he 
thought that it was called ' Flame-fells,' 
after the battle Helgi saw a radiant gleam 
ghtning flashed : it was the advance of the 
Udcns.^ 

Helgi has slain Hunding, he is, according to 
ad Lay (sL 5 and 6), i BnmaveiguM, and com- 
redations on the coast there. The name then 
means, a bay on whose coast there is burning 
tag. Starkath falls in a battle al StyrMeifum 
r, ' battle-cliffs ' (from slyrr, ' a battle ').- 
Helgi's beloved, dwelt at Sefafj^lhim (ll. 25, 
I 48), This name may have been intended to 
ave-fells'* (from sefi. 'mind, passion, Iove');p.i 
bly it was chosen because the poet had heard 
^Id in Vestergotland, which rises from the 
by the mouth of the southern branch of the 
ler.and extends northwards (cf. Hdvam&l, 105).* 

Srhrifun, Vin, 139, and Much. Zlick.f. d. Alt., XXXIU, I, 
i^gafiglt contains the nnioe of ihe East-Gcnnnnic Lugier. 
VByDtKt. AU.,V, I, p. 329)divjdesUlhiis: Styrk.leifum. 
bnholT. Zis<k.f. J. All., xxiii, 169. I dare not hold S<fa- 
nation from 'Se/na/anA connect il wiih Setnntiies. 
■Uitain goo through Safvedals Herred, formerly Sirvadal, 
tame from Safvt-An. An island in the G^> River ia called 
These (umes ate probably lo be connected with sef, tush. 
Pliny's mimt Stuva lo ci plain Stfafjoll. 



H ME OF THE EDDIC POE 



Some the poetic place-names, as I have already t 
shown, a )ear to be modifications of foreign appella- 
tive expi, 3sions — e.g. Himinvati^ar (i, 8), ' plains of 



m 

;ms ^ 

ve already i 



' by Jordan.' Other place- 
difications of names in 
of Sparta, Silheintar oi 

r of place-names in the 
shown to have really 
3enmark and adjoining 



heaven '; at Jordan (ir, 28^ 
names, moreoi 
foreign tales — 
Salamina. 

There are, however, a r. 
First Helgi-lay which cai 
existed. These are foui 
lands. 

The author of the prose uit. On Sinlj^tli's Death, 
imagined Helgi's home in Denmark ; for we read there 
(p. 202): 'Sigmund,son ofVoIsung,was king in Frakk- 
land (the land of the Franks by the Rhine). Sinfjgtli 
was the eldest of his sons. The second was Helgi. . . . 
King Sigmund remained long in Denmark in the 
kingdom of Borghild (Helgi's mother) after he was 
married to her,' 

In the First Lay also the conception of Helgi as 
King of Denmark appears clearly. In st. 8 we learn 
the names of the places which Sigmund gave his 
6. born son Helgi : Hriiigsla^i \ Sdlfj^ll Snafjoll \ 
Sigarsvqllu, \ Hn'ngst^, Hdti'm \ ok Himinvanga. The ] 
first of these recurs in the last strophe of the poem. 
After Helgi has killed his rival, H9gni's daughter ( 
Sigriin, his victory-genius, says to him : ' Hail thou : 
king ! thou shalt unopposed possess both Hogni's 
daughter and Ringsted {HriiigsiafSa), victory and land.' 
Here Hringsla^ir is represented as the royal seat. 
Without doubt, the strophe which enumerates the I 
places which Sigmund gave his son, contains raanj' J 



The I 

jem. I 



* 



HELGI A DANISH KING 129 

names merely poetic or borrowed from stories of 
adventure ; but Hringsta^ir is evidently of more signi- 
ficance than the rest, not only because it is named first, 
but also because, as we have seen, it is mentioned again 
at the end of the poem as Helgi's royal abode. In my 
opinion, the poet used the name Hringsta^ir to desig- 
nate Helgi as a Danish king, adding * Sunfells,* * Snow- 
fells/ and * Plains of Heaven * as mere poetic decoration. 

Hringsta^ir is well known to be Ringsted in Zealand. 
This place is called Hringsta^ir in old Icelandic sagas 
and verses. It is called by Saxo Ringstadiunty abl. 
Ringstadiis, in Valdemar's rent-roll Ringstath, A dis- . 
trict {furred) was also called after the name of this 
town. The Zealand national assembly {landsping\ 
which is first mentioned in 1 131, was held there. In the 
eleventh century it was one of the largest towns in 
Zealand, and it is named in stories of semi-historical 
times. Arngrim J6nsson, following the Skjgldungasaga^ 
relates that King Frotho, father of Ingialldus, had his 
abode now in Leire, now in Ringsted.^ According to 
Pagrskinna^ Svein Forkbeard held in Ringsted a funeral 
feast in memory of his father Harald.^ The Hringstg'^ p. 127. 
in our poem may possibly designate a harbour belong- 
ing to Ringsted, which was itself an inland town. 

Sigarsvellir is mentioned shortly after Hringsta^ir^ 
and is therefore probably connected with the name of 
the inland town Sigersted, near Ringsted. This place 
is referred to by Saxo (ed. Miiller, p. 346), who says 

* See A. Olrik in Aarln^gerf. n. O., 1894, p. 86, no f. 

* See especially Henry Petersen, Ont Nordboernes Gudedyrkelse og 
^^Mdetrotf pp. 10 f, where he suggests that Ringsted was a religious and 
Ocular centre of Zealand in heathen times. 





^^^^^H 


130 

that 
Siga> 
In 
appears r 


ME OF T 
ene of what 

if the verses 
be regarded 

also, wt 

In the a 
Hogni, Hi 
:nted as 
its form 
n Jutland, SOI 


m 

HE EDDIC POEMS 
he tells about Hagbarthus w; 

(6) in the Second Lay, Hel| 
as a Danish king ; for when, e 


a voyaf 
(his fos 

In ir, 27, 
preserved, 
brodd and : 
are represe 
agrees as t 
RibeStiftii 


If as the son of a peasai 
3ur home is in L<Fss<f).' 
lavc a Danish place-nam 
Hclgi's fight with HotJ 
sons, along with Starkatl 
tl HU'bjgrgum. HUbjofi 
'.aburgh^ now Ltzborg, ii 
jtn-westof Ja;llinge.' We ma; 



note also that Hggni (Hoginus), Hild's father, is, ii 
Saxo, a petty king in Jutland. 

In this connection I may mention that Helgi ii 
I, 55, is called dttstafr Yngva, 'descendant of Yngvi. 
This also goes to show that he was regarded as i 
Danish king; for in Beowulf the Danish king is cailec 
eodor Ingwina, 'protector of the Ingwins (descend 
ants of Yngvi),' _/>-/a Ingwina, 'lord of the Ingwins' 
and in the A.S. Runic Poem we read : 'Ing was fin' 
seen by men among the East-Danes.' 

After Helgi has come with his fleet to the land ol 
his enemies, one of the latter inquires : 



Hvcrr er skjoldungr 
sder skipum st^rir? (n 



19). 



* Older Daiiisli forms of the name may be found in Atauthr for tmi- 
Oldk., 1863, p. 26;. 

' Cf. DanEsh Wibiargk, which later became Wiborgh. Both Fabj^ 
and Faburgh are written | and these two parts of a name shift in "^ 
Danish place-name; (O. Nielsen in Blandinger, I, 219 f). 



HELGI A DANISH KING 131 

hat Shielding is it who guides the ships?' Here 
-ildungr is used in a sense approaching that which 
:ot in later times, viz. * king ' in general ; but, never- 
less, it seems to point to the fact that the hero was 
lly a Shielding from the beginning, and therefore a 
nish king. The same may be said of the words in 
29: vinnat skjgldungar skgpufHy 'Shieldings cannot 
ist the decrees of fate,* and of those in il, 51, where 
Igi's wife after his death is called dh skjqldunga, 
>man of the Shieldings.' 

lelgi appears also to be designated as a Danish 

g when he and his men are called siklingar in I, 26 ; 

6 = 11, 24. Helgi himself is called siklingr in II, 14, 

from him the word is carried over to Helgi, son of 

rvarth, in H. Hj., 29. The old Icelanders regarded 

5 a race-name,^ and this view seems to me cer- 

y correct, because of its use in the Helgi-poems in 

>gy with Ylfingar^ Vglsungar^ Dgglingar, etc.^ 

norri and in FlateyjarbSk^ it is said that Siklin- 

the name of the race to which Siggeirr^ who was 

!d to Vglsung's daughter Signy, and Sigar, who 

lagbarth hanged, belonged ; and in Flateyjarbbk 

'*s father is called Sigar. This too is, in my 

norri's Edda^ i, 522 ; FlaieyjarbSk^ i, 25. 

\e reasons above given I cannot accept Noreen*s explanation of 

Uppsalastudier, p. 196. He explains the word as a derivative 

/, -^//, which would correspond to A.S. sicol^ O.H.G. iihhilay 

probably is to be seen in Icel. sikolgj^r^. But the A.S. and 

rds mean always * sickle' (never * sword'), and siklingr could 

m from a corresponding O. N. word because of its meaning. 

kul'fj^f^ is more correctly written svikulgj^r^y Sn, Ed., I, 

. and at any rate cannot be shown to have had anything to do 

oL Further, A.S. sicol and O.H.G. sihhiia may be loan- 

atin. 



131 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

opinion, correct, for St^/iti£-ar (which may earlier have 
been pronounced with the main accent on the second 
19, syllable) appears to have had its origin in *Si^ga'sJin- 
^(iR.' But the saga-king Sigar is connected with Den- 
mark." In GuGr., ii, 16, Guthrun tells that she once 
was in Denmark (t.e. either in Zealand or Skaane), 
where a woman wrought figures in a piece of tapestr>'. 
representing the fights of Sigar and Siggeir in the 
south in Funen.^ The Siklings, who were originally a 
royal race different from the Shieldings, are connected 
with Zealand in many ways.* Except in Saxo, they 
are not, however, mentioned in the old Danish royal 
genealogies among the kings of Denmark. The ( 

' This explanation is suppotted by homogeneous forms. Egil Skatli- 
grimsson calls Atinbjom (in Arini/arnartviCa, ig) : vinr Vtfiormt Veh 
liuga Igs. Here Vijxirms must mean son of I7giin- in Sogn {LatiJiU- 
maiJi, 11, 29; fiUndigas^gur, I, 149). The word Vektingar, hilheiW 
unexplained, had thus its origin in ' V/giii-Ungat.. OtUff{DifI. Norm., i, 
No. 1049— Vesr 1516); AutUiff{\, No. 1050— Vear 1516) is, aceon3iE{ I 
to the Roister loDipl.i=Drfi//^</r. Eilsuus(HirmaitHi){Sirifl.r.Datt 
vni, 241 f— Year 1328) seems 10 come from Eggldfr (or, is Eilama I 
borrowed from English?). In Htimskringla, Hik. s. g., chap. 13 (F.J.) = 
we read : ett dSr varjdlahald hafit hikunJll, pat var mitinntrar-nStt. OA. : 
Fris. has higgonill. HokunSlt comes from kigganStt, ' the night wbto 
one slays (animals for sacrifices).' The word presupposes a subst. k^ggK, 
formed as taia, Iriia, Gothic brinno, etc. Hopelsladhum, Red Boot, 
p. i)0=I{aiolstadAum, pp. 87, 93, Hebilstadai, p. aog, now HebUlitd^ 
Gaard-Nr. 100 and 101 in Ovre Eker ; Hob^hiadom, Red Book, p. jS, 
now HeppatadXTi Gjerpen Gaard-Nr. 13. The passing over of gg 
after a vowel with secondary accent before the chief accent is to be s 
the following word used as a Norwegian place-name; O.N. kigo0, 
pronounced HfkjlUit or HikkjlUn, with chief accent on the setooJ 
syllable. 

' Cf. Sv. Grundivig, Danm. gl. Felktv., I, 259. 

^ Fj6ni, as the Vgls.-saga has it, appears to be the right reading. 

• Olrik, Si^ies Oldhist., U, 230-249. 



HELGI A DANISH KING 



133 



Btor of the race was, according to Saxo, Yngun or 
Yngvin (Unguinus).^ 

It was not until later that siklitigr came to be used 
in poetic language to signify a king in general, and 
this meaning was probably largely due to the use of 
the word in the Helgi-lays. 

The chief event described in the First Lay is the 
war betivecn Helgi and Hgthbrodd. In order to follow 
the history of the story, it is important to determine if 
possible what names mentioned as the scenes of this p. 130. 
warfare are the names of actual places. We have 
already seen that in the poem, as in Saxo. Helgi is 
designated as a king of Denmark: and in the closing 
strophe we learn that not until Hothbrodd had fallen 
could Helgi occupy unopposed Ringsted, the royal 
seat which his father had given him at his birth. We 
see, therefore, that in the war with Hothbrodd, Helgi 
was defending the kingdom of Denmark. The sea 
over which Helgi sails against his enemy, must then 
have been thought of by the poet as Danish, and the 
decisive battle which took place in H9thbrodd's land 
must have been in one of the lands which border on 
Denmark.* 

Several place-names in the Helgi-lays show that the 
sea which the hero traversed was the Baltic. 

When Hclgi's fleet assembles, men come to him in 
hundreds from HSinsey (I, 22). This island is men- 

' Olrilt, Soisa OMhist., 1, :oo ; cf, r, loS. 

' VmmfJitUr, from which Helgi sails with his flcel agninsl Hplhbiodd's 
1»imI, euinol theicfot«, as Vigfussoo thought {The Place of Iht Htlgi- Lays, 
io Griatm Ccnlcruuy, Oxfoid, tS86, pp. zg ff), be Ihc sea about the islands 
ia Uie BtitZsb Chancd, Gueinbej-, anj the others. 




134 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



tioned [uently in documents relating to early times 
■ in Scan avia, and it certainly must be the island of 
Hiddenst just west of Riigen, from which it was not 
complete.j separated until 130s. He^insey s.% a name 



of Hiddensec 
in the storj 
First and I ai. 
in his accouni if ti 
Hiddensee was, says IN, 
the Danish fleet gener: 
between the island and 
and reconnoitring station. 



'y in the Knytlitiga Saga 
iged by Valdemar the 
fie Wends.^ Saxo too, 
:s often Hytkini insula' 
;rsen,^ the place to which 
it first ; for in the sound 
1 it had a sort of refuge 
was peculiarly suitable 



for this purpose, because it had a harbour on the 
eastern side. 

In his account of Frotho lll., Saxo makes Hggni 
(Hbginus) and Hethin (Hithinus) fight with each other 
in Hcthin's isle {apud insulam Hithins^')* We may 
feel confident that it is Hiddensee, near Riigen, which 
is meant; for Saxo has already said that Hethin was 
collecting taxes among the Wends {Hithinutn, regia 
apud Sclavos stipendta colligentem). It seems to have 
been in Denmark that the localisation of this battle 
in Hiddensee was decided upon.^ 

When our poet represents numerous companies of 
men from He^insey as supporting Helgi, we seem to 
have an indication that he imagines the Danish king 
either to have had himself a firm foothold on the coasls 
of Wendland, or to have had allies there. 

' Fornmannasqgitr, XI, 374, 378, 382 f. 

' M ill ler's edition, pp. 746, 751, gsg, 970. 

2 Ann.f. n. Oldk., 1836-37, ].. 220. 

< Srxo, Bk. V, p. 243. 

" A. Oltik, Saksts Oldhiil., 11, 192. j 



HELGl A DANISH KING 



r 

^V The mention of Hiddensee in the lay makes it 

probable that the poet thought of the war between 

Helgi and H^thbrodd as taking place in the Baltic and 

on the Wendish coasts. This helps us to an expiana- 

' tion of other names of places in the poem. 

Some of the ships which are to join Helgi's fleet sail 
in to Qn'osund (I, 24). This name means 'sound of 
arrows ' ; and I take it to be a translation of Strelasund, 
Straisnnd, the sound which separates Riigen from the 
mainland, and on which the town of Stralsund now 
lies. The sound got its name from the island o( Stre/a 
in the Knylliuga Saga called Stns/a, now Danholm, to 
the south-east of Slralsund — an island often mentioned 
in accounts of theVV'endish wars. Mid. Low Get. strti/e, 
strii/, A.S, s(r^/, means 'an arrow,' so that Slralsutid, 
when one did not think of the island StreJa, could be 
translated into O.N, by Qrvasund. How easy this 
translation was, becomes evident when we observe that 
the coat-of-arms of the town of Stralsund in the Middle 
Ages was ein sird/ (^n arrow ).^ 

The poet describes how the sails were hoisted on p. i 
Helgi's ships in Varinsfjord {a Varinsfir^i, I, 26). This 
place also was probably on the Wendish coast. Since 

' II was not unusual in O. N. 10 translate foreign names, and also ni 
of pUccs. t have given examples of Ihis custom in my Studim Sber dU 
BntrUMutlg dtr Hard. Cotlcr- u. Heldensageti, I, 134 f (Norw, ed., 
pl^ IlSO- The name Ziff MI was tnuislaled by ' the envious' (4 ;>in ^unt/- 
V''*^ s/uHdiaKti\ ; Skoris, the name of a river in Spain in Lucon's 
rkanaiia, I, 14, by ' ihe secure' (^mga), as if the name came from 
fiurwj. Even Jn the land of Ihe Wends, tbere « 
-'iich mere translated by Norsemen : Kamin (cf. Pol. KamUri, 'slonc') 
- L' called by the Icelanders Suinbsrg', and SttSlin {cf. Pol. stetedHa, 'a 
^th ') eormponds to Icel. Burstabvrg. SceN. M. Petersen, ^ttHf^ 




136 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



we see i /hat follows that Helgf sails westwards, I am 
of the opj ion that in J^irins/j^r^Sr the poet thought of 
the fjord at the mouth of the river now called the 
Warnou; near the place now known as Wamiririiiniif. 



''le eleventh and twelfth 
rnabi{A6am of Bremen), 
land was called War- 
ay to Guthmund in the 
37) : ' thou wert a I'glva 
' And the Norse author 
itli makes the witch say 
atchnian(H. Hj., 22); 



At Warnow 
centuries the A 
IVarnavi (heimi 
nouwe} 

The poet makes Sinfj 
word-combat between the 
(sibyl, prophetess) in Van 
of the lay on Hrlmgerth a. 
to Helgi Hjorvarthsson's w 

go thou into the land, if thou art confident of thy 
strength, and let us meet i vlk Varins! The names 
' Varin's Isle' and ' Varin's Bay' were formed In imita- 
tion of ' Varin's Fjord ( Variiisf;^r^r) ' by the Nonvegian 
poet himself, who probably had never been in that 
fjord. 

Thus in order to determine where the poet thought 

. that the lands of Hothbrodd and the other sons of 
Granmar lay, we have, as it seems, the following facts: 
(i) that men come in hundreds to Helgi from Hidden- 
see ; {2) that numerous ships, which set out to join 
Helgi, sail into the sound near Strasla or Danholm ; 
and {3) that the collected fleet sails out afterwards 
from Warnemiinde. The poet therefore represents 
Helgi as collecting his fleet on the southern coast of 
the Baltic. 

3, We learn from the First Lay the direction in which 

' See Zeuss, Dii Dciilnhen, pp. 652 f; N. M. Petersen, Anmlir, 
iSj6-37, p, 209. 



HELGI A DANISH KING 137 

i is thought by the poet to have sailed to Hgth- 
i's land. When Helgi has come to the country 
5 Granmar's sons live, Sinfjgtli, Helgi's brother, 
to one of Hgthbrodd's brothers that the latter can 
hat ' the Wolfings have comt from the east' (i, 34). 
expression, in connection with the place-name 
ously given, shows us that the poet represents 
i's expedition against Hgthbrodd as sailing along 
outhem coast from Rugen westwards, and that it 
near the south-western end of the Baltic that he 
ined Hgthbrodd's land to lie. 
hen Helgi's ships, after their voyage, have come 
harbour in the hostile land, the men (*they them- 
5') from Svarin's Hill (J>eir sjdlfir frd Svarins- 
\ I, 31) look out over the fleet. On this statement 
sed the following remark in the prose bit after 
1 in the Second Lay (p. 193 a) : * Granmar was the 
J of a mighty king who dwelt at Svarin's Hill (at 
inshaugi)' Since the poet represents Helgi's fleet 
LiHng from the east (H. H., I, 34), and since he 
ined Varinsfjord, the place from which the fleet 
ist sailed, as near Warnemiinde, we must naturally 
for Svarin's Hill in the south-western part of the 
c. The place which the poet seems to have 
in mind is Ztierin} Suerinuin^ in the land of the 
rits, now SchweriUy which is mentioned as a castle 
; Wends as early as the first half of the eleventh 
iry. The word Iiaugi in the compound Svarius- 

. N. M. Petersen, Annalerf. nord. Oldk.^ 1836-37, p. 207. The 
las been explained as a derivative of Old Slavic sz'^^r/, * wild animal.' 
•reign form Swerin could have been changed into O.N. Svarinn 
Uie O. N. man's-name Varinn corresponds to O. S. Weriiu 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



haugi ler to the forest-covered heights near 
Schweri 
i. Saxo IT ;is an Earl Svarinits, whose name is con- 
nected wi arinskai/gi ; of liim I shall speak later. 



imong the Germanic 
i or Mother Earth, be- 
hoti£s, a people whose 
Suardones. Zeuss (pp, 
: of the Baltic, between 
h * somewhat further 
: placed in the region 
The MSS. BCc have 
ritten by corrector 



Tacitus {Uermama, , 
peoples who ^ 
tween the Etmuie. ..u 
name in most editions is | 
1 54, 476) places these on t: 
the Trave and the Ode 
north. In Much's map t 
south of the present Aalborg. 
Suarines; over this in h,doiics 
j8. It is perhaps possible that the Helgi-poet gol 
Svarinshaugi from an older Danish poem, and that in 
the beginning the name was not brought into connec- 
tion with Schwcrin, but was a poetic representative of 
Svarines, 

I have conjectured that when the author of the First 
Helgi-lay mentioned Van'n's Fjord, he thought of the 
fjord near Warnemunde, where the Slavic Vamavi 
dwelt. It is not, however, improbable that he took the 
name from an older Danish Helgi-poem, and this name 
may then at first have been understood as the name of a 
fjord in the land of the Germanic Varini. To support 
this suggestion, we have the fact that the A.S. poem 
Wtds^ brings Varns and Vikings into connection with 

' The name Sjxirim/ieiSr, in 1, 51, leiembles Parin, ihe name of an 
allodia] property in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, not far from Grevesmuhlen. 
I regard Ihis likeness as accidental, and hold to my opinion Ihal Sfltrm- 
itiSr is based on Sfiar/a. 

' Cf. Mallenhoff, in ZiscA./. d. All., xi, 286 f. 

* Sitvtn's £ei/rage, xvu, zi 1-213- 



HELGI A DANISH KING 139 

one another {mid Wcsmum and mid Wtcingumy 1. 50), 
where the Yarns are without any doubt the Germanic 
people which Procopius mentions in his account of the 
expedition of the Erulians northwards, as dwelling 
south of the Danes, and where the Vikings must (as in 
Wtdst6^ 47) designate Ingeld's people, the Heathobards. 
The fact that the Vams are named in an A.S. poem 
along with the Heathobards, suggests that Varin's 
Fjord, hard by Hgthbrodd's land (i.e.y as we shall see 
later, the land of the Heathobards), was originally 
thought of as a fjord in the land of the Germanic 
Varini, The personal name Varinn, which occurs p. 135. 
in ancient stories both in Norway and in Sweden, 
should also be explained by the name of the Germanic 
tribe. 

In determining the scene of the wars between Hgth- 
brodd and Helgi, the name of one more place deserves 
notice. In H. H., I, 46, Helgi says of Granmar's sons : 

peir hafa markat 
d * mbins heimom,* 
at hug hafa 
hjgrum at bregtSa, 

* They have shown at M6inshome (at M6in*s dwelling- 
places) that they have courage to swing swords.' 
Since the poet imagined that the scene of the 
battles between Helgi and Granmar's sons was 
the Wendish coast eastward as far as Rugen and 
the Danish coast opposite, together with the sea 
between these coasts, I cannot but think that by 





^^^^^1 


I40 


m m 

ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 


4 M6U 1 


imum ' he meant ' 


on Miin: We should 


note th 


n Mdins the older 


rorm in two syllables is 


preservi 






In At 


o-aard't; dpsrrintinn 


of Mon's cliff, he states 


(p. 2) that 


Mo, Mojord are used as 


names of 


and chalky earth, with 


which the peasai 


?h their houses. Mo, 


Moj'ord, MoUr are u; i 


n many other parts of 


136. Denmark.' By this 


jaard explains the name 


of the island Mon ; ar 


explanation has been 


further developed and , 


rted by Dyrlund and 



O. Nielsen.* They explain Mijn as coming from MSvin, 
and refer to Man, the name of a Norwegian countrj-- 
seat {gaard), which occurs twice and has its origin in 
M6-vin^ although, indeed, in this compound, m6r has a 
different meaning. 

This explanation of Mon as originally *M6-vin is 
supported by Mdinsheimum in the Helgi-lay." In 
' The editors of the phololype eililion (p. 42, 1. 13) read keio. Where 
this word recurs in 11. II., u, 24, the MS. has a. m. r., by which, if 
written in full, the scribe probably meant d (or al) mShis ih'ho, from rtin, 
a strip of land. 

■ Except when in combination, the name of the island did not form 1 
genitive in -i. Possibly the O.N. poet inserted the gen. form MMns, in 
accordance with the name of the serpent AlSinn in Grim. 34. Yet willi 
reference to the gen. form in -s in combination with a name originall)' 
united with i/iB, cf. O.N. H.tns Kiri:ja, FJni Kirkja, and the like {see 
Arkiv,y\\, 263 f). Cf. alio Hdiagsbiiar— Hhiiigbilar ; O.N. kjAlfsmsSir 
= QV\\<x\. hjAlparma'Sr. 
' See Molbech's Dansk DiaUkt-Ltjeikoii, p. 362. I 

* The former in Ariiv, XI, 183 ; the latter in a private communication. I 
' See O. Kygh in Ariiv, Vil, 246, and Trondkjemste Gaardnavni, Jl, / 

" Adam of Bremen calls the island Moyland. This seems to have been I 
originally Moytiland, and to point to a two-syllable form, Miyn. la the J 
t!y- Year-books (Perti, Scriplsrei, XVI, 392) we have AUen. \ 




HELGI A DANISH KING 141 

1 attack on the realm of the Danish king from the 

^endish coast near Stralsund, it was natural that a 

ittle should take place in Mon.^ According to Saxo 

Jk. XIV, p. 742), Absalon sails from the open sea by 

iigen back to Mdnensium partus. This shows that in 

le time of Valdemar l. there was a well-known harbour 

: Mon.* Saxo also says (Bk. xiv, p. 874) that the 

»ct of the Wends which lay Szvaldensi in portUy 

lanned to sail to Mon, to land cavalry on the south 

>ast of the island, foot-soldiers on the north coast, and 

len to have the ships enter Kyalbyensis sinus anfrac- 

hus (now Stege Nor). The Valdemar era appears, 

lerefore, to throw light on the naming of the battle d 

^dins/uimum between Helgi and the sons of Granmar. 

We have thus found that the First Helgi-lay men- 

ns places on the southern coast of the Baltic and in 

»n. This proves that the poem was not composed in 

>enland or in Iceland. It also makes it less probable p. 137- 

'. it was composed by a Norwegian in Norway.^ 

!veral personal names in the account of the war 
Hgthbrodd in the First Lay appear to be borrowed 
the Danish story of the Shieldings. 
e young HjgrUifr^ who accompanies Helgi in his 

er my explanation of MSinsheimar was written down, I saw that 
nn {Die Eddagedichte der fiord. HeldensagCy pp. 61, 121, 212) ex- 
le name by Mon. Much, in Ztsch.f. d. Alt., xxxiii, i, explains 
I by *the Maine,' O.H.G. Moin\ but this does not agree with 
undings in which the war with Granmar's sons takes place. 
[. M. Petersen, Ann,f, n, OldJt., 1836-37, pp. 242 f. 
L Olrik, Sakses Oidhist.y I, 23: *No Icelandic accounts of the 
story tell of battles in Germany, and the contact with Germany 
Id stories {Hervararsaga^ Asmutidarsa^a kappabatia) are in- 
and do not bear in the least the impress of a national war.' 



HELGI A DANISH KING 143 

Further on in the Helgi-lay, we have other personal p. 138. 
names which seem to belong to the story of the Shield- 
Ings. When Hgthbrodd sends out messengers to get 
help, he says (i, 52) : 

BjS6i^ ir Hggna 
ok Hrings sonutity 
Aila ok Yhgva, 
Qlf enum gamla ! 

* Carry messages to Hggni and the sons of Hring, to 
Atli and Yngvi, to Alf the old ! ' In the Skjgldungasaga 
we are told that Hring (Ringo, or Sigvardus Ringo), 
who was King of Denmark and Sweden, was married 
to Alfhilld, daughter of King Gandalf of Raumarike in 
southern Norway, a descendant of Alf the old {Alfr 
enngamU). After her death Hring, in his old age, met 
in Sciringssal (in southern Norway) Alf and Yngvi, 
King Alf s sons from Vendel, and their sister Alfsol, 
whom he wooed in vain.^ It seems certain that there 
is connection between these names and the names of 
Hring^s sons, Yngvi and Alf the old, in the Helgi-lay. 
The names in the lay were probably taken from the 
Skjgldungasaga} 

* FamaJdarsgguTy i, 387 f ; Olrik, Aarb. /. nord, Oidk.y 1894, pp. 

* On the Zealander Ringo, in Saxo's story of Gram, see what follows. 
riie Bra valla-lay, 15 (see Olrik, p. 231), has Hringr Atlasun (in Saxo, 
^ingAthylcufilim)^ who, the poet seems to think, came from the south-east 
•f Norway. It is very uncertain whether these names are borrowed from 
be Helgi-lay. In Hyndl., 12 and 18, occurs Alfrenn gamli in a different 
Qonection from that in H. H. , i, and in the Skjgldungasaga. Ring was 
lerhaps to some extent thought of as an eponym for Ringsted. Ringo as 
. name of Sigurd Ring, on the contrary, appears to be a translation of 
^dam of Bremen's Anulo, With reference to other persons, the name 
^tingr has been brought into connection with Hringarki ; cf. J. J6nsson 
» Arkiv^ X, 130 ff. 




Helui Hi 'Jdingsbani in Saxo and in the 



). There are some sure □ 
son of Sigraund, in the Ec 
Helgi, son of Haifdan. t 
fact that both are called ' I 
and HQthbrodd.'' But it v. 



' union between Helgi, 
i Saxo's Danish King 
;c the plainest is the 
he slayer of Hunding 
:u1t to settle defiaitely 



the historical relations between the two accounts, 
Saxo's and that of the Edda. Saxo names neither 
Sigmuiid, I3orghild, and Sinfjntfi, nor Sigrun and her 
father Hngni in connection with Helgi, Since, now, 
Sigmund and Sinfjgtli at any rate, and possibly also 
others of the persons named, did not originally stand 
in connection with the Helgi-story, wc have reason to 
believe that the form of the story of Helgi the slayer 
of Hunding and H^thbrodd which Saxo learned, had 
not taken up the persons named, and that to this 
extent this form of the story presented an older stage 
than the Helgi-pocms as preserved in the Edda.^ Saxo 
knew, however (like the Eddie poems), that Helgi , 
waged war against Hothbrodd and killed him; but 
this war is not carried on in Saxo (as in the Edda, 
with the exception of H. H., ii, 19-24) for Sigrun's 
sake nor even against Signin's father, Hggni. And Is 

' H. H., I, has Ihe heading: hur hcfr ffi qvtjii fra helga idmS^I 
bmia. fitlra oc h. (i.e. AavJiliriiiiJc) ; see the photo-liihi^raphic edidoL 
In Saxo (ed. Muller, p. 83) wc rend of llelgo : ' Quo 



ob Handii^ caeiiEm agnomen i 
nouientuoi infcrret.' 

* This is also ihe opinion of Jes 



; Hothbrodi stragcs of Iz 



L, Uicr die Eddalitder, 



HELGI IN SAXO 



14S 



since Saxo's form (in agreement with H. H„ ll, 20-21) 
represents an older stage in the development of the 
story in that it does not know Sigriin and does not p- 
make Helgi war against Hijthbrodd for Sigriin's sake, 
we have positive grounds for holding that his account 
of the war between Helgi and Hothbrodd contains 
Ider elements which wcri: driven out of the story in 
tl-.e Edda by the intrusion of the Sigrun-motive. 

I cannot, therefore, accept Olrik's theory that Saxo's 
account of this wax does not really refer to Hgthbrodd, 
and that the name Hrdkr'^ or Hri^rikr in Saxo was 
incorrectly replaced by that of Hothbrodd. 

Saxo tells (p. 82) that King Hgthbrodd of Sweden, 
ter undertaking an expedition against the Baltic 
winces in order to extend his power, attacked Den- 
^rlc He fought with Roe in three battles and slew 
1 io the last. When Helgi heard of this, he shut up 
B son Hr(jlf in the castle of Leire, to keep him out of 
mgef. Then he had his men go about in the cities 
i kill the commanders whom Hothbrodd had placed 
He afterwards conquered Hothbrodd's whole 
n a sea-fight in which Hothbrodd himself fell. 
[hus Helgi revenged his brother's death and what his 
hgdom had suffered. 

I The points in which the account in Saxo and that 
• the Edda agree, may in all probability be regarded 
I saga-features which belonged to an older form of 
I story of Helgi Hundingsbani, a form which was 
B common source of both accounts. These features 

\ Tlul ffritr in Hrilfnaga Kraia is the SBme soga-fipire as Hrarikr 
, 1 h«ve, I IhiuV, shown in lay Studitn, I, 171 f(Norw. 

VASlfls 



J 



146 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

may be stated thus : Helgi Hundingsbani was a. Da 
king. Hothbrodd, a foreign king, acts in a ho 
manner towards one of Helgi's nearest relatives, 
thereby forces Helgi to attack him with a fleet, h 
conquers the whole of Hgthbrodd's army, and 
Hethbrodd. 

In other traditions also, the Shielding Helgi is 
to have been a king who set out on a naval expedii 
,. Saxo represents the war against H9thbrodc 
undertaken by Helgi in defence of the Danish k 
dom ; in slaying Hothbrodd Helgi avenges what 
fatherland has suffered (patriae injuriain). In the 
strophe of the First Helgi-lay, Sigriin says to Hi 
who has slain Hothbrodd: 'Hail, thou king! t 
shalt unopposed possess both Hygni's daughter ; 
Ringsted, victory and lands'; and Ringsted {Hri 
sta<Sir)\s here named as Helgi's royal seat. Well 
see that the Eddie poem also represents the i 
against Hothbrodd as a war which the Danish ki 
wages against a foreign king in defence of Dcnma 
and its royal seat. This seems, then, to have been! 
account given in the story which was the source 
both Saxo and the Eddie Lay. 

Therefore, notwithstanding the fact that the R 
Helgi-lay was composed in a later time than certi 
strophes of ' The Old Lay of the V^lsungs ' and stropi 
in the last part of the Second Helgi-lay, it seems 
some respects to preserve an older form of the sW 
for it represents Hothbrodd as Helgi's real oppoW 
In this older form (as in the First Lay) Hogni sW 
quite in the background in the war which resulted' 
Helgi's victory. We may say, in fact, that (if' 



lELGI IN SAXO 



147 



s strophes in the Second Lay which contain 
5-combat between Sinfj^lli and Guthmund) 
j Helgi-lay is not really a working-over of the 
ttant Helgi-verses, although the author knew 
linfluenced by these, but a working-over of a 
fri, which stood in connection with a Danish 
f' composed (as I shall prove later) in Britain. 
jes (ir, 19-22) which contain the word-combat 
f> be a remnant of this lost poem. 

I more particular there is connection between 
rodd-story in the Edda and that in Saxo. In 
ibrodd is designated as ' the king who caused 
\.y\\' {jofur l>ann er olli \ '{gis' dau^a). Thisisp. 
rer by what Saxo says (Bk. II, p. 81) of Helgi, 
id slain Hunding : Jiitiae Saxonibus ereptae jus 
temque Hescae, Eyr et Ler dudbus commisit. 
rrsen and A. Oirik have seen * that Eyr= Icei, 
t as Eydora m Saxo=Icel. j^gidyrr. It is 
the same /Egir who is named in the First 
The account in Saxo is easily fitted lo that 
die Lay, if we suppose that Helgi, according 
more original form of the story, appointed 
ler Hunding's fall to protect Jutland against 
pics, and that j^gir was later killed by 

iitland chieftain called by Saxo Ler has the 
He as the old Icel. HU'r. Him we may regard as 

i> Danm. ffiit.^, i, 395 ; Ihe Utter in Saisis Oldhiif., 
E the wMd in I, 55, carnigt he taken to be agis 'of the 



I 



148 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

the representative of HUsey (L^ss<f>) in the epic p<x 
In the Second Lay (in its extant form, at any n 
Helgi is brought into connection with La;ss<^; for, a 
Handing's death, he says to Sigriin (ll, 6): "Our he 
is in La;ss<^,' The statement which Saxo took fr 
an older epic poem, that Helgi committed Jutland 
the charge of the chieftain Ler, practically means t 
Helgi had a fleet lying at Laess^ to defend Jutii 
from an attack by sea. 

As Ler is a representative of Lasss^, so j^gir (Saj 
Eyr) is a representative of ^gidyrr, E^'dora, Eu 
The statement in the epic poem that Helgi intrus 
Jutland to the charge of the chieftain ^gir, sim 
means that Helgi stationed troops at Eider to def< 
Jutland against a land attack from the south.^ 
3- The third earl, Hesca, whose name has hitherto 
been explained, must then in like manner be a ref 

' These observations were writlen before I saw the following sente 
aiOM^iSakits 0!dhisl.,\\: ' Am on g the names we meet £_>t and 
Saxo's way of pronouncing the old names j^gir and Hler. It must 
been weM on in the Middle ^es before the gianl-nature of ihew 
habitants of the sea was foi^olten so that they could be transformed 
Jutland earls' [p. 144). ' Several Jutish kings are perhaps conn 
under [Saso's] earls. The most striking cases are the iirsl Jutish chief 
he mentions, viz. Hesca, Eyr, and Ler, the carls whom Helgi appoin 
rule Jutland after its recovery from the Saxons ; these earls have not 
to do in the Hclgi-slory, and their original giant-natures make them '- 
fitted for a place there ; are not lEgi' a"*! HIet, the giants from Eider 
LiEss^, represented as the oldest kings of Jutland, just as the fiost-{ 
Snjo is transformed into a Danish king . . • ?' (p. 29S). 

I have shown, I think, that jEgir and HUr have something lo d 
the Helgi-story, and 1 see, moreover, no convincing reason for hoii 
that these eponyms were regarded in the story as the earliest kinf 
Jutland. The sea-giant, on (he contrary, was doubtless ortgioally n 
than in eponym. 



HELGI IN SAXO 



M9 1 



ive of some Danish place. I take this place to 
•.berg} now Schelenborg, on the peninsula Hiods- 
On Fiinen. This property was in the possession 
irsk Stig in the thirteenth century. When a 
■om Saxony or Wendland wished to attack the 
m part of Jutland, the nearest way was through 
real Belt. It was natural, therefore, for the 
i king to station a chieftain on Hindsholm to 
a hostile fleet from reaching northern Jutland 
[h that channel. This Eska appears, therefore, 
r that Eskcberg in Hindsholm was a place of 
nee as early as the beginning of the eleventh 

in the Helgi-poems another Danish eponym ; 
occurs in the First Lay only, and is not found in 
^elgi calls H^thbrodd 'the slayer of Isung' 
This IsiiHg may be the poetic representative 
^ord, including the principal place of assize p. i 
fsUd) of the Danish kingdom, Isore, which lay at 
iDuth of Isefjord on its west side.- When the 
Blls Hothbrodd fsung's slayer, he means that the 
king made a devastating expedition through 
fjord against the royal seat of the Danish 
n. Although Isung is named in the First Lay 
• was certainly not invented by the author of 
:m. Since fsung is entirely analogous with Eska, 
frnd Hlir, he was probably, like the others, carried 
inm an older poem on Helgi Hundingsbani. 

jitiUlhc^ xaHaca, ve may com pure in %axo Hrsbcrnuj — Eslnr- 
tfa = O.N. Ebttand; HeiniuUii-O.M. Eyvindr; H^icakut= ^ 
j^ill, etc 
Henry Pelirsco, Oiu Nordlioema Cudsdyrkelst, pp. I3'l8. 




There 
as foil 



south w 



iE OF THE EDDIC POEMS I 

well have been a pair of alliterating lines I 



/sungr, Mska 



after having vanqui^ 
border. 



LSion killed Isung, killed 
say, he went from the 
o Denmark over EitJer, 
Danish guard on the 



According to Saxo {Bk. ii, p. 82 ff), Hothbrodd 
(Hothbrodus) was a Swedish king. He makes him the 
son of the Swedish king Rcgncrus and Suanhuita, ard 
father of the Danish king Adisl (Atislus), Hri:iirs con- 
temporary, and of Hotherus. 

That this account is at variance with the older story 
is evident from the fact that Adisl, in O.N. works, is 
said to be a son of Ottar ; and this statement is clearlj' 
correct; for the Swedish king Eadgils in B/owulf'a 
represented as a son of Ohthere. Hothbrodus has 
then taken the place of Ottar as father of Adisl, 

Saxo seems to have known Hothbrodd both from a 
Danish and an O.N. source.- It was from the latter 
that he knew him as son of the Swedish king Regnenis. 
145. But, as I shall point out when we discuss the poem 
of Helgi, son of Hjyrvarth, the story of Regnerus aiid 
Suanhuita was composed at a later date, and borrowed 
motives and names from the Helgi-Iays. The designa- 

' isung is olherwise explained by Mlillenhoff in Zts^h. f. d. All., x'U 

351 f, and by Heinie], l/i/ier die NiMunsensage, p. so [68S]. , 

-' Cf. Olrik. Satics 0/dAiit., n, 43. 1 



MELGI IN SaXO 151 

tion of HQtbbrodd as a Swedish king does not seem, 
therefore, to be based on any old story. 

Granmar is the name of H^thbrodd's father in the 
story of Helgt Hund. Snorri^ mentions a king in 
S^ermanland called Granmar, who was married to 
Hild, daughter of King H^gni in East Gautland. This 
Granmar gets help in war from his father-in-law H^ni. 
The Helgi-Iays tell of HQthbrodd, Granmar's son, whom 
H^ni assists in war, and to whom he promises his 
daughter's hand. Helgi says to Sigriin after the battle 
against Hgthbrodd and Hpgni ; Hildr kefir }>ii oss 
verit, 'a Hild hast thou been to us.' These agreements, 
when taken in connection with the fact that the name 
Granmar does not occur elsewhere, seem to show that 
that Granmar whom Snorri makes King of S^derman> 
land, was really the same saga-king as the Granmar of 
the Eddie poems.^ 

This same king is in S^gubrot^ referred to East 
Gautland. There we read that Harald Hildetann 
'set King HJQrmund, son of Hervarth Ylving, over 
East Gautland, which had been in the possession of 
his father and King Granmar.' The Hervarth Ylving 
here named is the same saga-king whom Snorri calls 
more correctly Hjgrvarfir Ylfingr in the Yngtingasaga 
(37-39), where we are told that he became Granmar's 
son-in-law.* 

' In ihe Viiglingasaga (ed. F. J,, chaps. 36-39), possibly after the losl 
St/gldungasaga. 
' Cf. Heinifl, Ueb^r die Nibeluiigensage, ji. 19 [6S7]. 
' FumatJarsgpir, 1. 375. 

* Munch {Nerste FMs Hist., I. I, p. llS, nolc 4) says Ihat the name 
Granmar seems best to belong to Ea^i Gautland. 



HELGI IN SAXO 



'S3 



: invented by the author of the First Lay : he is 
lUo mentioned in Saxo's account of Hclgi. 

We should note further that it is only in rather later 
Old Norse stories that Granmar and H^gni are referred 
to Sweden ; and the same thing may be said of Hyth- 
brodd, since Saxo's statement that he was a Swedish 
king is based on a comparatively late account. We 
cannot believe that these localisations were originally 
present, for, as I hope to show more clearly in what 
follows, they are at variance with the oldest form of the 
saga. They are to be classed with other localisations ji. 
in later Scandinavian stories, where the action is trans- 
ferred to places nearer to Norsemen and Icelanders, 
In the saga of the Shieldings, the Svertings are removed 
from Saxony to Sweden ;' Danparstatiirfrom the south 
if Russia (River Dnieper) to Denmark; Rei^golaland 
rom the south of Europe to Scandinavia. 

A similar removal can be pointed out in the case of 

Saxo (Bk. I, pp. 26-32), following an O.N. authority, 
lands down a story, with verses interlarded, about 
aram. This tale has borrowed a series of motives 
■nd expressions from the different Lays of Helgi 
"lundlngsbani.^ 

■ Olrik, Saiiti Oldkisl., I, 3} ; cf. Sleenstrup, Arkiv, Xlll, 149 f, who 

■oldi the oppoulc opinion ; but see Olrik's answer in Arils, xv, Heft 1. 

' Muiy tcwmbUnccs between the two stories are pointed out by 

- tg, UnJfnikninfar, I, I3G-I40; but some of bis resemblances are, 

i^ipiition, Insed on wiony Inlcrprelallons. Nor cm I agree with 

.Tg that Gram is idealical with Helgi Hundingsbani, or that 

-.-JiJan'i youthful esploils provided malerinl which wiis freely worked 

■vii in tbe two lle^-lays.' These seem to me, on Ihc cotlltary, older 

^an the Gnm-siory as we find it in Saxo. 





154 HOME OF THE EDDIC PO 

Gram, son of the Danish king, begins 

he hears that Gro, daughter of the Sv 

Sigtrygg, is betrothed to a giant Helgi 

because he hears that Sigriin is betrothed to 

whom she hates as ' Cat's son.' Gram mei 

is on horseback with other maidens. Si 

with several maidens riding to Helgi. A v 

versation takes place between Gro and Gra 

in-arms, Besse. In H. H., 11, S-13, a convei 

place between Sigrun and Helgi, who give; 

to be his foster-brother, Svend Grundti 

first to see in some of the strophes in Sax' 

to a couple of strophes in the Second Helgi 

i. In other places also the verses in Gram's 

iated by Saxo, contain reminiscences of the 

' Cf. Gio's questions and the 

Quit rege vtstrum 

dirigit agmtH T 

qua duce signa aura 

biUitafirli,? 
wilh II. H., IT, 19 (Grundlvig cooipaics )i, S-6) : 
liverr tr stjgldungr 
sh er itifiHii ilfrir, 
lalr guHnfaKa 
gutlintt fyr slafnif 
■ Who is ihc eliieftain (Shielding) who guides Ihe A 
war'Slandiui! litfore ihe siciii?' 

' Wilh H. n., 11, 30, kUiiingum d hdisi slK, 'h 
of kiT^a," ef. S«xo, p. Jo : 

Xfgttm caUa fetctUium 
victrin leties perdamui manu. 
With H. H., II, 40, Hvin trv }M svii an, 
. , . ? ' Is il I mere phantQm Ibal I ihink I s 



Ihe reply I 

//iv iflUi it, 
signa levam 




ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



lin kills Gro's father, and marries Gro. Helgi 
Sgrun's father Hggnt, and marries Sigrun. In 
is many brothers, who are all slain by the Danish 
Gram, we must have an imitation of the many 
trs of H^thbrodd, king of Svarinshaug, who are 
IB by the Danish king Helgi, 
ee the story of Gram has taken its names and 
pits from the Helgi-stories, we cannot believe that 
frring Svarin to Gautland {Got/iia) it is following 
(dependent old account. 

It finally, when Saxo (l, 32) tells how a high-born ■ 

\tAcr, Ring(o), revolted against Gram and his 

but was conquered by them, the name Ring 

have been introduced in that connection from p- i- 

t Hclgi-lay, where Ring's sons are named 

those whom Hothbrodd summons to help him 

his opponents, and who must therefore have 

uaquered by Helgi,' 



Boat 

r 

L t: 



.ccoUNT OF Helgi Hundincsuani in its 
Relation to Anglo-Saxon Epics. 

the Old Norse poems on Helgi Hund. repre- 
ig of Denmark. Now we know of 

Danish kings called Helgi who had their ro 
iland ;^ and by far the more famou; 






n Saiits Oldkis. 



it dcM Ihnl the Gnun-sloty is laler liian the lU'IgMiys. 
(, He^ 'hyiissi.'btotliet of llfotek, is spoken of 



IS), I 




isfi 



B OF THE ED Die POEMS 



that Hclgi who, in Icelandic 
ielding Halfdan, and brother of Hroar— 
lalga, son of Healfdene, and brother of 
"i to suppose that the 
[und. is Hclgi. brother 
n this historical Hclgi 
s borrowed his name 
irk, and occupant of s 



theory. In his stotyof 



these t 

son of 

in B/tn 

Hrdtfagai 

historica 

of Hroa 

the Helgi nuna. 

and position as kinj •■ 

royal seat in Zealanu.- 

Saxo, moreover, confirm 

. 150. Helgo (for which he used Utimsh, not O.N. material)* 

he identifies //ilifo Hiimiingi ct Hothbrodi interemptor . 

with Helgo, brother of Roe, and father of Rolvo. I 

Axel Olrilc, however, in the excellent study to which j 
I have referred so often in this investigation, expresses 1 
the opinion that Helgi Hund. and the Shielding I 
Helgi, son of Halfdan, are two entirely different saga- | 
heroes. His first argument is : ' There is no agreement 
to be found except the name,' The facts that I have I 
already adduced, and those that I shall adduce in what | 
follows, will show, I trust, that this argument hardly [ 
holds good. I agree with Olrik in distinguishing two I 
essentially different forms of the story ; but I make the \ 
distinction between the more historical account, in ,: 
which Helgi, son of Halfdan, is mentioned together «ith ^- 
other Shielding kings, and the more poetic version, in I 

' Some scholars regard lielgi Hund, as 1 diftiTent saga-heio itoa | 
Htlgi, brother of Ilroar— among others MullenhoHf, Zlsih. f. d. Al'; 

XXIII. liS. and A. Olrik, Sai-sii 0/JAisl., 11, 144 : ^ari. f. n. O'M.. \ 

1894, p. 161. On the other hand, Sijmons (Paul-Uraune, Bril., !'■ , 

176 ff)! Delter (Sievers, Beil., xvill. 96-105), and Boer (Sievers, Jo'. | 

xxn, 368 ft), think them identical. a 

" See Olrik, o/. <-//., ir, 142-146- I 



ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



'57 



which Helgi, the slayer of Handing and Hothbrodd, 
appears as the sole representative of the Shielding 
kings. Yet I do not deny that in the former Helgi's 
real life is altered and reconstructed, and that in the 
latter there are historical elements. In my opinion, 
Hclgi Hund. never existed as a real personage, if he is 
not to be identified with Helgi, son of Halfdan. 

It was. as I believe, in England that some Danish 
poet made over the story of Helgi, son of Halfdan, into 
that of Helgi Hund., basing his work, in all probability, 
partly on an Anglo-Saxon story of the Shieldings, and 
partly on the Danish Shield ing-story. This work then 
seems to have suffered two fates : on the one hand, it 
was carried over into Denmark, where it was united 
with the Danish story of Helgi, son of Halfdan, 
and took the form of which we find fragments in 
Saxo; on the other hand, it was worked ox'cr by 
Norse poets in Britain, and several parts of the 
poems thus reconstructed are preserved in the Eddie 
lays.' 

Our oldest authority for the history of the Danish p. jji. 
Shieldings, viz. the A,S. epos, mentions the Heatho- 
bards (not Hothbrodd) as the enemies of Hroar, Helgi, 
and HrolC The Danes, after a long struggle against the 
Heathobards {Hea^obeardna, gen. of * Heatobmrdati), i.e. y 

' the warlike Bards,' finally defeat their opponents in a 1 

' If we suppose in this way Ihal the HclKi-saga was formed by a Danish 
: in Bn(;liuul, partly on the bafis of an A.S. work, the theory that the I 

liiing Hel^, ion of HsKd&n, and Helgi, Ihc slayer of Hunding and I 

.Kbtodd, bave the lame Mstoricsl pioloiype, is not tefated (ai Oltik 
'Vi, n. 144) by the fact that there ue several documents, not merely p. iji. I 
iLflunJic hoi also Danish, in which Helgi is not represented as the slayer 
f-f lldnJine ""i Hothbrodd. 



158 HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

- bloody battle, in which Fr6da, king of the Heathobards, 
was slain. In order to bring about permanent peace, 
HrSthgAr, king of the Danes, son of Healfdcne, and 
brother of Halga, gives his daughter in marriage to 
Ingeld, son of Froda {Beowulf, 2225-30). But after a 
time Ingeld is egged on to revenge by an old warrior, 
and hostilities break out once more. In Bt'ow., 82 ff, il 
is predicted that, during Ingeld's attack in Hrothgflr's 
old age, flames will ravage the Danish royal castle 
Heorol — i.e. Hart, which corresponds to the Norse Hitter. 
According to Wtdst^ (4S-49I, Hr6thulf and his uncle 
I-IrothgSr live long togeiJier as true fdends afttr tli^y 
have driven out the race of the Vikings, bent Ingeld's 
sword-point, and hewn asunder at Heorot the strength 
of the Heathobards. The war thus ends with the | 
defeat of the Heathobards, which seems to have been 

(^ decisive. We infer from Bhwulf that Hrothulf, or 
I Hrothwulf, is a son of HrothgSr's youngest brother 
V Haiga, that the latter dies early, and that Hrothgar 
r afterwards cares for his brother's son. 
The race to which Frflda and Ingeld belonged, were 
evidently represented in English tradition as the 
constant opponents of the kinsmen of Healfdene, In i 
Scandinavian and especially in Icelandic tradition, f 
p- 'S'' there are also stories of battles between Halfdan and ( 
the Shieldings of his race on the one side, and the (. 
kinsmen of Frothi and Ingjald on the other.' But in I 
these Icelandic stories Frothi and Ingjald belong to | 
another branch of the Shielding-race, while in the A.S I 
poem (which here certainly represents the original |, 

' See especially A. Olrik, in Aark. f. nord. Oldi., 1884, pp. i^ ^ 



ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



'59 



Mton)' Froda and Ingeld are kings of a neighbour- 
ing people. 

There seems, moreover, to be a definite analogy 
between the wars with the Heathobards and those with 
H^thbrodd : (i) In the A,S. poem, the Heathobards 
attack the Danish king HrothgAr, and his nephew 
Hr6thulf. In Saxo, Hothbrodd attacks the Danish 
long Roe and his nephew Rolpho. (2) In the A.S. 
poem, the Heathobards direct their attack against 
the royal scat Heorot. In Saxo, Rolpho is guarded 
in the castle of Letre during the war with Hpth- 
brodd. (3) According to the Skjgldttngasaga, as we 
know it from Arngrim J6n5son, Hroar survived Helgi, 
just as HrcithgSr, according to A.S. tradition, survived 
HUga. (4) In the Skjoldungasaga, Hroar is killed by 
Ingjald's sons, Rorik and Frodi. Since the A.S. poem 
states that the sons of Ingeld are Heathobards, we have 
here an additional agreement between the Heathobards 
and Hothbrodd ; for, according to Sa.\o, Roe is killed 
by Hgthbrodd. (5) Further, just as the fight with 
the Heathobards ends with their utter defeat, so the 
fight with H9thbrodd,a5 described both in Saxo and in 
the Edda, ends with the complete defeat of Hothbrodd. 
[6) In tV/iisl^, the Heathobards are called Vikings ; and 
ire may, therefore, conclude that the conflict between the 
Danes and the Heathobards, like that between Helgi 
md H9thbrodd, is carried on by sea-warriors. (7) From 
vhat Sinfj'plli says in H. H., II, 20, it appears that Helgi 
previously (r>. before the expedition in which he slays 
thbrodd) subdued the land belonging to H9thbrodd's p. 153. 



tderd.Zit.,1, 



3 be mistaken 
). 153-158. 



s on ihis point ; s 




i6o h ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

race. There has, therefore, been a long feud between the 
two races. According to A.S, heroic saga, the Shieldings 
{Scyldingas) had won victories over the Heathobards 
before these latter were f--"-- overthrown. 

The conclusion seems c inevitable: Hgthbrodd 

is a poetic representativf >f 'the warlike Bards' 
( Heathobards V 

Since Scandinavian tradit' m with reference to the 
Shieldings has nowhere else )reservcd any memory of 
the name Heathobards, or of he fact that these kings, 
who fought with the people of Halfdan, belonged tea 
race different from that of the Dane?, I am of the 
opinion that it was in imitation of the Hedfiobcardan of 
English tradition that a Scandinavian poet {probably a 
Dane) in England invented Hij^broddr as the enemy of 
the Danish king. It was common in old Norse epic 
poetry to invent a saga-figure as the representative of i 
a whole race, and to give him a name formed from that 
of the people which he represents. | 

The last part of the O.N. word Hg^broddr is not the | 
same as that of the A.S. Hea^obeardati ; but the two 1 
words sound so much alike that in the transformation | 
of the story the one could easily replace the other, I 
especially if this transformation was due to a poet who 
lived in England.* I 

' This opinion is vaguely suggested in my Stvdien Uh. die EnlsUhnns 
der nord. Giittir- «. Htldcnsagen, trans. Brenner, 1889, 1, 173 (Notw. wL, I 
p. 166). Later, Boer also espteased the same view (Sievers, Beit., xxii, 
377 f). I 

' To O.N. nimes in •broddr correspond English names in -brerd', jS 
instead of Wihtbrord we find also Wiktbord. Note also that the Gemw I 
hero SSfrit was called by the Danes Sivard, a name which was nearly (be 
same in sound, but etymological ly different. | 



kNGLO-SAXON KPICS i6i 

iE^etween Helgi and Hpthbrodd in the Helgi 
i, then, its origin in the more historical war 
the Danish Shieldings and the kings of the 
■ards as sung in A.S, epic verse. ^ 

is one difficult place in the Second Helgi- 
:h, when looked at from this point of view, 

obscurity. As has already been said, the 
nbat between Sinf}9tli and Guthniund has 
i, fragmentarily, an older conception of the 
vcen Hothbrodd and Helgi than that which 
Elsewhere in the Eddie lays. Sinfjijtli says to 
dd's brother Guthmund : ' Here can Hothbrodd 

know Helgi, the never-fleeing, in the midst of 
He has subdued the native land of thy race, 
Tltance of worse men {Fjorsunga, from A.S. 
i To this Guthmund answers (II, 21): 



1 



I 



{tvi fyrr shilu 

at Frikasleini 

sdtlir soman 

um sakar dama ; 

mdl \lni^\ ek, HgUroddrl 

hefnd at vinna, 

efvh- lagra hlul 

Ungi bdriim. 



[QUenhoff and most odii^r scholars I regard the accouDC of it 
the Heathobaids, in BhiBulf, as hisiorieat. I cannot agree a 
*ith Dellei, who expresses himself in one piscc as followf I 
tit., xviii, 90-105): ' MUllenhoff geht ... von dcr fa^sung I 
B^wulf aus, wo ihre urspiUngHche geitati bercits verwiicbl 
JBt bci Saiio eihallen und hier wdst alles auf einen mjlhus.' 
gives loo lilllc heed to the mutual chionotc^cal celations of 
Moreover, a comparison of the account of Hygelac'i eipedi- 
•iinksand Frisians, in BiaviulJ, with entirely historic Fi 
Hi thw Deiter'i conception of B/imul/Ki ei 



rely historic Fiankiilt ^H 



ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



'63 



iHelgi has subdued the inheritance of Guthmund's 
■jace, Guthmund admits that his race has long 'lain 
Btindemeath*; 'but for that very reason,' he adds, 
r there must soon come a battle: Hothbrodd {;>. the 
■ Heathobards) must now revenge himself (them- 
lelves).* 

Thus the role which Guthmund plays may be corn- 
tared with that of the old warrior in Bi'owulf who, by 
»nstantly inciting the king of the Heathobards to 
ake revenge on the Shieldings, brings about a rupture 
f the compact between the two nations. 
It is important to note that it is in this form of the 
word-dispute between Sinfjptli and Guthmund (H. H., 
, 20-21), which agrees more closely with the story as 
' preserved in A.S. poetry than do the Helgi-lays in 
general, that we find the English loan-words to which 
I have already called attention — viz. £^i, ll, 20, i.e. 
A.S. /^ie from /5^/, 'native land,' and fjorsunga, from 
A.S. *iLnersinga, 'of worse men.' From this we may p. 
conclude that the strophes of the Second Helgi-lay 
here under discussion (20-21) are a working-over of 
A.S. verses which belonged to an epic poem on the 
war between the Shieldings and the Heathobards ; also, 
■ that the word-combat between Guthmund and SinfJ9tli 
■orking-ovcr of a similar dispute between a 
tteathobard and a Dane. 

We may add that in B/ow., 498 ff, we have also a 

liford-combat (between Unferth and BtJowulf) ; and 

lat the situation in the Helgi-lay, when Guthmund 

'asks what king it is who comes with a fleet to his land, 

resembles closely the situation in Bt'ozo., 237 ff", where 

the GiSats, who have come with their ships to Denmark, 




i64 h ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

are ques ned as to their nationality by the watchoaJ 
on the siraad. I 

Hgthbrodd's appearar the Hclgi-lay instead of 

the Heathobards is but o: rt of the transformation 

which the whole work undeiv nt at the same time. It 
gave up its historical point ol iew and became a poem 
which dealt with a single ideal ersonality. This person- 
ality is Helgi, the ideal Dan li king, who now stands 
alone, the other kings of Hal lan's race, named in theJ 
older Mnglish poem, having disappeared from the stor}'. 

I have already explained the designation of Hoth- 
brodd as 'the slayer of Isung' (H. H., I), as a poetic 
phrase indicating that Hothbroddhad led a devastating 
expedition into the Isefjord. This agrees, as we can 
now see, with the statement in Bi'owu//, that the 
Heathobards attacked the Danish royal seat. 

We perceive also that Granmar, as a name for 
Hothbrodd's father, is not historical. Possibly Gran- f 
man- was invented by the poet to designate the cjtf | 
king, being formed from j^fdnii,^ 'grey.' Granmarr, I 
'57- 'the grey one,' may, indeed, be a translation of Frbda, 1 
which is the name in the A.S. poem of the old king of j 
the Heathobards, the father of Ingeld ; for A.S. frod _; 
may mean 'old.' | 

The fact that, of all the Shieldings, it was Helgi, and [ 
not Hr61f (Hrothulf) or Hroar (HrothgSr), who in the 
Scandinavian heroic story developed in England I 
became the ideal representative of tiie Danish kings, j 
may possibly be partly due to his name, which desig- 



' The long , 



may liave 




ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 165 

nates the man who, being consecrated to the gods, is 
inviolable. 

King StarkdSr is mentioned in H. H., 11, 27, among 
those who fall on the side of Granmar's sons ; and from 
the prose bit between 13 and 14 we learn that he is 
H^thbrodd's brother. In the poem he is called ' the 
fiercest of kings, whose body fought after the head was 
off.'i 

Svend Grundtvig^ has already compared this feature 
with what Saxo tells of the giant Starkath, whose head 
bit the grass after having been hewn off. But the 
connection between the two Starkaths is closer than he 
supposed. 

In Scandinavia the old warrior Starkath is repre- 
sented as King Ingjald's foster-father, who induces 
Ingjald to repudiate his wife, a woman of a hostile 
race, and to revenge his father's death. But it was 
long ago pointed out that this Starkath of the Scandi- 
navian Ingjald-story corresponds to the 'old (spear- 
armed) warrior ' {(Esc-tviga) who, in B/ow., incites Ingeld, 
king of the Heathobards, to revenge his father's death 
on the Danes, whose king is his wife's father.^ The p 
king Ingjald, or Ingeld, to whom Starkath is attached 
as champion, was thus originally king of the Heatho- 
bards. If, now, we look at the Helgi-lay, we find that 
Starkath is there called a brother of H^thbrodd, the 
representative of the Heathobards. Since both of these 

> /a/i« J.I ek gyl/a | gn'iiimiiS^aslaii, \ tr bai-SisIt iolr, | var il haul 

' In Herohkt Digining, p. 71. See Saxo, eJ. MilUer, Bk. veil, 
p. 406, On Slatkalh's deith, cf. Olrik, Saksis Oldhisl., 11, lib ff. 

• Sec e.g. Mlillcnhoff, D. All,, v, ji6; Olrik, Sakses OlJhisl., u, 222. 




H M K OF T H IC E D D I f : POEMS 



Starkaths are thus Heathobards, there can be no doubt 
that they arc one and the same heroic personage. The 
fact that the Starkalh of the Helgi-lay is a king (a 
point in which particula oem does not agree with 

the original story) is dou due to the introduction 

of the eponymous King i :hbrodd instead of the 
Heathobard people and histoi cal kings. 

It should be mentioned als that just as Starkath in 
the Helgi-lay is called grimtt. ''^gastr, ' the fiercest,' ' he 
who was most grim-minded, so in Biow. the same 
quality is ascribed to the old warrior, the same adjective 
being used : him bi'^ grim scfa, 2043, * his mind is grim,' 
We may even detect a corresponding epithet in the 
ferocitas animi which Saxo ascribes to tlie old warrior 
Starkath. In using this epithet, then, the Helgi-lay 
follows some older poem. 

Since the old warrior who, in Jk'ow., corresponds lo 
Starkath in Scandinavian story induces the Heatho- 
bards to break the peace with the Danes, it is entirely 
in accordance with poetic justice that Starkath in the 
Second Lay should fail in the fight in which Helgi, 
the representative of the Danish kings, vanquishes 
Hothbrodd, the representative of the Heathobards. | 

The name Slarka^r, StorkoHr, arose from *Slark- 
iti^r. The last part of this name is the same as the I 
first part of Ih^broddr, A.S. Hea^obenrdan. Remem- 1 
bering that in Ei'ow., alongside of the name of the people j 
called Wedffgifatiis, occurs with the same meaning the | 
shortened form gen. Wedera ; that the Anglo-Saxons l 
used gen. Hrdda, Hrt'^a, synonymous with Hnhdgotan, 
Hrc^goian ; and that in Latin works Visi, sing. Vesus, \ 
is used as synonymous with Wisigothae, we may con- 1 



I 



ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



167 



lae that 'Slark-ApSr was first intended to mean ' the 
trong Heathobard,' 

Starkath is not, therefore, as Svend Grundtvig and 
liillenhoff thought, an abstraction who arose at the 
lose of heathen times. The story about him is not p. 1 
riginally Swedish but Danish. Danish epic poetry 
ivented Starkath in order to express in his person 
he qualities which the Danes ascribed to the veterans 
f their hereditary encnn'es, 'the warlike Bards,' — 
igantic strength, love of fighting, grimness, faithlcss- 
less. From the very outset, therefore, Starkath was 
lescribcd as an old warrior who went about alone from 
md to land, waged war as a business, and was well 
mown everywhere. 

The origin of this figure in epic story goes back to 
, time when the Danes had not yet ceased to think of 
the warlike Bards' as a people different from them- 
elves, — to a time, indeed, when Danish epic poets 
egarded them as the people who long had been the 
[lost dangerous enemies of their land. At a later 
late Starkath, like Ingeld, was made over into a Dane, 
nd new attributes were given to this saga-figure. Like 
iagnar Lothbrok among the Norsemen. Ossian (Ossin) 
.mong the Scots, and other poets among other peoples, 
o Starkath has gained a reputation as a poet on the 
lasis of the verses which later writers have put into 
lis mouth. Even in Beowulf the old warrior is made 
o hold a discourse. 

The O.N. story was the first to associate with him 
lis grandfather, the giant Stgrko^r Alodrmgr, who 
irose under the influence of the Aloid Otus ('ilTo?), 
brother of Ephialtes. 




ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



makes the ingenious and attractive suggestion that the 
Heathobards are the same people as the EruHans. 
Jordanes (chap. 3) tells that the Danes, who came 
from Skaane, drove the Erulians from the dwellings 
which the latter had previously occupied. This ex- 
pulsion must have taken place a good while before 
3. Miillenhoff identifies it with the decisive victory 
of the Danes over the Heathobards, which appears to 
have taken place about the same time ; and to this 
victory, he contends, the Danish kingdom owed its 
foundation. 

Several important considerations, however, appear to 
show that Miillenhoff's idea cannot be accepted as 
correct throughout. In the first place, the name 
HeaVioheardan, or ' warlike Bards,' is in entire agreement 
with that of the Bards and Langobards, while there is 
nothing whatever to support the supposition that the 
Erulians were called by that name. This objection is 
fundamental ; until it is overthrown, the Hed^obeardan p. 
cannot be explained as identical with the Erulians, 
Secondly, the Heathobards are not represented in B/ow. 
Ls having previously dwelt in that land which the 
Danes later occupied, nor is the Danish kingdom repre- 
lented as first established by the expulsion of the 
Heathobards. Thirdly, the story of Hothbrodd seems 
to make against MiillenholTs theory. Hi^^thbrodd, as I 
have tried to show, is a representative of the kings of 
the Heathobards. Now, the author of the First Helgi- 
lay imagines H r^)thbrodd's royal seat as on the south- 
western shore of the Baltic ; and this idea does not 
seem (for reasons given above) to have originated in 
;the poem composed about 1020-1035 by a Norse poet. 



ANGLO-SAXON EPICS 



171 



lentury acted exactly as the Hcathobards of about the 
year 500 are said to have acted — making piratical 
expeditions against the Danes as well as other peoples. 
The warlike Hards' were doubtless, even at that time, 
ingerous enemies of the Danes. 

In the fifth century the Erulrans from the other side 
the sea journeyed southwards. One section set out 
513 (after tlie Erulians were conquered by the 
angobards) from 'the Sclavcnians,' near the Carpa- 
lian Mountains, northwards, travelled through many 
Bsert regions, then to the Varns, who dwelt near the 
Drthern ocean, and still further on past the Danes to 
4e Gauts. 
Yet from all that is told us, we cannot, 1 believe, 
ifcr that no Langobards remained on the coast of the 
laitic. From the information given us by Latin his- 
ians, we might equally well conclude that they 
ierted completely their old dwellings on the west side 
f the Elbe ; but we find the Bards as a waHike people 
a those parts even in the Middle Ages. Why, then, 
Hiay not some of the Langobards have remahied on the 
Coast of the Baltic until the beginning of the sixth 
century? These lands doubtless did not become com- 
pletely Slavic before the end of that century, and 
^iillenhoff himself thinks that the Slavs in their 
ncc towards the west met with scattered Germanic 
i everywhere. Of course, we may suppose that 
out the year 500 there were remnants of other Ger- 
anic races left behind on the coast of the Baltic 
etween the Elbe and the Oder. But, since the Bards 
rere the most warlike of all, it is probable that they 
: expeditions in which the other races on the 




171 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



coast of : Baltic took part, so that the Scandinavians, 
who wer exposed to their Vilcing expeditions, could 
use Bards as a general term for all concerned in them. 
It may also be thought orobable that the Erulians, 



belonged to the Nortli 
ccasionally, before they 
anes in conjunction wilii 
[>f the Baltic, and undct 
author of Bcow. couU 
like Bards ' the enemies . 
the Baltic and further i 



p. 163. who do not seem 
Germanic races, wag 
journeyed south, against tni 
the Bards living on the coa 
their leadership. Thus tl 
unite under the name of '1 
of the Danes, both south 
north, on the one hand the Langobards, on the other 
the Erulians. MiillenhofTs theory, then, that the 
Heathobards of Bdow. are the Erulians, may be partly 
^but only partly — correct. In the time, however, of 
which the A.S. poem gives us information, the Erulians 
can hardly have been dwelling in Zealand.' 

In both the First and Second Helgi-lay, Sigriin, 
Hogni's daughter, is called a 'southern' {sutinrn} 
maiden. Doubtless in ancient times the story placed 
the home of her father Hygni south of Denmark. In 
the oldest reference to this saga-hero, in IV^dsi^, 21, 
we read : Ha^ena \7Vi'old] Holi/irygum, ' Hagena ruled 
over the Holmryge'; and these Holmryge are the 
Ulmerugi spoken of by Jordanes, i.e. the tribe called 

' Bill! inSicvm, AV//.,Nx, i;4, siijs; Miu I Uailiul.ar.lon . . . weici.n, 
ulu iloch ihr nnnic venniilcn lasst, ein mit ik'n l^ngol lardcn viTuanltr, 
ingriii^lier, au( deii s|xiler danischen insein lUr Ostsec licsshartci slumr, 
also nachUarn der AngelsacViscn gewcsen sein.' 

L. Schmidt \,Zur Cesik. der l.angol'ardin, Leipiig, 1885. pp. 34 an.l 
44, note} thinks that the iimilaiiLy of names proves ihe identity of [ht 
Heathobards and llie Langobatds. 



H E L (^, I AND THE W I. F I N G S 



173 



jtygc, on the 'Holms' (islets) at the mouth of the 

"Veichsel. 
Saxo makes Hogni a Danish king. It is the same 

lersonage whom Snoiri mentions in the Ynglingasaga: 
&riz. Hogni, Hild's father, king of East Gautland, whose 
naughteris married toGranmar, kingof Si^dermanland; 
put the reference to Sweden is based on an Old Norse 

Wmbitiation of later origin. 



XIV 

riELGI HUNDINGSBANI IN HIS RELATION TO THE 
WOLFINGS, HUNDING, THE VQLSUNGS. AND 

SicrC'n. 

Although Helgi without any doubt was originally p. 
1 Scandinavian, not a German, hero, he is nevertheless 
T)rought into connection with other heroes, not Scan- 
dinavian, belonging from the outset to other Germanic 
peoples. And although the Helgi of our Lays seems 
originally to have been the same person as the histori- 
cal Danish king Helgi, or at any rate to have borrowed 
his name from the latter, he is nevertheless placed in 
the Eddie poems in unhistorical surroundings, and 
associated with persons with whom the historical Helgi 
seems to have had nothing to do. 

Thus the author of the First Lay attributed to Helgi 
features taken from the saga-hero Wolfdietrich, or 
rather identified him with the latter, although Wolf- 
dietrich has his historical prototype in the East Gothic 
Theodoric, and in the German poem is said to be a son 



leude 



HOME OF THE EDDI 



of Hugdietricli — i.e. the Frankish Theuae 
of this identification, Helgi's mother is ca 
in imitation of Wolfdietrich's mother Hil< 
in the Skjohiungasaga (in Arngrim) 
Hclgi and Hroar is named Sigrid.' 

The chief reason for the transference 
from Wolfdietrich to Helgi, seems to be" 
certain similarities already existed bet« 
stories, even before the foreign story ii 
Scandinavian ; like Wolfdietrich, the king 
is obliged to wander about as an outlaw afl 
death without getting any part of the \ 
must later expel the usurper who has wroi 

Nor was the Wolfdietrich-story without 
the form of the Helgi-story preserved ii 
Lay. In ll, i, Helgi calls himself 'the g 
as Wolf-Theodoric in the Danish ballac 
transformation of a Low-German poem, i 
ver, i.e. grdu!fr, and Granuoll, i.e. grdn 
Wolfdietrich, B 369, designates himself as 

In both the Kirst and the Second Lay I 
the descendant of the Wolfings; and this v< 
seems to have been one of the reasons wh 
Wolfdietrich was attached to the Shieldin 
the one hand, Theodoric, in the West Gcri 
his youth, was named Wolf-Theodoric b< 
said to have been fostered by wolves, and 
Sigmund and Sinfjgtli were at one time 



' It is doubtle-ss nn accidcnlal resemblance between 
story and Ihe Stjildungaiaga Ihnt Huge-Dieliich in 
war on hia nephew Fruote of Denmark, and ihal Ihe St 
of Halfdan, according to one form of the saga, tills Frn 



HELGl AND T H F, WOI.FINGS 175 

into wolves ; while, on the other hand, as we know from 
Bc'owiilf,i]xe race of the VVolfings was mentioned in the 
old epic tradition of the Shieldings : Ecgtheow, a chief- 
tain of the GiJats (Jules), having itilled one of the 
warriors of the Wolfings, is forced to flee to the .Shield- 
ing king HrothgAr. Hrothgflr receivt'S him as his 
liegeman, and sends the Wolfings gold to atone for the 
killing of the warrior. Here, however, the Wolfings 
(, iVyl^ngus) are of a different race from the Shieldings 
(Seytdiiiffai}. 

In Wl'l, 29, the ruler of the Wolfings is called Helm, 
and in li^ou'., 620, the queen of the Danish king 
UrothgSr is said to be of the race of the Helmings. 
It thus looks as if the Shieldings and the Wolfings were 
allied by marriage. 

In the Ynglingasaga (ed. F. J., chap. 37), King 
Granmar's daughter at a banquet drinks to King 
HJ9rvarth, and wishes pro.sperity to all Wolfings, 
while the beaker is being emptied in memory of Hrolf 
Kraki.' Here Hriilf Kraki is evidently named as the p. 
most prominent representative of the Wolfings. This 
implies that the Wolfings were either of the same race 
as the Shieldings, or allied to them by marriage.^ It 
suggests also that the Wolfing Helgi (Hundingsbani) 
was the same person as the Shielding Helgi {Hrdlfs 
father). But the complete identification of the Wolfings 
and the Shieldings is due to the influence of the foreign 
^tory of Wolf-Theodoric, This stoiy may also have 
influenced the more historical form of the Scandinavian 

' Hon . . , g^i fiy"' /(/gmu'K tiniNng ek nicrlli : ' Allir heilir 
Ylfingar at Hril/s minni kraka,' 
' Cf. f^. Sijniont in Piul-Btnune, Bd/., iv. 177 I 



HEI.C.I AND THE U'OI.FINCS 



177 



temptible person, and ill-disposed toward the kin of 
Halfdan ; for Frothi, the slayer of Halfdan, gives him 
Halfdan's daughter in marriage, and he is called 'vilis 
baro.' Similarly, in the story from which the saga of 
Hrolf Kraki borrowed, Sevil was doubtless regarded 
as a wicked man and faithless towards Halfdan's kin ; 
for in this saga his son Hr<ik is so described. 

This Earl Sevil,' who must have shown himself faith- 
less towards Helgi after the death of Helgi's father 
Halfdan, is, in my opinion, the same saga-iigure as the 
Duke Sabene, who, according to Wfd. A, after having 
been in Hugdietrich's service, acted wickedly and 
faithlessly towards Hugdietrich's wife and the boy 
Wolfdietrich. This same personage is mentioned in 
ll'M. by the name Seafola, and is there said to have 
been, together with Theodoric, at the home of Eormanric. 
His historical prototype is, I believe," the East-Roman 
leader Sabhiianus, who, during the youth of the East- 
Gothic Theodoric, laid an ambush for a large body of 
Goths. Among these were Theodoric's mother and 
brother, both of whom escaped with great difficulty. 

Sei<ill has an / like the A.S. Scafola ; but its / shows p. v 
it to be the more original form, and Seafola must, then, 
have come from *Seafeia (cf, A.S. keafola and heufeld). 

Still another story unites Helgi Hundingsbani with 
Helgi, son of Halfdan. H. Hund. once disguised him- 
self and visited his enemies as a spy. In a verse which 

' Sevil tnu&t have a shoit vowel in the fiisl syllable. This is evident 
in the verse tn SeviU rekia, Fu., I, la. Arngrim {p. I13) also writes 
' ilta. lo Pas. and in Olrik's book (he name is incorrectl)' written 

■ MUIIenhoff, on the conlratr, regards Sea/o/a, Sabene, as originally 




ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



lie reci to a shepherd-boy when about to depart, he 
calls hi.. 'MHamall. Better has shown' that this name i 
here sig ries ' a castrated ram. wether ' (Ger, Hammd). 



He also compares t' 
in which Helgi, Hroa 
dwelling of his enet...^. 
both cases the hero (H. 
comes near being betrayed 
him in which he is said to 
I have already suggeste 
used of Helgi because Wo 
Botelunc. Since Helgi is called bu^lungrm the Secood 
Lay (st. 44) also, we see that the poem on Helgi's death 
was not unaffected by the story of Wolfdietrich. 



the saga of Hr61f Kraki, 
;r, goes in disguise to the 
er the name Hamr. In ' 

or the Helgi of the saga) 
or a verse is sung about 
e 'flashing eyes.'- ' 

3t the epithet buMitugr is I 
;trich was of the race of 1 



Both the First and Second Helgi-lay speak of Helgi's 
feud with Hunding, the successful termination of which 
gained for Helgi the surname of Hundingsbani ; and in 
the former we hear also of the slaying of Hunding's 
sons. But the author of this First Lay deals very 
briefly (10-14) with this part of the Helgi-story, using it 
merely as an introduction to his description of the 
fight with Hothbrodd, which is his main subject. 

As I have already pointed out (above, p. 92), the saga- 
i. king Hunding, as Helgi's opponent, was probably t alien 
from the foreign story of Wolfdietrich, because the 
Irish story of Cormac's Birth (which appears to be i 

' Ztsih.f. d. Alt., xxxvj, 14 ff. I 

' The sibyl in Hrolfssaga (Fas. 1, 12) says: ^lu! em augu \ //mini J 
Hratia. (Allileiation is lacking. Qtttl is probably not a mistiJie ^< . 
hvgs! ; but two lines have fallen out ) The following words aie pul inw j^ 
the moulh of ^Anrfc («n ^/w/ji in H. H., [I, 2 : kv£ss cm augv I Hag'!' '. 
Jiyju ; cf. 4 : oliil augu. I 



HELGl AND HUNDING 



•79 



ihected with the Helgi-lays through the Wolfdietrich- 
tory only) had a name, Mac Con, with the same 
[leaning as Handing. This may have been the chief 
eason why the Irish tale borrowed features from the 
tories of Wolfdietrich (VVolf-Theodoric). Moreover, in 
Vngio-Saxon heroic saga the Hundtngas are mentioned ; 
nd this fact gives us another argument in favour of 
he view that the Prankish Wolfdietrich-story, which 
he Scandinavians learned from Anglo-Saxons, men- 
toned Hunding as the enemy of Wolf-Theodoric. 

The old Norsemen undoubtedly brought the name 
lundittg into connection with hundr, ' hound, dog ' ; and 
lunding was thought of as a faithless and despicable 
nemy. This we may infer not only from its relation 
/ith the Irish Mac Con, but also from a statement in 
hat part of the Second Lay which narrates the Death 
f Hclgi Hundingsbani. There we read : ' When 
lelgi came to Valhyll, Odin offered to let him rule over 
II with himself. Helgi said : " Thou shalt, O Hunding ! 
ive every man a foot-bath, kindle fires, bind the dogs, 
3ok after the horses, give drink to the swine, before 
tiou goest to sleep"' (II. H., II, 39). This passage I 
'ould explain thus: Even before lielgi came to Valhpll, 
landing had been set by Odin to perform menial 
•rvice. Helgi, in his capacity of ruler in Valhgll, 
imply repeats the kind of orders which Odin had 
reviously given.^ 



> LUning (in hb edilion). Sljmons (Paul-Braune, Bait., iv, 171 T.), 

diallctiu (?3ul-Biaune, xii, 33S, note i}f Schtlck (Svtttsk Lileralur- 

. 1, 33), Gering [Dii Edda, p. 1S0) and F. J6n5soD {Liu. Hut., i, 

n die contiaif , of the opinion that Ihc sliophe is out of place 

1 ibax il teilljr belongs to a word-combat between Helf^ and 



HELGI AND HUNrHNC. i8i 

iai tasks imposed upon him in Valholl show, at all 
'ents, that he was regarded as a faithless and des- 
cable enemy. Hence also he is called Hunding, i.e. 
he son (or descendant) of the dog,' while his enemy 
elgi is called the Wolfing, 'the descendant of the 
olf.' 

In the prose preface to the Second Lay we read : 
'undingr . . . t'ttS hann er Hundland kent. ' Hunding 
, . from him Hundland gets its name.' We know, 
jwever, of no country so called.^ This name Hundland 
ust also have been connected with Imndr, ' dog,' not p. ' 
ith the numeral hund in ' hundred.' Apparently 
undland was regarded as a far-distant and almost 
bulous land.- 

In Wtd., 23, it is said that Mearchealf ruied over the 
undings. Can this jTfmrrr/ifrt^'be the same as J/rtrwc^' 
otker, of the monastery of St. Gallon, as early as the be- 
nningof the eleventh century mentions Marckolfiis 2^5 
e opponent of Solomon in a word-combat, and Marcolf 
ays the same rSle later in Germany. This person 

' The form hundland in Cod. A. M. 2845, 4(0, of Hervaraisaga (ed. 
\IIX,t, p. 317) isi mistake of llie iciibe, or a loisicading for Hilnaland, 
lich » in Hauklbik. 

' My discuuiMi of Hunding wns wriilen down before I read Wetnet 
ihn'a Htlgi utid Signtn, pp. 6l'67, where a Iheory resembling mine in 
nc rtspects (e.g. as regards H. U., ir, 39) is 10 be found, I have, how. 
tt, taken nothing from the work of Hahn. 

' After thi« was wrilten, I saw the same suggestion in an article by Bini, 
Sieverti Beit., xx, 331 f, who, however, rejects it on the ground thai 
■ name Afar/Hl/{nat Mtanhialf) occurs in ' Solomon and Saturn.' But 
5 certainly not remarkable for a foreign name to be written in different 
y« (cf. Gei. Manlf, Metolf, slot^ide Mareglf\. In Mid. Eng. there 
t ctdkclion of proverbs which end with ' said HeniJyng,' and in a pre- 
ropbe in one of ihe Mss. the lalicr is called HtudyMg, lit stm of 
Bini saggesis that Sendyng possibly arose from Handing. 




was earl r thought of as an Oriental dcraon-prince, 
and has his name from a Jewish idol Marcolis. In the 
A.S. poem Solomon and Saturn, of the ninth century, 
Saturn has taken his > prince of the Chaldees. 

Among the lands in the hich this Saturn travelled 

through, Marctdfcs eard 1S9), i.€. 'the home of 

Marculf/' is mentioned as ing between Media and 
the kingdom of Saul. 

If MearckealfX?, the same a Marculf,\}s\cx\ the author 
of WM. thought of the Hundi igs as a people far in thsj 
173. east. By the Hiind'ni'^as were doubtless originally 
meant those who were unbelievers in Christianity; for 
' a heathen hound ' is an expression common among all 
Germanic peoples. I'erhap.s, then, we may conclude 
that a Prankish poem on VVolf-Theodoric mentioned 
as an opponent of that hero one Hunding, by which 
name the author designated a heathen king in the East. 

Wolfdietrich has his historical prototype in the 
East-Gothic Theodoric Theodoric, at the age of 
eighteen, overcame the Sarmatian King Babai.- 
Have we an echo of this battle in the statement of 
the O.N. poem that Helgi,wheii fifteen years old, killed 
Hunding? 

The O.N. poem has, however, preserved no indica- 
tion of the origin which I have suggested for Hunding. 
On the contrary, his home is placed in a land in or 
near Scandinavia. In the Irish saga, MacCon is a 
usurper in Ireland. 

' See The Dialogue of Salomon and Saliirim.', ed. J. M. Kenible, 
London, 1848; K. llofniann in Silziin^sl-erifhli dir Miinckentr Atoi.i 
1871, pp. 41S-433; Schaiimlierg in I'.iul-Braune, Bcil., it, ;: S; 
F. Vcigt. Salman iiiid Morolf: EhiMluiis. 

' Jordanes, Gciica, chap. 55. 



HELGI AND HUNDINC 



'83 



Saxo also states (Bk. 11, p. 80), that Helgi killed 
Hunding, and that he got from this killing the surname 
Hundingsbant. This feature, therefore, seems to have 
been present in the common source of Saxo and the 
Eddie poems, which, in my opinion, was a Danish 
poem about Helgi composed in England. The con- 
nection of the Helgi-stories with Hunding appears to 
be older than their connection with Sigmund, SinfJ9tIi, 
and Sigriin, of whom there Is no trace in Saxo. The 
special form in which the fight with Hunding appears 
In Saxo seems to be very late.' But in making p- 

Eunding a king of the Saxons, Saxo seems to be 
lying on a story much older than his own time. His 
count of how Helgi, after capturing Jutland from the 
jSaxons, appointed Eska, j^gir and Ler to protect the 
Ibnd, certainly argues in favour of this view. 
t In one of the first sections of the Second Lay (ir, 6, 8) ■ 
he scene of Helgi's last fight with Hunding seems to 
te laid in the Jutish peninsula. But, in the present 
bvestigation, I shall not discuss further the first part 

' Olrik (Saists Oldhisi., 11, 199 f) suggests thai in Hetgi's slaying 

t Slade (apud Stadium apptdum), i.e. Slnde, just south of the I 
■ hive a fealuie which nose after ijol, when the border of the I 
Lingdom was pushed foiwnid to the Elbe, atid when SUde is firal 
a ihe histocy of Denmark. Helgi's war with [funding in Sana 
according to Olrik, to a late type of stories of wan in which the 
inith king goes over the Elbe and wins victories over the Saioni in 
wn land. To this type would belong Ihe expeditions of Dan and 
di, the son of Fridlef. Ii should be noted, howerer, that Slade is 
nlicmed in ihe account of an expedition of Danish and Swedish Vikings 
> Saxony in 994, when the Saxons were defeated. Count Odo killed, 
1 Saxon princes capliircii. See urbem, quae liltori vicina slabat 
Htmine (Thietmar., Bk. tv, chnp. 16: Perti, tii, 775): cf. 
«nstiup, Nermaiincntt. iii. 224 f. 



ILGI AND THE VQI.SUNGS 185 

"nor, as we have seen, the character Sinfjglli, 
,' originally anything to do with an historical Danish 

\y making Helgi into a Vglsung and a son of 
mund, the old Norse poets succeeded in representing 
\ as a king who already, by virtue of his race, was 
racterised as 'victorious'; for the Scandinavians 
eved that the Volsungs were loved above all others 
Odin, the god of battle and victory. The members 
this race bore names which suggest victory or 
eriority in battle. Their earliest ancestor was Odin's 
5/^' or St'ggi. The race culminated and ended in 
Mt^r (Germ. Siegfried), w'no was regarded by the 
semen as the greatest of all heroes. Sigmund was 
father, and Sigmund's daughter was called Signy. 
1 poet who made Helgi a son of Sigmund wished 
mggest that he was comparable to the ideal hero 
urth, though the latter is not mentioned in the 



'he saga-features which unite the stories of Helgi and 
arth — the race-name VVolfings, and Hunding— can 
le best discussed when the Sigurth-story is examined. 
E as Helgi's feuds with the race of Hunding end 
1 the fall of Hunding's sons, so also the father and 
ndfather of Sigurth Fafnisbani are killed by 
nding's sons, whereupon Sigurth in revenge slays 
nding's son Lyngvi and his brothers. Nor shall I 
Mss here the saga-features attached to Sigmund and 
Fjotli which we find in the Helgi-tays and in the 
le bit On Sinfjotli's Death ; they will be treated 
r in a general investigation of the Scandinavian 
^es concerning these heroes. 



1 



HELGT AND SIGRUN 



187 



Psy has been affected by various foreign influences. 

s first see what it owes to the Wolfdietrich-story, 

which, as we have seen, both Helgi-lays (but 

Icciaily the First) are indebted in several particulars. 

I German B, Wolfdictrich is married to Sigiithine, p. 

conveys him over the sea in a ship. She is 

Dsformcd from the troll, Else the hairy, and corre- 

mds to the mermaid in German A who rules over all 

I the sea covers. Something of this kind in the 

on Wolf-Theodoric which tlie Scandinavians 

irned to know in Hngland, may have suggested 

tlgi's marriage to a supernatural woman, Sigrun, 

I rescues his ship in a storm and bring.i it into a 

e harbour. 

BThc name Sigmttine is a compound like the M.H.G. 

tne, mermaid, wattminne, forest-nymph. It 

I therefore, 'a supernatural woman who brings 

The first part is identical with the first 

of Ssgnhi, a name which means practically the 

; thing: 'a woman who possesses victory- runes,' 'a 

man who has wonderful powers of bringing victory 

But the relations between Sigrun and 

pNinne will appear more clearly when we discuss 

fc story of Helgi, the son of Hj^rvarth. I shall then 

' to explain why Sigrun, unlike Sigminne, is not 

msformed from a troll. Moreover, Sigrun has bonds 

mneclion on many other sides. The VVolf-Theodoric- 

to have suggested little more than the 

ifinite motive that Helgi is helped by a supernatural 

1 who seeks and wins his love, — a woman who 

I power on the sea and influence over victory. We 

to other ipfluences the definite presentation of 



HELGI AND SI f. RUN 



189 



above) that the presence of these battle-goddesses in 
the He!gi-lay shows the influence of Irish literature on 
■ Scandinavian poetry. 

This influence was exerted the more readily laecause 
the Norsemen themselves had from early times been 
familiar with just such conceptions ; and several of 
the peculiarities in the description of the battle-maidens 
in the Helgi-poems are apparently derived from this 
native material. On the one hand, Germanic women 
(particularly when unmarried) from primitive times 
often wore armour and went into battle, even in com- 
panies; and so also in the Viking era, young women 
appear as warriors in a number of historical instances,' 
On the other hand, Tacitus informs us that in his time 
the Germanic races thought women holy and half p. 178, 
divine, ascribing to them marvellous prophetic powers. 
One of the German Merseburg-lays tells of supernatural 
women (I'tisi) who alight on the earth (probably after 
flying through the air) and bind a hostile army with 
words of magic. The Anglo-Saxons, too, seem to 
have known supernatural women who could fly through 
the air, to whom were ascribed the power of bringing 
victory. In England we hear also of divine, demoniac 
Valkyries {wislcyrigean), i.e. women who elect the slain, 
women who know how to work magic to slay men in 
battle. These A.S. war-furies have been compared 
with the classical Erinnyes and Gorgons ; ^ but it docs 
not seem improbable that they were influenced by 
Irish beliefs. 

Certain other things in the story of Sigri'm remind 



' Gollhet, Der ViUkyritnmythm, pp. 7 ff. 
" Kegel, in Sieveis, Beit., xvi, 407 : Golther 



^^i. 



\ 



igo HOME OF THE ED 



us of Irish motives, without our be 
historical connection. In 'the Old La 
Sigrun comes to Helgi, kisses him, i 
had loved him before she saw him 
He takes her away with him, and 1 
himself a war, in which her father f; 
tale, 'The Festival of Bricriu,' Cuch 
an expedition. He meets Findchoei 
Eocho Rond. She says of Cuchulin 
have loved him because of what I h 
(and these are words which are ol 
mouths of women in Irish tales). S 
linn, lays both hands on his neck aiu 
He takes her with him to his home. 
of a people called Ui Mane, follow 
many men and attacks him, but i 
Peace is finally made, and Findchc 
Ciichulinn.' 
?. When in the First Helgi-lay Sigrui 
come riding to Helgi, 'a gleam of 
from Flame-fells, and from that glea 
flashes ; [then rode three times nir 
helmet-decked, in the plain of heav( 
were stained with blood, and from tl 
rays [of light].' ^ J 

' See fM Brkriiiil, ed. wilh IraDstatiakH 



Ttxte, 11, i, pp. 173""- 



» /J br6 Ij6ma 
itf Liigafjgllum, 
en af}>eim IJSmu 
Uipirir kvAniu ; 
en a/gtiruiri 
gtiilar smu [\, 15). 



HELGI AND SIGRtTN 191 

Irish tales often speak of the gleams which flash 
from armed riders. When Findchoem*s father, the 
king of Ui Mane, armed with a spear, comes riding 
ivith his company to the place where Cuchulinn 
is, the scout says : ' I see a glitter of fire from 
ford to mountain'; and the queen, to whom he 
speaks, remarks : * That is the sparkling of the armour 
and the eyes of the Ui Mane on the track of their 
daughter.' 

I have already pointed out (pp. 18, 33) that the 
flying swan-maidens in the Lay of Wayland are 
connected with Sigrun and her maidens in the 
Helgi-lay. I have also tried to show that there are 
points of contact between Sigrun and Atalanta, 
Meleager's love. But this is not all. Our accounts 
of Signjn and of Svdfa (who is similar in character 
to Sigrun) can be shown to owe something to still 
other influences. 

In a prose passage, the swan-maidens of the Wayland- 
lay are called valkyries.^ The same expression is 
applied to Svdfa and her maidens in the prose account 
of Helgi Hjgrvarthsson;^ and in another prose passage 
to Sigrun and her maidens.^ But the word valkyrja is p. i 
never thus used in the ancient lays: there it always 
signifies one of those maidens of Odin whose home is 
in Valhgll. In H. H., I, 38, the valkyrie at the All- 
father's dwelling, for whose sake all the einhetjarviovXA 
fight, is an entirely different being from Sigrun and 

^ In my cdiiion, p. 163 a. ' Pp. 191 b, 193 a, 194 a. 

» Pp. 173 a, 173 b, 176 a. 



HELGI AND SIGRUN 195 

bond of union with the Danish Hild-story, for Saxo 
tells (what is at variance with Old Norse tradition) that 
Hethin and Hild loved each other before they had met. 
In Saxo we read also that at their first meeting they 
could not take their eyes from each other.^ 

The influence of the Hild-story shows itself more 
clearly in the Old Lay of the VQlsungs and in the con- 
cluding portion of the Second Helgi-lay than in the p- 184- 
First Lay.* In the First Lay, Helgi's fight with Hgth- 
brodd is the main subject ; HQgni is almost lost sight 
of; and the relations between Sigrun and Helgi are not 
those of love. The account of the meeting of the lovers 
Helgi and Sigrun in the Old Lay of the Vglsungs 
(H. H., II, 14-18) is quite different Here it is Sigriin's 
father Hogni and her relatives whom Helgi has to fear 
in carrying off Sigrun, while HQthbrodd is only men- 
tioned casually. In the ensuing battle, moreover, 
Signin's father and others of her relatives are Helgi*s 
chief opponents. 

From the relations just pointed out, and from the 
resemblance in certain points between Saxo's version 
of the Hild-story and the account of the first meeting 
of Helgi and Sigrun in H. H., II, 14-18, we may, I think, 
conclude that the latter is a working-over of verses in a 
Danish poem on Hild composed in England, with only 
such changes as were made necessary by the introduc- 
tion of the names Sigrun and Hothbrodd. 

The reproaches which Guthmund and SinfJQtli ex- 

* Nondum invicem canspectos alterna incenderat fama. At ubi mutuae 
conspectionis copia incidit^ neuter obtutum ab altera remittere poterat ; adeo 
tertinax amor oculos mcrabatur (Saxo, Bk. v, p. 238). 

• Cf. Dettcr in Arkivf. nord, FiL^ iv, 64 f ; cf. iv, 70. 



196 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



change i [,, n, 19-24, unlike the other strophes in 

the Secona % do not mention Sigrun as the cause of . 
the war, but s:em to hint that Helgi's expedition to 
the land of the sons has some connection 

with carh'er feuds with 's race. Here, more- 

over, Hggni is not namec Igi's enemy, but only 

H^thbrodd and his kin. As r has rightly observed, 

this is really the same form le saga as that which 

Saxo gives in his story of j i, the only difference 
being that Helgi in this part the Lay is associated 
with Sinfjgtii. Strophes 19-24 do not appear, there- 
fore, to have been composed by the author of the other 
strophes of the Second Lay. 



Concluding Remarks on the First Helgi-Lav. 

5. By comparing the Helgi-stories in the poetic Edda 
and in Saxo with the A.S. epos, we have found that a 
remarkable reconstruction of the stories of battles of 
the Danish Shieldings with their enemies was made in 
Britain. As far as we can judge from the A.S. treat- 
ment of these combats, this work kept close to history. 
The name of the foreign people, ' the warlike Bards,' 
was preserved. In the further reconstruction by Old 
Norse skalds, the story lost more and more the histori- 
cal point of view which the A.S. epos had maintained. 
Instead of the Heathobards, with their kings Froda 
and Ingeld, the single personage Hgthbrodd now 
appears as the enemy of the Shieldings. He is, how- 
ever, still thought of as the king of another race ; and 



FIRST HELGI-LAY 197 

in the oldest Scandinavian form of the story his home 
is put south of the Baltic, where the Heathobards also 
seem to have dwelt In Saxo, moreover, not only 
Helgi, but also Roe and Rolpho, take part in the war 
against Hgthbrodd. A still further departure from 
historical fact is apparent in all the verses on Helgi 
in the Elder Edda, in which Helgi is placed in oppo- / 
sition to Hgthbrodd as the single representative of the < 
Danish royal race, and where the ancestors ascribed to 
him are simply poetic fabrications. 

Even within the Eddie Lays themselves we can trace 
several different stages in the conception of the war 
against Hgthbrodd. That which in one respect is the 
oldest is expressed in the dispute between Sinfjgtli and 
Guthmund in the Second Helgi-lay. Here we have 
hints of a long-standing feud between the two races. 
Helgi's kin have conquered Hgthbrodd's and subdued 
their land. Thereupon a treaty is made which is dis- 
advantageous to Hgthbrodd. This is broken, and Hgth- 
brodd's men thirst for revenge. But a final decisive 
battle takes place between Hgthbrodd and the Danish 
kings, in which, as we may imagine, Hgthbrodd falls 
(it is so stated in all the O.N. sources which mention his p. 18 
death). In the word-combat in the Second Lay, as 
well as in Saxo, whose form of the story is closely 
related, Sigriin is not referred to. 

The next stage in the development is contained in 
the First Hclgi-lay, which seems to have derived its 
form of the story from several sources, and in which 
the conception of the war with HQthbrodd is more 
original in certain respects than that in the Second 
Lay (with the exception of the word-combat), although 




198 H OFTHEEDDIC POEMS 

the verses in the iiecond Lay in which this conception | 
is expressed are older than the corresponding verses in I 
the First Lay. In the First Lay, though Helgi's war 
against H^thbrodd is Hiri^Hv nrrasioned by the appeal 
which Hpgni's daught iothbrodd's betrothed, | 

makes to Helgi, yet i not H^gni, is through- ' 

out represented as Helgi opponent. Moreover, I 

the war against the foreign s waged in defence of 

the Danish kingdom, Aftei thbrodd is conquered, 

Helgi is undisturbed in his pi ion of the Danish royal | 

seat. Yet in several other r^ :ts (as in the introduc- | 
tion of a series of names of fantastic places) the First i 
Lay has much altered either the earlier poetic version | 
of the Helgi-story or the facts of history. | 

Finally, we come to that stage in the development of I 
the story which is revealed to us in the passionate and I 
marvellously effective concluding strophes of the Second i 
Lay. These I shall discuss at greater length in the 
next chapter. ' 

Since all that is left of the older verses on Helgi 
Hundingsbani, which the author of the First Lay knew 
and utilised, are the fragments collected under the 
name of the Second Lay, we cannot get a clear idea 
throughout of what the author of the First Lay bor- 
rowed from these older poems. 

In the section on the war with Hgthbrodd older lays 
seem to have been followed in some important particu- 
lars respecting the course of the action. On the other 
hand, numerous motives, descriptive details, poetic 
expressions, and kennings are doubtless due to the 
^. author of the lay as it lies before us. It is in the word- 



^^^^ FIRST HELGl-LAV -ft^^ 

combat that we can distinguish most clearly between 
what was added by the author of the First Lay himself 
and what he derived from the older poems ; for to the 
thirteen strophes (33-44) which contain the dispute in 
the First Lay, correspond the four (19-22) of the 
Second which in oar collection are inserted at a later 
point ill the development of the action, where they 
interrupt the narrative.^ 

The shorter form of the word-combat is evidently 
the older : the war with Hothbrodd is more primitive in 
conception, and the conversation is more dignified. The 
redactor took pleasure in filling out the retorts of the 
two subordinate persons with vulgar terms of abuse, 
under which are hidden allusions to the mythical world 
of gods and witches, especially to such as were known 
from the Vgluspd and the Grimnismdl? 

The First Lay seems most likely to be a working- 
over of that Helgi-lay of which we have fragments pre- 
served in the word-combat in 11, 19-22. But it was, I 
believe, a Danish poet in Britain who first sang of 
Helgi as the ideal representative of the Shieldings, and 
as the conqueror of Hunding and Hothbrodd, who were 
taken to represent the enemies of the Danes. The lost 
lays of this Danish poet doubtless formed indirectly 
the chief basis, so far as the foundation and form of the 
story were concerned, for the lays of IheWest-Norwegian 
poet to whom we owe the First Helgi-lay. In II, 19-22, 
we have, perhaps, a few verses of the Danish poet's lay ■ 

' See the pholoiypc eitilion, p. 50, and my edition, p. 30i. 
» Cr. Sijmons, in raul-Braune, Beit., IV, 170 f. 

* Note that the name of the fish fjgriungr is now pieserved tinly in 
Denmaik snd in the south of Nocway. 



-■ — ' 



HELGI AND CANUTE 203 

readily imagine that in praising the ancient Danish 
king Helgi, his mind was fixed on the young Danish 
king who in his own time had led warlike expeditions 
to Venden, and who had won and exercised in Britain 
the greatest power which any Scandinavian ever pos- 
sessed there. Moreover, even as Helgi began his life 
of warfare at fifteen, so Canute does not seem to have 
been older when he accompanied his father on the 
latter's expedition to England in 1013.^ 

The author of the First Helgi-lay probably sojourned 
among the Scandinavians, who were at one time in 
Northumberland, at another in Dublin. We may then, 
perhaps, infer that after the Battle of Clontarf he left 
Dublin and went to England, where he may have been 
in the service of Canute the Great. If it was of Canute 
that he thought in his poem, the work was doubtless 
composed after Canute had received the homage of the 
whole of the English in 1017, and had married the 
widow of the English king. 

Under Canute there were many relations between p. 191. 
England and the Slavic lands on the Baltic.^ Jomsborg 
(the fortress of the Jom Vikings) was subject to Canute; 
and farther east the Danes had won possessions before 
his time. Early in his reign, certainly before 1027, 
Canute made at least one plundering expedition from 
England to the southern and eastern coasts of the 
Baltic. He subdued districts in Prussia, particularly 
those on the Frische HaflF. One source names among 

* Steenstrup {Normanfunu^ ill, 298) says that in the summer of 10 17 
Canute was not much over twenty years old. On Canute's age, cf. 
Munch, Norske Folks Hist,, b, 126 f. 

* Cf. Steenstrup, Normanneme, III, 306 and 327. 



FIRST HELGI-LAV 205 

it the guess that the author of the First Helgi-lay, when 
wrote about Helgj, thought of Canute the Great, has 
solid foundation in external evidence. Still, I think I 
tfe shown that the poet was of Norwegian nationality ; 
tt he was born in the western part of Nonvay, and 
it he composed his poem in Britain ca. 1020-1035 I 
it, moreover, he sojourned for some time among 
iglish and Irish, and probably associated with Irish 
ets at the court of the Scandinavian king of Dublin. 
This poem was not, therefore, first composed in the 
llness of a mountainous Norwegian valley, nor on the 
lely shores of an ice-bound sea, but in the heart of 
>rthern Europe — where Norsemen and Danes, Irish 
d English were assembled together, under the stress 
great events, on a soil which, from early times, had 
en inundated and made fertile by the culture of the 
jth. 

The life of the Norwegian poets among the Irish, and 
; influence of Irish literature on O.N. epics, supplied 
: Norsemen with new material, widened their horizon, 
d disclosed to their imaginations a richer and more 
rringlife than that to which they had been accustomed. 
irough the Irish stories the Norse poets became 
Tiiliar with new images drawn from a splendid, fan- 
ttic, supernatural world.^ But the wild life of the 
kings, the roughness and sensuality of character 
lich it occasioned, set its mark on Old Norse poetry. 
is important to observe, however, that this roughness 
d sensuality in the poems on Hclgl Hundingsbani 



' These poems disi 
rid, and lovcofnali 
C.P.B., I, Ixi). 



ver an idisl of beauty, an aeiial, uneitrlhly, faiiy 
;, which wc do not find in the sagns' [Vigfiisson, 



FIRST HELGI-LAY 207 

ntarveilously imaginative picture in Sigrun's coming 
with the lofty, helmet-decked company of maidens 
riding through the air to the tumult of battle. The 
evidence of later poems shows us that the First Helgi- 
lay long exercised a deep and widespread influence. 

In this poem the description of external things takes 
up more room, in comparison with the dialogue, than in 
any other O.N. mythic-heroic lay, with the exception 
of the poem on Rig. The account is expanded by 
means of general descriptions which show a marked 
contrast to the brevity of other lays. This is not, 
apparently, due to an effort on the part of the author 
to reproduce the older, more epic, native mode of 
presentation, but to the fact that he was influenced by p. i 
Irish tales, characterised as they were by richness of 
vocabulary. 

The Norseman found in the Irish descriptions mag- 
nificent and complete colouring ; but, in opposition to 
their mannered and overloaded accounts, which some- 
times (as in the Destruction of Troy) degenerate into 
mere verbiage, his sonorous verses bring before us a 
very graphic picture, full of life and action ; we see the 
Vikings row away from land, and the ships of the king 
bid defiance to the storm.' 

If we compare the Helgi-lays with the majority of 
the O N. poems treating of the gods, and with the Lay 
of VVayland, the oldest heroic lay, we observe that the 
Helgi-lays make considerable use of kennings and other 
poetic appellatives. These appellatives are more frc- 

• The lost A.S, poem on Wolf-Theodoric may niso have contribukd 
lo Ihc descriptive daboration of the O.N. lay; but th'a it ii, of course. 



STORY OF ERIC T-HE ELOQUENT 209 

peculiarity, which occurs also sporadically in some other 
Eddie poems,^ deserves special mention when it occurs 
in a poem which seems to have been much influenced 
by Irish and English.* The same may be said of the 
lists of names (in strophes 8, 51, 52). To this subject I 
hope to return at another time. 

In the Edda-collection the First Lay is placed before 
the account of Helgi Hjgrvarthsson, and thus the poems 
on Helgi Hundingsbani are separated from each other. 
This order may be compared with that by which the 
Gripisspd has first place among the Sigurth-poems. In 
both cases that poem is put first which forms a com- 
plete and finished whole, and which in a continuous 
metrical account gives a review of a series of events in 
the hero's life ; but, in both cases, the poem thus chosen 
to precede the others is one of the latest in the Edda- 
collection.' 



XVI 

The Helgi-Lays and the Story of Eric the 

Eloquent. 

In his fifth book Saxo tells a story of Eric(us) 
the Eloquent {mdl-spaki), Olrik has shown clearly * p. i^ 
that this is an O.N. fomaldarsaga which the Icelander 
Arnald brought to Denmark from the coasts of Roga- 

^ In V2luspd\ H. H., II, 25; Sigutikirkvi6af etc.; cf. Edzardi in 
Paul-Braune, Beit,, v, 573 f. 

* Cf. my Bidrag til den aidste Skaldedigtttings Historie, p. 66 f. 

* Cf. fL Meyer in Ztsch, f, d. Ait,, xxxii, 405; F. J6nsson, Litt, 
Hist,, I, 120. 

* Sakses Oldhist,, II, 49 ff. 

O 



pTORY OF ERIC THE ELOQUENT 211 

i home in all haste to collect warriors against the 
strangers who have come. Afterwards, Eric slays the 
sons of Westmar. 

Wherever there is connection between the tale of 
Eric the Eloquent and the Helgi-lays, the latter served, 
in my opinion, as model for the former. 

The Eric-story also shows kinship with what wc read 
in H, H., II. 5-13, and in the preceding prose passage : 
Eric slays Frotho's chieftain Odd (Oddo) on the coast 
of Denmark, tlien puts out to sea and sails in to Lasso. 
Afterwards he goes with but one ship to Zealand, and, 
lacking provisions, he and his men commit depreda- 
tions along the coast, and carry the flesh of the 
slaughtered cattle on board their ship. When Eric 
later goes ashore, he meets Westmar's son Grepp, and 
in a series of verses they exchange rough words with 
each other. These words begin with Grepp's questions : 
■ Who art thou ? What dost thou seek ? Whence dost 
thou come? Of what race art thou?" Afterwards 
Eric, in a conversation with King Frotho, tells in enig- 
matical words of Odd's death, and the king confesses 
that Eric has confused him by his obscure speech. 

After Helgi has slain Hunding, he sails with his ship 
into 3 bay. He and his people commit depredations 
there, and eat the raw flesh of the cattle they slaughter, 
Sigriin comes to him,and they exchange word.s in verse 
with each other. She asks first : ' Who are ye ? Where 
is your home? What are ye waiting for? Whither 
will ye go ? ' In his reply, Helgi says : ' Our home is in p. 1 
Lasso.' Thereupon he tells in boasting words of 
hiding's death, 
"hen Eric boastfully recounts the death of Odd, he 




STORY OF ERIC THE ELOQUENT 



of episodes in the sagas, in which may be found very 
close parallels to Eric's obscure publication of the 
manslaughter. To this I would add the following 
remark: The enigmatical speeches with their plays on 
words' in the Eric-story and in Icelandic sagas havep 
their models in Irish heroic tales. Wc have an example 
in the story of the Wooing of Emcr, belonging to the 
old Ulster heroic cycle, and preserved in the MS. Lebor 
na-h Uidre of ca. iioo.- Here the hero and his be- 
trothed exchange enigmatical speeches with plays on 
words, which speeches are, without a doubt, closely akin 
to those in Old Norse. 

The obscure speeches in the Irish tale, as in the O.N. 
story, are intended to show the surpassing ingenuity of 
the speaker, which enables him to express himself so 
that the majority do not understand what he says and 
only those of unusual powers comprehend his words. 
The plays on words are so complicated that one of the 
personages in the story has to explain their meaning. 

Cuchulinn's first enigmatical speech is made in answer 
to Emer's questions : ' Whence hast thou come ? 
Where didst thou sleep?' In like manner, Friththj6f 
gives an ambiguous answer to the questions : ' What is 
thy name? Where wast thou last night? Where is 
thy kin?' Eric's obscure speech is also occasioned by 
the questions: "Whence hast thou come, and how 
didst thou come here?' Frotho goes on to inquire 



' For these sec Hcinict, Stschrtibmig d. is!. Saga, pp, 192 £=[196 T] 
inJ Cedetschibld, Ka!/dripet, pp. 33 f. Let me pailicularly call iltention 
Lo CViIma, chaps. 141a t6;y^nB^'..l., chap. ll^Faniald. I., II, 95); AViUa- 
Ktfi I. [Copen., iSEt), p. 34 ; DropL, p. 10 ; Fiimb,, pp. 79, 87 f. 

• Tnuisbled by Kuao Meyer in Archoflogical Xrview, 1889. 







ai6 HOME OF THE EDDI 



posed by the same poet In support c 
may observe that Sigriin is representei 
maiden in II, 5-13, while the relations bt 
Helgi in 11, 14-18 are those of love. ^ 
that the name ' the Old Lay of the Vplsu 
is not applied to the strophes which prece( 
to show that ir, 13 and il, 14-18 were 
parts of the same poem. Further, ll, v 
already pointed out, contain a form 
different from that in 11, 14-18, and did 
belong to Vghungakvi^a in forna. 

In my opinion, II, 25-51 (including 2\ 
fragments of one and the same poem,' th< 
1. which seems to be completely preserve! 
here ends tragically: Ilelgi kills in bat 
father of Sigriin, his loved-one, and is hi 
revenge by Sigriin's brother. 

In this poem Sigrun is very unlike t 
victory-maiden in the First Lay, althougl 
is Hggni's daughter. The conception of 
First Lay resembles closely that in st 
Second, where Sigrun is represented as pi 

' So olso Sijmons in Zlsch. f. d. Phil., xvill, l6, « 
not include sg and 39. On si. 39 sec above, pp. 1791 
me to piesuppose 28 and Ihc explanalion which U g 
First Ilelgi says; 'Thou wast destined lo awake strife 1 
On hearing these words, 'Sigrun wept.' And bee«u»c 
{11, 29) ! ' Be consoled, Sifin'm 1 ' It cannot be prove 
not have changed the metre in dilTerent pans of the 
transition to the more lyric mtire JjjnaAiUfr in 11, ig 
effective. 

In my opinion, it is also incapable of proof that ll 
story in continuous sliophcs only, without piose passa 
that question another time. 



HELGI'S DEATH 



1(7 



Will' 

wt 



Helgi's knowledge, at the battle in which Hunding is 
slain, and where she is said to see the hero in the bloody 
stern of the long ship when the billows rise high. But 
only in the accompanying prose passages is it expressly 
stated that Sigrun rode through the air and over the sea, 
and we cannot tell from the verses referred to whether 
she travelled alone or with a company of maidens. 

In the Old Lay of the Volsungs (H. H., II, 14-18), 
on the contrary, and especially in Helgi's Death, Sigrun 
is simply represented as a devoted woman who leaves 
father and brothers to accompany the hero whom she 
esteems the bravest of all men. She becomes his wife 
and bears him children. She cannot resist going with 
him, though she thereby brings about the death of her 
kin and her husband. Fate has decreed that she, like 
Mild, shall awaken strife. In Helgi's Death, Sigri'm is 
intense and passionate in her love: she clings faithfully 
to Helgi even after his departure for ValhoU. We do not 
see her advance in the tumult of battle, armed, at the 
head of a company of maidens. She wanders over the 
battlefield alone, searching for her beloved among the 
slain. It is to the warrior, to him who joined in p. 
Odin's game, that she looked up with admiration. His 
battles and victories, the bloody death of his enemies, 
are to her life and joy. When she embraces the dead 
Helgi in the grave-mound, she says: 'Now am I as 
glad of our meeting as Odin's corpse-greedy hawks 
when they see warm meat (bodies) on the battle-field ' 
(II, 43). And with fearful mien she stands and curses 
her brother, who has announced to her that he has 
lilcd Helgi, praying that he may be slain with ] 
n sword 



r 

ihe other la' 



HELCrs DEATH 



he other laying the greatest stress on the fact that the 
strife which Sigrun awakes, causes the death of her 
father Hygni and her lover Helgi. 

The latter form arose under the influence of the story 
of the HJathnings. Like Hild, Sigrun is made into the 
daughter of H^gni. Helgi carries off Sign'in against 
her father's will, as Hethin does Hild, and this brings 
about a war in which both Hogni and llelgi fall. Yet 
it is possible that Hogni, whom the Anglo-Saxons 
knew as Hagena, king of the Holmryge (at the mouth 
of the VVeichsel), had previously been brought into con- 
nection with Heathobards and Shieldings. In H. H., 
II, 4, H9gni is mentioned as brother of the old Danish 
saga-hero Sigar. 

We have already seen (pp. 1 84 f, above) that the Helgi- 
story was brought into connection with the Sigurth- 
story. The story of the Volsungs also affected the 
account of Helgi's Death, Throughout the Helgi-lays 
a general tendency is manifest to let the action develop 
in parallelism to the Sigurth-stories, The fact, then, 
that Sigurth (Siegfried) in the German story was killed 
by his wife's brother, may have led the O.N. poet to 
let Helgi be killed by his wife's brother. Yet the poet 
must also have been influenced in this decision by 
the prevalent Norse conceptions of just revenge. The 
feature of Helgi's slaying his wife's father was already 
present in the story: the most natural person to 
lake vengeance was, of course, the son of the slain 
warrior. Further,' according to the German poem, 
when Siegfried's body is brought by his murderers to 
his wife, she breaks out into reproaches against them. 
' Cf. Sv. Gnjndtvjg, Hcroiik Di^lHing, p. jg. 



HELGI'S DEATH 213 

Bolh the old lay and the popular ballad make the 
young woman lueep blood. Helgi says to Sigrun (ll, 45) : 
" Thou weepest bitter tears before thou goest to sleep ; 
each one falls bloody on my breast.' In a Swedish 
version of the ballad (Afzelius, 6:2, v. l), we read; 
' The maiden weeps tears, she weeps blood," In ihe 
Danish ballad (A, 17): 'Every time thou wee^st for 
me, when thou art sad at heart, my coffin ■? nlled with 
clotted blood.' Thus, in both poepic tiie dead man is 
drenched with blood every time his loved-one weeps.' 
In the old lay, SigriJn makes a couch for Helgi in the 
grave-mound, and sleeps there in his embrace. In the p. 
Swedish ballad (Afz., I, v. 7; 3, v. 7), the dead youth shares 
a bed with his betrothed. In both poems, moreover, 
cocks are named in the world of the dead. In the lay 
it is 6'<i^(j/«i> (' the bird of the hall '), who wakes the 
einherjnr. In the Danish ballad the dead lover says: 
■ Now crows the white cock : for the earth long all the 
corpses. Now crows the red cock : to the earth must 
all the dead [go]. Now crows the black cock : now all 
the gates open.'^ 

The day after the dead Helgi leaves his wife, Signin 

comes after sunset to the grave-mound ; but she waits 

there in vain. ' Because of sorrow and grief Signin 

—lived only a short time.' In the Swedish ballad (Afz., 

■jB ; 2), the maiden sits down on the grave of the dead 

P ' In H. H., n, 44, Sigrio says ; ' Thj hiir, O Helgi ! is full of frosl 
. . . How shall I find Uice a remedy for this?" In ihe Danish ballad 
the maiden combs the hair of hci betrolhed ; for cvciy hair she arranges, 
she Icis fall a tear. She (hen asks : ' How is II in the grave with thee?' 

' In Danish B the white cock is not mentioned. Cf. Vpi, 43 : 'The 
cock with Ihe golden comb wakes the heroes in the dweUint; of the Father 
of the Hosts; but in the halls of Hel crows mother soot-red cock.' 



HELOrS DEATH 225 

I conjecture that this story became known in Ire- 
land, and that the author of Helgi's Death heard it 
there. He combined with it the idea that the tears of 1 
surviving friends disturb the repose of the dead — a 
belief which was well known among the Greeks, the 
Romans, and many other races.^ 

We may next inquire why the incident of the dead 
lover's return was attached to Sigriin. Of course, the p- 2^°- 
fact that Sigriin, like Guthnin in the Sigurth-story, is 
described as a devoted wife, in despair at her husband's 
early death, may have been one reason for attaching to 
her this incident. But this explanation seems to me in- 
sufficient, and I believe that it is possible to point out a 
more potent cause ^ : the First Helgi-lay seems to have 
been influenced in its account of the hero's birth by 
the classical story of Meleager ; this story, as I suppose, 
also influenced the poem on Helgi's Death. 

After the meeting between Sigriin and the dead 
Helgi in the Second Lay, comes a prose note : * Sigriin 

eius videret. Qua re concessa, non deserens umbram in ampUxibus eius 
periitJ' — Taken from Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid^ 6, 447. 
Same story in Myth, VatiCy ii, 215. The story is different, however, in 
Hyginus, Fables^ 103, 104 (ed. M. Schmidt, p. 95). 

* See Schenkl in Germ.j ii, 451 f; Child, Pop, Ballads^ III, 235 f. 

* Simrock {Handb, d, d. Myih,^ p. 394) would unite the poetic motive 
that Sigrun Mhren Geliebten, der im Kampf gefallen und zur Odhin 
gegangen ist, durch ihrc heissen Thranen erweckt und herabzieht,' with 
the feature in the story that llild wakes the dead to life. But Sigrun does 
not, like Hild, wake her dead husband to life again in order that he may 
fight, but gets him as a dead man to visit his grave-mound and embrace 
his living wife. Yet Simrock*s idea is supported by the fact that in Saxo 
Hild awakes the dead because of longing for her husband {Ferunt Htidam 
tanta mariti cupiditaie ftagrasse^ ut noctti interfectorum manes redinte- 
fp^andi belli gratia car minibus excitasse credatur, — Ed. MUller, Bk. v, 
p. 342.) 

P 




HELGI'S DEATH 



^lef at the loss of her husband, and also that certain 
male relatives of his wept inconsolably over his death. 
)!lowing a suggestion derived from these two incidents, 

transferred to Helgi and Signin the main feature of 
e story of Protesilaus and Laodamia — the inconsolable 
fe who wishes for the return of her slain husband, and 
lo sleeps in his arms when her wish has been fulfilled. 



Helgi's Death also shows relationship with the 
Ijisung-stories in their O.N. form, in that the same 
ligious conception permeated both, and that Odin 
ects the action both in the Helgi-lays and in the 
>1 sung -stories. Yet in the Helgi-story Odin does 
t appear personally in the world of mortals. 
In the Second Lay we are told that Helgi is killed p- > 

Sigrun's brother, iind FJ^Curlundi, 'under the fetter- 
:e.' In the prose he is called Da^, and it is said that 

had invoked Odin (bldtaf>i (%in) to get revenge for 
i father, and that Odin had lent him his own spear, 
le preposition tind, ' under,' in tlie expression und 
^turlundi seems to show that lundr here means 'tree.' 
'oturlundi seems to be a name invented by the poet, 
^ifying "a tree of sacrifice to which the victim is 
und with ^fj^tiirr, fetter.' By using this place-name 
; poet meant to indicate that Helgi was killed as an 
ering to Odin. He is pierced with Odin's spear, just 
Vikar is pierced with the spear lent to Starkath by 
iin. 

Odin's relation to Helgi is analogous to his relation 
the Vglsung Sigmund. Odin himself goes with his 
:ar against Sigmund in the hero's last fight ( Vgts. s., 
ap. xi.) ; and, in the Eirfksmdl, Odin in Valh9ll bids 




t8 ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

igmund ind Sinfjotli go to meet King Eric Biooii 
te.i 
I have already shown that the author of Helgi's 



First Helgi-lay, lived in 
:h English and Irish. 
Jorddn (ii, 28) seems lo 
Istian stories. But he is 
:ed by Irish literature as 
lay, and he has not the 



Death, like the ai 
Britain, and under: 

Apparently (as the piiras 
show) he had heard some 
Tar from being so much influ 
the author of the First Hel{ 
character of a learned poet.^ 

It is hard to say exactly what difference in age there 
is between Helgi's Death, in its present form, and the 
First Helgi-lay; but if my conjecture be right that Ihe 
author of Helgi's Death altered A.S. on cor^an, ' on the 
earth,' into 'by Jordan,' this poem probably dates at 
the earliest from the middle of the tenth century. 
). The author of Helgi's Death may, then, have been a 
skald at Olaf Kvaran's court. If so, we have an easy 
and natural explanation for the fact that he understood 
both Irish and English, and that a Danish heroic stor}" 
forms the basis of his lay, which was influenced in its 
construction both by English verse and by Latin 
mythical tales. 

I regard it as certain that this poet was by nationality 
Norwegian, not Danish. The connection of his work 
with the O.N. poems, to which I have already called 
attention, argues in favour of this view — likewise 
the poetic phraseology, and some of the kennings 
employed. Moreover, the highly developed conception 

» ThUisasupiiort fui [lie reading of ihc MSS. in H, U., [I, 29, where 
Ilimdiiig is adJicsseil in Valholl by Hclgi. 
' This woiilil not prevenl hi^ hearing Glories baseJ on classical tndi 



( 



HELGI'S DEATH ai9 

of Odin and Valhgll cannot in this form be shown to 
be really Danish.' 

It seems probable, however, that the poet knew and 
utilised older Danish verses composed in Britain. The 
name of the hero Helgi, and his position in the poem ; 
the name Hothbrodd, as I have explained it (above, 
p, 1 59 ff) ; the name of the ' king ' Starkalh, Hothbrodd's 
ally, and the place-name HUbjorg — all support this 
theory. I have tried to show that it was a Danish poet 
in Britain who first sang of Helgi as the slayer of 
Hothbrodd. 

That the Danes In England in later times, at all 
events up to about 1200, also knew an old lay on 
Helgi's love, his tragic death, and his return from the 
grave, we may infer from the popular ballads of ' Kibold,' 
' Herr Hjelmer,' 'The Lover in the Grave,' and the 
corresponding ballads in English and Scotch. In my 
discussion of the Lay of Helgi Hjorvarthsson I shall 
examine these ballads more minutely, and try to decide 
whether it was an Old Norse or a corresponding Old 
Danish lay which influenced the ballad of Kibold and 
Gnldborg in England. 

It is hard to decide what district of Norway was the p. 
home of the author of Helgi's Death. The most likely 
supposition is that he lived in the south-western part." 

In the description of Sigrun's grief on hearing the 
tidings of her lover's death, there is an intense passion 

' Cf. Olrilt, Saksfi Oldki'l., 1, 30-36. 

' The wotcj dagsbriin in H. H., n, 43, is now used, aceoiding lo Ivar 
.\iisen, 'in Sogn and other places ' ; k/la in 11,44, is now used in Bergen's 
Siifl, Ryfylkc, Aedcr, Telemirken, Hallingdalen, Gudbiaiidsdalcn, etc. 
Willi Aifnkr in 11, 43, cf. malfrcK; which is now used in Telemaikcn and 



130 

which ha 
or even p 




VIE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



been thought to be genuinely Scandinavian, 

nitive Germanic in its character. To Helgi, 

the mighi-- warrior, Sigrun looks up with admiration, 

e battlefield among the 

le is gentle and mild, of 

Hild, who, as Hogni's 



who wakes her father ' 
death to perpetual fight^ 
■ Sigrun's relatives, sayf 
lou shouldst cause strife 
3 into tears ; and when 



and she e 

corpses of hei 

quite differem 

daughter, is her protot 

and her lover from the si' 

When Helgi, after the 

to her : ' It was destined 

between chieftains," she bui 

Helgi, by way of consolation, adds that no one can 

withstand fate, she exclaims: ' I should now be willing 

to call to life those who are dead, if I could neverthek-ss 

hide myself in thy bosom.' 

In Helgi's Death the hero also is much more human 
than the impersonal victor of the First Lay, Even on 
the battlefield, after the defeat of his opponents, he is 
sad rather than exultant ; for the corpses about liim are 
those of his lovcd-one's kin. His first words to her are 
half reproachful : 'Thou hast not fortune with thee in 
all ; yet I say that the Norns cause something.' In 
this we may note the presentiment of his death. 

We perceive, moreover, that this poem, where delight 
in nature shows itself so clearly in beautiful pictures, 
;. where the poet sings of the all-subduing power of the 
love of an affectionate, devoted woman, was produced 
in a sunnier land than the rugged mountains of Iceland 
and Norway. The ancient Norse spirit was here affected 
by that conception of life which later got its peculiar 
and full expression in the ballads of the Middle Ages, 
most completely in England, Scotland, and Denmark. 



IIELGIS nKATH 231 

When Sigriin likens Helgi to a hart, the comparison 
broadens out into the picture of a landscape. We are 
reminded of the ballads. The chaste presentation of 
affection has, indeed, all the Old Norse seriousness; but 
the passionate love of the hero, and (more especially) of 
the heroine, with the joy of the latter in the presence of 
her lover, fills the poem so fully that it is as a forerunner 
of the conception of a later era regarding the relations 
between man and woman. While this instance of the 
return of a departed hero stands almost alone in ancient 
poems, there is a whole series of ballads in which a dead 
man is brought back to the side of his surviving love by 
her inconsolable longing, need of help, or passion — or in 
order to give a warning. 

All this makes against the view that the Lay of 
Helgi's Death was composed by an Icelander. It has 
been said that the practical, prosaic, sober spirit of the 
Icelanders pervades all their intellectual productions.^ 
It is with an entirely different spirit that the Lay of 
Helgi's Death is filled. 

The considerations here adduced show also that the 
lay was not composed in Norway but in Britain, where 
the Norwegian poet associated with Englishmen, Danes, 
and Celts, — in Britain, where the tones of the popular 
ballad were soon to be heard clear and full of fervour, 
gay and pleasing, yet with undertones of deep melan- 
choly. 

That the Lay of Helgi's Death stands in some 
connection with Danish poetry is evident also from the 
fact that all-conquering love is the common poetic 
theme of a series of old Danish stories, some of which 

' Sec Finnur Jonsson, Litt, Hist,y i, 50. 




are reco ited of persons {e.g. Sigar) who bear the same 
p. ai6. names g persons who were also associated with Helgi.' 

With respc.-' "■- ■"-- — '-- form of the storj-, the 
poems united incral heading of 'The 

Second Helg rong contrast, on the one 

hand, to the lic«i.i.._iii liie!ding-story in Beowulf. 

and, on the other, to tne nt in the First Helgi-lay. 

This difference has not rto been explained with 

sufficient clearness, becau le strophes of the Second 

Lay have, too one-sidedly, ^ n treated as fragments. 

Let us examine the Lay of /^elgis Death in H, ii., 
ir, 25-51. All of these strophes were, without any 
doubt, composed by one and the same poet. The 
theory that they are fragments of a Helgi-poem which 
treated its subject throughout in versified form and 
with continuous strophes, like the First Helgi-lay, 
seems to me incapable of proof and incorrect. The 
author of the Lay of ]-Ielgi's Death has, on the contrary, 
treated in lyric-dramatic strophes a series of separate 
and distinct scenes in such a way that the situation is 
made clear, and the inner connection explained, by the 
remarks of the characters. The prose narrative united 
the versified parts. 

These prose passages were an original and necessary' 
part of the work. Of course, in saying this 1 do not 
mean that all the bits of prose in the old ms. are as old 
as the strophes, or that the prose preserves details of 
phraseology in as pure and original a form as the 
poetry. Some of the bits of prose are inserted to 
replace strophes whose verse-form had been forgotten. 

' Stc nirik, S,ihes Ohlhhl., U. 230 ff. , 




HELGI'S DEATH 233 

Other bits communicate nothing more than inferences 
drawn from strophes contained in the MS., and some 
express ideas which are later than those which appear 
in the strophes. In general, the phraseology of prose 
changes much more readily than that of verse. But in 
point of principle, in works like that on Helgi's Death, 
the prose narrative element is, as regards the poetic p. 
form of presentation, quite as original as the lyric- 
dramatic strophes.' This appears plainly, for example, 
in the scene in Valholl (H. H., Il, 39), where Hunding 
is bidden to perform menial duties. Here an explana- 
tion is needed, in order that the strophes may be 
understood, and there is nothing to show that this 
necessary explanation was ever given in verse-form. 
Heinzel has already called attention to the fact that 
is a characteristic of Helgi's Death, as opposed to 
the First Lay. that the account of the battle is given 
in prose, but that the poet afterwards makes Sigrun 
and Helgi appear on the battlefield and express in 
strophes the feelings aroused by the outcome of the 
combat.^ On the other hand, however. 'the Old Lay 
of the Volsungs ■ (H. H., ll, 14-18), has narrative 
strophes. To judge from the fragmentary remains, 
this lay was a much less significant work than that on 
Helgi's Death. 

' I jesctve Ihe discussion of llie origin of Ihis poetic imnle of presenla- 
>n for another uccmion. 

' Heinzel ( Obtr liie Ilrtvaranaga, p. 43) sajB ; ' Es ist nicht beweislar, 

Bs die frosatheile de( Eildaliedei durchaus jUtigu seien aU die Verse.' 

This view, which K, Jonsson \LUt. Hist., 1, 346) regards as 'alti^elhcT 

niMivabie,' 1 believe ta I* entirely correct. 

Mullenhoff \ZiKh. f. d. Alt., xxiu. 151) iiys very truly: 'Zwei 
rormendercpiiehcnUbcrlicfcruog, prosaischeErMhlunEmilbcdentsamen 




H E L t; I H J 9 R V A R r H S S O N 



llkyric who rode through the air and over the sea, 
id slie altenvards acted as his protectress in fight. 
I Helgi got from his father people and ships for an 
kpedition against King Hr6lhmar, who had killed 
[elgi's grandfather. He slew Hrdtlimar with the 
■rord which he had received from Svafa. He also 
piled the giant Hati. Then comes a poem in the 
jietre Ij^ahdttr on an encounter between Helgi and 
le watchman Atli and the sea-troll Hrimgerth, Mali's 
tughtcr. 

' The last section of the Lay of Helgi Hjorvarthsson 

pntains, like the first, both prose and verse (in 

tyt^islag). Helgi and Sv;lfa swear to be faithful to 

;h other. Helgi sets out alone on a warlike expedi- 

Hc is challenged to fight by Hruthmar's son Alf 

attendant spirit {fylgja), who knows that he is to 

1 in this approaching combat, meets, one Christmas p. 

Ive, in the form of a witch, Helgi's brother Hethin, 

ID is at home with his father in Norway, and offers 

become his attendant spirit. When Hethin rejects 

she takes her revenge by confusing his mind to 

:h an extent that in the evening he vows a sacred 

,th on the brag-beaker to win Svafa, his brother's 

ived. Afterwards Hethin regrets his vow, and 

;nders about in desolate regions. In a foreign land 

meets Helgi, and sorrowfully tells him of his oath. 

lelgi, who has a foreboding of his fate, says that after 

death Hethin's vow shall be fulfilled. Helgi is fatally 

nded in the fight with Alf. He then sends a message 

Svifa, who comes to his deathbed. Helgi begs her 

become Hethin's bride ; but Svdfa answers that she 

vowed, when Helgi shall die, to have no chieftain 




LAY OF HRfMC. ERTH 



237 



lies in the harbour after a storm. The watchman Atli 
on guard while the others sleep. She first converses 
th Alii, and afterwards wakes Helgi himself. She 
demands Helgi's love as a recompense for his having 
Stilled her father. But she is kept talking until day 
Bawns, so that, when the rays of the sun fall upon her, 
Bhe changes into stone there in the harbour. 

Hri'mgerth is a disgusting troll.' She has a tail like 
mare. Her father Hati ((>. the hostile pursuer) was 
a mountain-giant, who ravished many women. Her 
Another was a sea-troll. Both Hrfmgerth and her 
iher are accustomed to attack ships at sea and to 
■iink them, so that all the crew are drowned. Hr/mgerth 
iierseif fights with men and kills them, afterwards 
"devouring their dead bodies. 

The poet's description of the sea-troll agrees in many 
respects with the stories of mermaids and similar 
JKings in Scandinavian documents of the Middle Ages 
nd in stories gathered from the peasantry in modern 
imes ; for the belief in mermaids has long been 
Tcvalent on the Scandinavian coast- 
Like Hri'mgerth, mermaids are described in other old P- ' 
Icelandic and Norwegian documents as disgusting trolls, 
!ven when they have a shape which is partly human. 
The old name for mermaid, margygr, itself shows that 
luch beings were popularly conceived as giantesses. 
n the Koitungs Sktiggsjd^ ?.-wz\y a creature is called a 
krimslij.e. terrible witch, monster), and is said to have 
\ disgusting, terrifying face. In more recent popular 



I Cf. ItiK tilu iiiauHkyni, II. llj., ii, 
' ChriUuni* eililion, chnp. 16, ji. 39. 



'. Sifr. filo. 



LAY OF HRfMGERTH 239 

to look at young boys, and comes to them when they 
lie in their boats asleep.^ In like manner, Hrfmgerth 
comes to Helgi's ship when the crew on board are 
asleep. 

In Gotland it is believed that the mermaid prefers p. 
boys who have a sweetheart. So Hrfmgerth, when she 
visits Helgi, knows that Svdfa is his love. 

In many stories of mermaids they are said, like 

^ Hrfmgerth and her mother, to appear in storms at sea, 

and to wreck ships so that the crews are drowned. The 

sea-troll, Grendel*s mother, in Beowulf, like Hrfmgerth, 

devours human bodies greedily. 

At sunrise Hrfmgerth is changed into stone. Modern 
Scandinavian popular tradition preserves tales in which 
various monsters, usually mountain -trolls, are, like 
Hrfmgerth, invited to look to the east. The popular 
belief that trolls, or giants, being creatures of dark- 
ness, are changed into stone by the sun or the light 
of day is known throughout the world.^ In the Eddie 
poem Alvlssmdl it is hinted that the dwarf All-wise, 
who, like Hrfmgerth, is kept talking until daylight, is 
thereby changed into stone. 
< But in no other popular Scandinavian tale, so far as 
I know, does a mermaid really become stone. In the 
Faroes a similar being, the sea-sprite {sj6dreygur\ is 

* Axnajsoviy Isienzkar pj^sogur, i, 131; Maurer, island ische Volkssagen, 

\ P- 30- 

\ 'In addition to the places cited by E. H. Meyer in German. MythoL , 

' § 181, see e.g, Landstad, Norske Folkeviser^ p. 42; Ein Sogebundel, 
^ p. 62 ; Friis, Lapp, Eventyr^ 145; Maurer, IsL Volkssagen^ pp. 52 f; 

Simrock, Afythol,^, 392 ; Kuhn, Herabkunfi des Feuers, p. 93 ; Liebrecht 
\ in Germ,y xvi, 218: on the Fidschi Isles; Liebrecht on Gervasius, 83: 

among the primitive settlers in Ilispaniola. 




LAV OF HRfMGERTH 2 

Kord before Helgi's ships, was pierced by a pole 1 



H^ng meets, among the islands off the coast ' 

in the north, a troll black as pitch. She has 

■isen from the sea, and wishes to kill him ; but he 

:s her with one of his magic arrows, and with a 

clamour she sinks into the sea and departs in the 

tS a whale.* VV'c have an echo of this story in 

tedish tale of Kettil Riinske, who binds a mermaid p 

runic block,' and perhaps also in the Danish 
of ' Herr Luno," who in the sea near Greenland 
mermaid with runes.^ In the late Scandinavian 
ballad ' Magnus and the Mermaid,'* the mcr- 
ho is here a beautiful woman, lures the knight 
and enticingly with rich gifts ; and it is only 
ving of the cock that saves him. 



in be proved, however, that the author of the 

srth-!ay must have known older traditions, and 

relied on literary models for some of the features 

K>em. 

Lay of H. HJ9r., in the old MS., ends with the 

; 'It is said that Helgi and Svafa were born 

Directly after comes the statement that King j 
id, the son of V^lsung, and his wife Borghild, 

/. J/irngt, chip. 5 ; Fomald. 1 
Hrlien-CavalliuE, SiSgTUr om 
\ytv, Slockholm, 1843, p. 171. 
mdtvig, Danm. gl. Falketiiitr, No. 43 (ii, 92 f)- 
Bogge, Gamk Nonke folimiser. No. 11, where corresponding 
oog other ScADdinavln 




LAV OF HRfMGERTH 

one, the most famous of the valkyries, protects the • 
tohips so that in the evening they lie safely in the 
harbour. 

The situation in H. Hjgr. when the conversation with 
Hrimgerth begins, resembles closely that in H. Hund. 
when the conversation with Guthmund begins. In the 
former case it is Helgi Hjyr.'s most distinguished 
follower who is watchman of the ships which lie near 
the shore ; in the latter it is the most distinguished 
ibllowcr of Helgi Hund, In both poems an enemy 
comes towards the ship — in one case Hn'mgerth, in the 
other Guthmund ; in the former as night is coming 

in the latter in the evening. -In both the visiffirj 
inquires the name of the foreign king whose fleet lies in ' 
he harbour. The king's watchman, who is on guard, %i 
gives Helgi's name, and answers boldly that his king 

i nothing to fear from the questioner. In both the 
ConfRrsation is coarse, consisting for the most part of ' 
jpuH^geous words of abuse. The king, Helgi, who in 
neither case takes part in it until it has lasted some 

le, is in both cases represented as a man of noWe, 
liigh-minded nature, as a chieftain of humanity and 
Refinement. This is brought out conspicuously in 
Sinfjotli's conversation with Guthoiund, and in AtU's 
with Hrimgerth, through the contrast with the king's 
watchman, who is of a vulgar nature. He has had p. 
encounters with witches before, and can be rough 
Bnd wild. 

In these two conversations there are even agreements 
in details. Guthmund, like Hrimgerth, is reproached 
with being a sAass, a witch. Sinrj9tli accuses Guthmund 
of having been a mare, and Hrimgerth is a monster 



LAY OF HrJMOKRTH 



245 



:i>nversation of AtH and Helgi with Hrfmgerth, and the 
"_torts which are exchanged between Guthmund and 
-linfjfitli in the First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani. 

To some extent (but, in my opinion, to a very limited 
xtcnt), tlic convers.ation with Hrimgerth is an imitation 
r that with Guthmund. For in the older treatment of 
the story of Helgi Hund. (among the verses which are 
now collected under the name of the Second Lay) 
Sinfjptli also pours out unmeasured reproaches upon 
Guthmund; and here Helgi Hund. likewise appears 
liter the dispute. 

But in the Hclgi-lay the king's watchman on guard 
converses with another man, his enemy, not with a 
witch. The Lay of Helgi Hund. does not explain the 
presence of the witch Hri'mgerth. It tlirows no light 
on the way in which the story so developed that 
Helgi, accompanied by Atli, stays Hati, and changes 
Hn'mgertii, Hati's daughter, into stone. 



In what precedes, I have shown that legendary motives 
have been transferred to Helgi Hundingsbani from a 
hero who corresponded to the South-Germanic Wolf- 
dietrich. I have, moreover, called attention to the 
intimate relationship which exists between the poems 
on Helgi Hundingsbani and Helgi Hjprvarthsson. Since 
now Wolfdietrich, like Helgi Hjyr., has a meeting with 
a sea-troll, we have u /«<?r( grounds for supposing that 
the motive which is associated with the German hero 
stands in historic connection with the similar episode in 
the life of Helgi Hj^r. 




246 H AE OF THE E[>niC POEMS 

a. In Wrd, A, the hero, being tired, falls asleep i 
meadow by the sea-shore,' where the billows are beat- 
ing against the stone cliffs. There comes up out of the 
depths of the sea a H;=n-i.=fmfr troll in the form of a 
woman, with skin co' i scales, and overgrown 

with long sea-grass. s him, and they begin to 

converse. She says that sin 3uld fain help him, and 
begs him to marry her; bui ; answers : 'The Devil's 
dam shall not come into r arms." Thereupon she 
changes into one of the most lutiful of women, radiant 
as the sun. But Wolfdietrici. says that he has sworn 
never to marry any woman until he has freed his men 
from captivity. Then she begs him to give her one of 
his brothers instead. She will carry him with her to 
the bottom of the sea, for she rules over all which the 
sea covers. She shows Wolfdietrich his way ; and he 
leaves her (A, 465-505), 

Wfd. B recounts a corresponding adventure : Wolf- 
dietrich and his men, being pursued by enemies, are 
obliged to flee to a forest. They come to a green pas- 
ture, where the men lie down to sleep, while Wolfdie- 
trich himself keeps watch. Then comes Else the hairy 
(rAhe) to him, on all-fours like a bear. She begs him 
to grant her his love, and promises him in return a 
kingdom. But he answers : ' I will not love thee, thou 
devilish woman {du vAlantinne rkk). Go to Hell.' 
Thereupon she casts a spell over Wolfdietrich, so that 
he is long out of his mind. Finally, however, she 
springs into a rejuvenating fountain, and becomes a 

' In ihis ledactioTi ihe poel probably thoughl of a lake in ihe vicinity of 
BerchlcsKflJen in Uiipcr Pavari.i ; sec Zlstk.f. d. All., xu. 50S f. H;jl 
in the original stoty it was doublltss ihe sea-shoie which was meanl. 



HRIMGERTH and else 247 

most beautiful woman. She receives in baptism the 
name Sigminne, and Wolfdietrich, who is also restored, 
marries her. 

With this adventure of Wolfdietrich the encounter 
between Helgi Hjgr. and the mermaid Hrfmgerth is, in 
my opinion, connected. Hrfmgerth is a disgusting troll, 
like the woman who meets Wolfdietrich. This woman p. 229. 
has her home, according to A, in the water, and was 
doubtless originally regarded as a mermaid like Hrfm- 
gerth. The troll, in Wfd. B, is shaggy ; and Helgi says 
that the mountain-giant, Lothin (t\e. shaggy), will be a 
fit husband for Hrfmgerth. She is designated as /d/a 
(H. Hj., 16 ; cf. 13), and that word seems to be related to 
vdlantinne^ anpexpression used of the troll in Wfd. B, 310. 

In Wfd. A, the troll comes to the hero when he is 
asleep and wakes him ; in Wfd. B, she comes when his 
men sleep and he alone is watching. Hrfmgerth comes 
when Helgi and all his men, except Atli, are asleep. 
She says to Helgi : * Wake up ! If I get to sleep one 
night with thee, then shall I have recompense for my 
sorrow' (H. Hj., 24). In Wfd. B, 309, the troll says to 
the hero, nu minne inich^ Wolf die trtch, Helgi answers : 
* Lothin is he called who shall marry thee, thou who art 
loathsome to men ; the worst mountain-giant is a fit 
husband for thee.' ^ And the troll is answered similarly 
in B, 316: *The Devil shall sleep with thee.' The 
curse du hebe dich zuo der helle^ B, 310, corresponds to 
Atli's words to Hrfmgerth (H. Hj., 16): *Nine leagues 
shouldst thou be under the earth.' 

* IjfiSinn keitir er pik skal eiga , . . sd byr i polieyju purs, II. Hj., 
25, seems to presuppose: Hr{mgr{mnir heiiir purs, er pik ha fa skal, 
Skimismal, 35. 



nth Hdg5 



243 n< ^IK OF THE EDDIC POE 

It is, lit 'ever, only in the conversation with 
that the I (mgcrth-lay shows any real agreement with 
the episode of the mermaid in the W'olfdietrich-story. 
In the latter there is no parallel to the conversation of 
Hrimgerth with e an Atli. The tf/noftmeKl 

is different in the twu 

And, finally, while 
story is changed into a i 
the hero marries, the trol 
Helgi Hjyr., is contrasted i 
Helgi marries. To explaii 
examine certain other stories \ 
that of Else. 



aid in the Wolfdietrich- 
beautiful woman, whom 
mgerth, in the story of 
he radiant Sv^fa, whom 
ese variations, we must 
'hich arc connected with 



J. The story of the wandering VVolfdietrich's meeting 
with the mermaid (called also queen in A), or 'die riihe' 
Else, who is changed into the beautiful Sigminne, has, 
in my opinion, borrowed features from the story of the 
relations between the wandering Odysseus and various 
supernatural female beings. 

In Wfd. B, the hairy Else comes to Wolfdietrich and 
urges him repeatedly to grant her his love. When she 
finds that he will not accede to her request, she casts a 
spell over him, so that he lives half a year in the forest 
out of his mind. But then an angel speaks to lur, and 
says that if she does not release him from the spell, thunder 
shall kill her -within three days. When she again offers 
Wolfdietrich her love, he says that he will marry her if 
she will be baptised. She then takes him on a ship 
across the sea to her kingdom. There she is rejuvenated 
in a fountain which is half warm, half cold, becomes 



HRImGERTH and calypso 249 

the most beautiful of women, and in baptism receives 
the name Sigminne. Wolfdietrich, who is also rejuven- 
ated in the fountain, marries her, and lives with her for 
a time, without thinking of his captured men. When, 
finally, he decides to depart to fight with Ortnit, she 
makes a splendid ship ready for him, and brings on 
board a shirt possessed of curative powers. 

On the one hand, these legendary features were 
aflfected by the story of Calypso. 

After having sailed between Scylla and Charybdis 
Odysseus comes to the beautiful sea-nymph. Calypso, 
in the wooded isle Ogygia. She promises Odysseus 
eternal youth if he will live with her, and even retains 
him by force. The hero remains with Calypso several 
years ; but in the day-time he sits by the sea-shore, 
full of longing, lamenting his fate. Hermes brings to 
Calypso a command from Zeus to set Odysseus free^ and 
let him sail home : otherwise Zeus' s anger shall overtake 
her. Then Calypso helps Odysseus to build a fleet, in p. 231. 
which he sails away. She gives him sweet-scented 
garments, such as the immortals wear. 

The author of Wfd. B seems himself to hint that he 
was here influenced by the story of Odysseus, for the 
hairy Else is said to live z'alten Troyen, This doubt- 
less means that she is the same person as Calypso, with 
whom Odysseus, who came from * old Troy,' remained 
for a time.^ 

On the other hand, the story of Wolfdietrich's meet- 

* Nevertheless, I will not affirm that the name r(ich Else arose through 
r/ich *Celset *Calise (cf. Calixa in Benott de Ste. More), from a romance 
or mediaeval -Latin form of Calypso, Vet, so far as I know, the name has 
not as yet been explained. 



150 



H 




IE OF THE EDniC POEMS 



ing with the mermaid was probably influenced by the 
storj' of Circe, the beautifut daughter of the Sun, in the 
isle Mxa, who was similar in nature to Calypso, and in 
origin practically ■'■■ 



,1 over Wolfdietrich, so 
the forest, and lives on 
ce changes Odysseus's 
ng swine, and gives the 
h the same end in view.' 
of Hermes, Odysseus 
;cted from her wiles. 



In Wfd. B, Else 
that he wanders abuu. 
the fruits of the earth, 
followers by magic into grc 
hero himself a magic potioi 

Following the direction- 
threatens Circe, and 
Thereupon he lies with her. He is strengthened when 
with her by bathing in warm water.^ But he will taste 
2. neither meat nor drink until Circe frees his followers. 
She restores them to human form, making them at the 
same time younger and more beautiful than before, 
Odysseus remains with Circe a year. 

In Wfd. A, before Wolfdietrich comes to the mer- 
maid, he hears a voice which echoes through mountain 

' Bar the iiiciJent of EUi's cullinE l«o locks of hair from U fd e t 
H'hili: he sleeps, and changing him to .i m^dinnii, wns doub le nflucn c 
by the story of Dalilah, i\ho has seven locks cut from the head of bin n 
while he sleeps, 

= III the Middle Ages Circe seems to have been supplied w h i ic 
venaling foiimain. Dctiialh- {I'/vr ,iiid^aa///ra>Kos. l?if// m f'i n 
({■isihin Sfofc am Jem Alferlhum, Erlangcn, 1S87), letna ks ; j 
' Deschamps [of the second half of the fourteenth and the hr t half of h 
fifteenth centuries] sagt S, 31, Ijcim Tode von G. de Machault 
La fans CircUtlafonleiHeHitit 
Dont T^ris esliiz U missel it U dais. 
Oil feiles mislieiil knr Hiidii 



Ich vermi^ mit ilber den Sinn der Woite la foil 
schafi lu geben,' 



Cine kein. 



HRIMGERTH and CIRCE 251 

and dale. He believes it to be the devil's voice from 
hell ; but when he comes down from the side of the 
mountain, he perceives a sea, and realises that all the 
noise he has heard is due simply to the breaking of 
the waves against the rocky cliffs. Completely worn 
out, he falls asleep in the field where the mermaid finds 
him. 

Here we may have, on the one hand, a reminis- 
cence of the coming of Odysseus to the island Scheria. 
Odysseus hears the breakers dash with thundering sound 
against the shores. He afterwards swims to the island. 
Worn out with fatigue, he lies down to sleep under some 
bushes, where the king's daughter Nausicaa finds him. 
On the other hand, we are reminded of the fact that 
Odysseus comes a second time to Circe, after he has 
been in the nether world. When he is about to leave 
her she directs him on his course, and reveals to him 
the dangers which he and his followers are to encounter. 
In Wfd. A, the mermaid directs Wolfdietrich on his 
course when he leaves her. 

As they are about to separate, the mermaid gives 
him an herb of which she says : ' It is useful and good 
for both bodies and hearts. Thou shalt take it with 
thee in thy wallet When thou eatest of it thou shalt 
have the strength of a Hon.* She shows Wolfdietrich 
the herb growing under a tree, and teaches him how to 
recognise it wherever he may see it. * There is much 
of it in the world ; one should pay careful heed to it' 
As soon as Wolfdietrich has taken a little of this herb 
in his mouth, he recovers his strength. He also gives 
some to his horse, which immediately becomes high- 
spirited and strong. This herb appears to be connected p. 233. 




2^2 H UK OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

with the moly of the Odyssey, which Hermes digs up 
for Odysseus, explaining to him its peculiar virtuei. 
Odysseus takes the powerful root of healing with him 



to Circe's dwelling, ' 
In Wfd. the inern 
beautiful of women, w 
I am right in my sup[. 
features from the Odyssey, 
mermaid as a disgusting t 
influence of the story of S 
support in the O.N. poem. 



-cts him against magic 
i changed into the mosl 
disgusting monster. If 
1 that Wfd. has taken 
1 the conception of the 
is doubtless due to the 
This theory will find j 



In her conversation with Atli, Hrimgerth says: '1 
drowned the sons of Hlothvarth (Hlav)>varz sonovi) 
in the sea.' Of these persons we learn nothing more, 
either here or in any other O.N. poem ; but they were 
evidently not Invented by the author of the Hrimger^- 
arindl; for, in that case, he would not have left us 
without further information about them. We may feel 
certain that he did not himself create these sons of 
Hlothvarth, but that he found them in some story which 
told how a sea-troll caused their death in the sea. 

But since it is evident that the author of the //r/w- 
gcf'^armdl, for one part of his lay, used a story not 
elsewhere to be found in O.N. literature, it is probable 
that the same story also furnished him material respect- 
ing Ilrimgcrth and her kin, and their relations with 
Helgi Hjorvarthsson and his watchman Atli. 
4- Light seems to be thrown on the problem by a short 
Latin mythical story from the early Middle Ages. Its 



HRfMGERTH AND SCYLLA 253 

subject is the Greek tale of the sailing of Odysseus 
past the monster Scylla, in whom the fancy of the myth- 
makers personified the maelstrom surrounded by danger- 
ous rocks. The story, which was indirectly the source 
of the O.N. poem, is a working-over of a passage in 
Servius's Commentary on Virgil's ^Eneid. It is included 
in a collection of mythical tales from the early Middle 
Ages, written in barbarous Latin, and familiar under 
the name of the Second Vatican MytJiography Both 
these documents were well known in the British Isles, 
particularly among the Irish, and, as I have shown in 
the first series of my * Studies on the Origin of the O.N. 
Stories of Gods and Heroes,' left many traces on the 
O.N. mythical world. 

In the Second Mythograph we read (p. 169): Scilla 
[sic, MS.] . . . pube tenus in varias inutata est formas. 
Horrens itaque ^ deformitate siia^ se praecipitavit in mare, 
Hanc postea Glaucus fecit viarinam deam, Haec classem 
Ulixis cum sociis eius evertisse narratur. Homerus Jianc 
i minor tale monstrum fuisse^ Salustins saxum esse dicit^ 
simile formae celebratae procul visentibus. Canes vero 
et liipi ob hoc ex ea nati esse finguntur^ quia ipsa loca 
pUna sunt monstris inarinis^ et saxorum asperitas illic 
bestiarum imitatur latratus, 

I do not go so far as to hold that the author of the 
Hrimgerth-lay read the Second Vatican Mythograph in 
Latin ; but I assume that in some way he became 
familiar with a story which contained a partially altered 
redaction of the passage just quoted. 

* On this cf. my Studien, I, 257 ff (Norw. ed., pp. 246-248). 
' The MS., in agreement with Servius (^neid^ III, 420), has itaqM^ not 
igitur. 




254 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



Hri'mj rth, like Scylla, is a sea-troll. Both are spoken 

p- a3S- of as h( ible monsters.' Hri'ragerth has a mare's tail, 

and her i. ther bears the same name as a wolf. Scylla 

is not of wornon'c natiirp frnm hcF waist dowH ; she 



Both Hrdngerth and 
crews are drowned. , 

!a, saxiim simile formm 
ly be recognised in the 
Hrimgerth : kafnarmark 
•- steins llki sUndr, ' Thou i 
ke a laughable sea-mark 



gives birth to 
Scylla wreck si 

The words appiieo i 
celebrntae procul visenlib, 
concluding words address 
jyykkir hlirgligl vera }mri 
standest changed into stoi. 

in the harbour.' The poet hnd here in mind a rock 
peculiar form at the entrance to the harbour, which, 
since it could be seen far out at sea, served as a sea- 
mark. The strange form of the cliff and its fanciful 
explanation arc hinted at in the adjective 'laughable' 
(Itla'gligt), which reminds us oi/omiae celcbratac. 

But the foreign tale is here fused with native storiei 
of trolls turned into stone. We find parallels to certain 
expressions of the Hrimgcrth-layin modern Scandinavian 
popular ballads. When St. Olaf conjures the giant into 
stone, he says-: ' Here shalt thou stand as a beacon" 
to the end of time ; sail now in to the bay and harbour, 
all who here will land.' And in a Swedish ballad,' 
p. 336- Heming the Young says to the witch ; ' Tiiou 

■ Cf. horriKS dcPrmilale am, Mylh. V.llic, wilh U,!i (rlu mainik-nil. 
H. Hj, ; H/OHi/™™, Mylh. Vaiic. with sl.;i!s, U. llj. 

- Ill F,cr^hki h'-.:,-der, \\, No, 15, v. 52. 

' ' Jhr siA// fii til .ibui-& standa \ al!,ir .;vir HI rii.la, 

taiiS mi vit og hai-iiar!jg \ Azvr sum htr vil Itniia !' 
libiirH either Tiir afbiirS, i.e. reilly, ' /or a disiinclion,' ot ' stone-hnp 
usud lor a landing-place ' ; see Aas 



HLQTHVARTH AND LAERTES 155 

irt good for nothing better than to serve as a track- 
nark.' 

The words of the Latin story cited above must have 
suggested to the O.N. poet the change of Hrimgerth 
nto stone, for no other O.N. mermaid -story mentioned 
1 similar transformation. 

In the statement regarding Scylla: Haec classetn 
Ulixis cum sociis eius evertisse narratur, I find the 
lource of Hrfmgerth's words: ' I drowned Hl^thvarth's 
jons in the sea' {ec dreci>a Hlavjfvars sotiom t hafi). 
Ulysses was a son of Laertes. This is told in several 
Latin collections of myths known in Britain in the early 
Middle Ages, i.g. in the First Vatican Mythograph,^ 
which is preserved in the same M.S. as the Second, 
and in the fables of Hyginus in three different 
places. 

It was usual in Icelandic translations of mediaeval 
Latin works to make over the foreign names into native 
ones, e.g. Hengistus, Heimgestr ; Sichelinus, Sigkjdlmr? 
When the Latin stories were orally narrated among 
Scandinavians in the last years of heathendom, it was, 
doubtless, a fixed rule to give a Scandinavian form to 
foreign names, either by translation or by altering them 
into the form of native names to which they happened 
to be similar in sound. Now, it was not easy to find 
a name with Norse sound which could reproduce 
Laertes better than Hl^vatHr. This name does not 
occur elsewhere ; but we have in O.N. ppic-story the 
name ///fSz'/r, of which the first part is the same. The 
second part, -var^r, is of common occurrence in O.N. 

' Ed. Bode, I, 304, L, 44. 

- Ste my Sluditn, first series, c-s: p. 180 (Noiw, ed., p, 173). 



256 



ME OF THE ED1>1C POEMS 




names, ng found e^. in this Helgi-lay in the narf 
Hjgrva * 
7- We I y suppose that the O.N. poet heard the 
name Laertes from the Irish in some form which was 



more like a 
poem in Ih^ 
1150, Ulysses la i.^. 
The first syllable of ti, 
the first partof theO.rvi 
where reproduced by t 
Gonnlaith,OM.Ka^ail=^ I 
separate sounds in the two 



s the Greek name. In a 
er, an Irish Ms. of about 
\aithlirta, ' Laertes's son.' - 
\^Tne Luaitfi- is much like 
/i/l^-, for Irish f/i is else- 
S (O.N. KorrM/g6 = hi^ 
Catlial.ctc). Howeverthe 
lated, the change 



which I suppose to have taken place — that, namel)', 

' I havt puinlcti out many examples or -i forfign / whtn iniiiil he\% 
teproilucud by Old kel. Itl, t.g. in A/,«rt'-a> = M.H.G. liharl, Hlymnl-. 
Limcrik, Old Irish Lnimnech. Just as fl a/lci r in HhavafSr conespf^ni 
lo / in Lanles, so «e find llie same n-lalion in Old Icel. A^-Sabif!^ 
{Netkiir fi/SSiii; Haiiksbok, p. 25) from Ar-takUilae in Isidore and Plioj: 
in A.S. ififerw. sunrise, from Lai. jatureia ; cf. Old Icel. Ka^lm fiM 
Irish Katilitt. O.N. a in HUSt<a'-Sr takes the place of ■- in lain/i. 
With reference 1<1 this wc may note ihat the late A.S. form -werd^Q N. 

In ///ijtk'aiifi- a v ap|)ca.rcd in tlie reconstruction, when Laerlis ni- 
made over into a Norse name combined with -ztiyiSr. Cf. gartisviinn in 
Mri^. of piSretnaga from ganiin, Fr. garfait; gan^iien, gait^'an- 
gaii^ri. Hut since in Middle Age Luin Nicolaviis is somelimes miiitD 
for Nicolans. Danavh for Daimi!, and the like (Schuchardt, VWal., i:, 
521-524), so Latrles may [)ossibiy have been pronounced as * Lavirta. 
Finally, it is probable that the first fl in Hl^varSr might have been pro- 
nounced indistinctly since fjfritr occurs alongside JyJSSrel-r, and since 
llr.n/r arose from •llrC'wulfr, ' IM^-aiiilf-: Moreover, Scandinavians in 
transforming names added 3 where there was no corresponding ton- 
sonant in the foreign name. Tlius the name of the island Skili among .te 
Hel)ridcs = i'*j'<(, in Adamn.m (c. 700) insula Siia, Irish Sci (Ci';W4 
Caidkcl, ed. Tod<l, ji, 153): GiiSJihi in Btvensagu for Guion {Aria 
f. n. Fihl.,1, 7S). 



■ Mti-u 



d Uili 



Mey 




LAY OF HRlMGERTH 

lich the foreign name Lacrles, in Irish in the 
Luailhlirla, is made over into the O.N. name Hlg^- 
ir — is at any rate natural and in entire agreement 
I the influences which in general made themselves 
when Scandinavians adopted foreign names in the 
y Middle Ages. 

heO.N. poet gave the mermaid the name Nr/ni^er^r, 
eby designating her as of the kin of the disgusting p. 338. 
•t^ursar (frost -giants). Analogous names of male 
its are seen in Hrimnir, Hrlmgrimnir. Names of 
len in -gei^r are common. The name Hrlmget^r 
:s decidedly like a name made up by a poet, most 
[y in contrast to GerSr, the name of the beautiful 
ghter of a giant, and does not seem to have been 
pted from a popular story. 

Irtmgerth is said to be of such a nature that she tore 
jieces greedily the dead bodies of men (ndgrdfiug). 
like manner Scylla tore to pieces the comrade of 
>es. Neither this incident nor the name Laertes ^_ 
5 in the Second Vatican Mythograph ; but in ^H 
nus,' 4^.g., it is said of Scylla, ea sex socios Ulyxis ^H 
? abrtptos consumpsit. ^^ 

1 the story of Scylla which is presupposed by the 
poem, information derived from the Second 
in Mythograph appears, therefore, to have been 
cd with material from other documents. 



have tried to show historical connection between 

O.N, account of the meeting of Hclgi HJ9r. with 

' HyBin"*! ed. M. Sehmidi, fab. eixv, p. 108, I. 17. 



1 nave tried furtl 
Thcodoric's meeting 
acquaintance with tl 

We need not as 
Odyssey on the Frai 
think only of a dista 
this view there is no 
subject of the origin 
opinion, the youthful 
in the Balkan Peninsi 
p. 239. The Wolfdietrich-st< 
implies some knowle 
kingdom. There seei 
of the supposition tha 
of the saga-material C' 

It is impossible to s 
doric-story was influe 
haps the reason was 1 
of the story not yet af 
wandered about many 
returned to his faithfi 
in his long absence. 



Wr 



LAY OF HRfMGERTH 259 

The transformation of the mermaid into a beautiful 
woman, though found in two redactions of the Wolf- 
dielrich-story, does not occur in the O.N. poem. The 
Hrfmgerth-Iay is here the more original ; for that trans- 
'"-irmation is due to acombination of Calypso, Circe, and 
-^. ylla — ^a combination which had not been made in 
liie I-rankish poem by which the Hn'nigerth-lay was 
indirectly influenced. Hri'mgerth is an out-and-out troll, 
like Scylla. 

It is for this reason that the result of the meeting in 
the O.N. poem is entirely different from that in the 
Cierman Wo! fdietrich -stories. Helgi leaves Hrfmgerth, 
who is transformed into stone, Just as Odysseus escapes 
from Scylla, who is bound to a rock. 

But the fact that Hri'mgerth, like the mermaid in the 
Wolfdietrich-story, demands the hero's love, does not 
force us to believe that the Calypso-story exerted 
indirect influence on the O.N. lay; for this feature has 
suflFicient explanation in the popular ideas concerning 
mermaids, fairies, and similar female beings. 

Even in the story of Wolf-Theodoric, the description 
of the mermaid was influenced by the account of the 
sea-troll Scylla. But the influence of the Scylla-story 
was quickened and magnified by the fact that the poet, p. 
most likely in Ireland, used material derived from a tale 
about Scylla, which was based on statements concerning, 
her in Servius and other writers. 

The O.N. poem shows the identity of Hrfmgerth with 
Scylla by letting Hri'mgerth say that she has drowned 
HIpthvarth's {tJ. Laertes's) sons. Hence it follows that 
ihere is also some connection between Scylla and 

i-troll whom Wolfdietrich encounters. 



LAY OF HRfMGERTH 261 

and AtlcLS that Atli appears as a leading personage in 
the Lay of Hrfmgerth. Since the meeting with the 
mermaid was transferred from Wolf-Theodoric to Helgi 
Hjgrvarthsson, and since the O.N. story knew Helgi as 
king, and Atli as his father's faithful man, the poet 
made King Helgi, and not Atli, kill Hrfmgerth's father, 
though Scylla*s father, according to the Latin tale, was 
killed by King Atlas. Still, the Hrimgerth-lay puts 
Atli in the foreground as Hrfmgerth's enemy, and 
dwells most on him. I conjecture that the Latin text 
was misunderstood, so that Atlas was supposed to 
have a great fleet in the battle in which Scylla's father 
was killed, the words cum magna exercitus parte being 
applied to Atlante rege alone ; and that this gave rise 
to the statement in the O.N. story that Helgi and Atli 
lay in a fjord, with a fleet, after Hrfmgerth's father was 
killed. 

There is no reason to believe that there existed in 
ancient times in the O.N. language an epic poem or 
separate detailed story which told more fully how Helgi 
killed the giant Hati. It is even possible that the 
account of Hati's death in the prose bit before the 
Hrimger^armdl was drawn exclusively from the poem 
which follows ; for the only feature in the prose account 
which is not in the poem, the statement that Hati was 
sitting on a cliff" when he was killed, may very well 
have been a pure fabrication of the author's. 

Vlll 

It seems to me certain that the Hr(mgerth-lay pre- p. 242, 
supposes the First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani ; for several 
features in the former are certainly borrowed from the 




252 H ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

latter. In the Helgi-iay a storm is described in which " 
the fleet is near foundering, but from which it finally 
escapes. I have shown that this description was to 



Irish tale. Now in the 
jokenof.in which Helgi's 
i had it not been saved 
en, that this presupposes 
n the First Helgl-lay. 
vik in the Hrimgerth-lay 
itation of Varinsfjord'm 
Hothbrodd, where there 



some extent influer" 
Hn'mgerth-lay also a 
fleet would have bd 
by a Valkyrie. It is cert; 

the corresponding incidc 

Further, the place-name Va 

must have been formed in 

the account of the fight wil 

are several names of places mentioned which are situated 

in the same waters as Varinsfjord. 

I have shown that the conversation between Atli and 
Hrimgerth betrays the influence of the conversation 
between Sinfjotli and Guthmund as we find it in the 
First Helgi-lay (which, as we have seen, is a lengthened 
working-over of the word-combat in the Second Lay). 
It should now be observed that, vice versa, the dialogue 
between Sinfjotli and Guthmund in the First Helgi-lay 
seems, strangely enough, to have been influenced by 
ideas in the Hn'mgerth-lay. | 

This Hn'mgcrth is, and is called, a troU-wife {skass). \ 
She is described as a monster with a tail, ready to follow 
the stallion. Her father bears the wolf-name Hati, and 
of her prototype Scylla we read : " It is told in fable that 
she gave birth to wolves and dogs.' Now Guthmund is 
likewise called by Sinfjytli a troll-wife i^skass). He is 
said, moreover, to have been a mare, and to have given 
birth to wolves. 

This peculiar circular relationship between the Hrim- 
13. gerth-lay and the First Helgi-lay seems to me capable 



LAY OF HRfMGERTH 263 

of explanation in only one way: the First Helgi-lay 
and the Hn'nigerth-lay must have been composed by one 
and the same author. lie must have planned the two 
poems about the same time ; but he seems to have 
finished the First Helgi-lay first, or, at any rate, the 
greater part of it. 

In what precedes I have endeavoured to prove that 
this First Lay was composed ca. 1020-1035 by a poet 
from the west of Norway, who understood Irish and 
English. He was familiar with Irish poetry, and lived 
■d while at the Scandinavian royal court in Dublin, and 
probably a while also in England. The same may. 
therefore, be said of the Lay of Hri'mgerth. 

The author of that poem too must, therefore, have 
been born in the west of Norway. In favour of this 
view we have another argument : In H. Hj., 25, Atli says 
to Hri'mgerth: ' Lothin he is called, who shall become 
thy husband ' ; tlie monster dwells t JioUeyio (i.e. in To// 
isle). Professor Rygh lias called my attention to the 
fact that there are in S0ndhordland two small islands 
which bear the name ToU^en^ (Toll Isle). The form 
reini {H. Hj., 20, 21), 'stallion,' not 7'm«/,also supports 
the opinion that the poet was born in the west of 
Norway. 

Since the author of the Hrfmgerth-lay appears to have 
understood Irish, to have been to some extent familiar 
with Irish poetry, and to have lived with the Scan- 
dinavian king in Dublin, an acquaintance on his part 
with the story of Scylla, particularly as it was known 
from the Second Vatican Mythograph, is entirely 

^L ' Now pionounetd Tadl^ye, the one between Tysna;s^n am) Skorpcn 
^KTjrsiues Pnotcgj^Id, the olher in Plen Sogn, Tysnies rratslcejalil. 



HRIMGERTH AND SCVLLA 



265 



The Irish redaction of the Scylla-story omits some 
of the features which influenced the Hr/mgerth-lay ; but, 
on the other hand, in some respects it is nearer than 
■ the redaction in the Myth. Vatic, to the O.N. poem, 
and in part may be regarded as a stage in the transi- 
tion to the latter. 
I Scilla is here called without hesitation a sea-monster 
{belua marina), and is said to have swum out into the 
sea (in mare naiitem), which agrees with the account 
in the O.N. Lay, Further, in opposition to the old 
classical story. Car ubdis is made into Scilla's mother ; p. 143. 
and of the mother we read that she swam out into the 
sea, but was unable to reach her daughter there ; and 
of them both, as it seems, that they molested the sea- 
men (Jnquenter naittas [?] affligebatit). Similarly, in the 
O.N. lay we read that both mother and daughter lay 
in the sea, but apart from each other, and that both 
molested seamen. 

Finally, the Irish redaction, in opposition to the old 
classical story, tells us that Neptune thrust his trident 
into the sea, and fastened Scilla and Carubdis to two 
rncks.' With this we may compare the statement in 
the O.N. lay that one of the two sea-trolls was pierced 
by a pole {ef pi'r kamit { }>verst pvari). Atli says that 
it was Hrimgerth ; but she says that it was her mother. 
The expression for ' pole ' which is here used, viz. fivari, 
could be used of a trident or a similar weapon. 
Icnih centuiy there is al^ n. ni>1e oD Scilla ; sec Stukcs in Zlsih. f. vgl. 
.s/™*/. xxxn:,64. 

' In the SihtUa BerntHsia to Virfiil's Echguts, vii, 74 (cd. Hageii, 
p. 804), il is alH> told bow Neplune pierced Scylla with his trident and 
changed her tl> a rock. The bccoiihI in ihe Sikolia resetnMes in oLher 
tespecls bIm) that in the Liber Hymiutum. 



LAV OF H R I M G E R T H 



267 



The same enumeration is so common in Irish,' par- 
ticularly in old Irish heroic stories, that it may be con- 
sidered as a fixed formula.* And while the O.N. niund, 
•nine in number," occurs only in the one verse of the 
Helgi-lay, the Irish nSnbor. noinbor, which has the same 
meaning, is a common word. 

The Irish expression in the following story should be 
noted particularly. In the tale of Bran, which is known 
to have existed ca. 1 100, Bran sets out with three times 
nine men to find a fairy land. They come to the 'Land 
of Women " and see the princess of these women near p. a^j^ 
the harbour. They are led ashore by magic, and come 
into a large house where there are three times nine 
beds, one for each couple,* Thus, as in the Helgi-lay, 
men, who come sailing, see three times nine super- 
natural women near the harbour. 

In the Irish tale of Conchobar's Birth, which is pre- 
served in a MS. of the fifteenth century, and seems to 
be of comparatively late origin, we are told of the 
hero's mother Ness, before she was married : ' There- 

' Even also among Ihe Romans : Diern'tte poiilifm, tit virginis ler 
utnvHat pir urbtm rimUs carmen laiureM, Livy, 37, 37 (10 nvert a bail 
omen). Among the Greeks: Tatioklos killed r^i ^rv/a^urai, Iliad, XVI, 
7S5 (died by Gr^dal, p. 375}. 

* 1 Adduce some eiamples: In the story of the mythical jighl between 
Taalha Di Danann und llie Fomorians, a mnn says that his object in the 
lallle is lo 'chase nway the king and cliase away three nines al his 
friends' {Rtv. Cell., Xn, 91)- VVc read of the Fomorians, when Balor's 
elini^e lell upon ihem, that 'three nines of Ihem died' (xu, lOl). In 
anoihci stoiy it is said: ' Coirpre dealt out (the cooked Rsh) among his 
three times nine peisons' (Connac's Glossary, under Ore Iriilh). Other 
examples in the story of (he ffmiiiig a/ Eater, translated by Kudo Meyer, 
" [ FM BHirtud, ed. Windisch, §g 84, 89. The number of these 
Lenmples could easily be increased. 



' Zlirk.f.d.AII., 



I, *S9 '■ 





( colours, to meet the hero Cuchulinn, and says that 
: loves him. When he rejects her, she says that 
[ will change herself into an eel under his feet, so 
: he shall fall. He answers that he will seize her 
n his fingers, so that her ribs shall break. After 
reral retorts, in which they threaten each other, they 
tarate. 

other records of this conversation,' the fury 
rigan says that she will change herself into a she- l 
wolf. What is predicted in the conversation takes 
place later. Hrfmgerth's father bears the wolfs name 
Hati, and her prototype Scylla gives birth to wolves,* 

It was in the Hati-fjord {i Hatafit^i') that Hrimgerth 
ine to Helgi's ships, and was changed into a stone 
a-marlc." No real fjord with this name has been p. a^ 
tinted out,* and the name was doubtless made up by 
le O.N. poet himself. Since Hn'mgerth was a troll, the 

1 Slokeiand Windisch, Iiisihi Teitc, u, z, pp. 339x54. 

In 11. tl., I, Sinlj^i accuses Gulhmund of having been a IroU-wife. 

calls her (si. 41) Hmut, which probably means ' a cow.' The word 
:mbles the modem Norw. siatla, 'female reindeer, reio-cow,' in 
eidalen s^mipl and tumul, and O.N. limuU, '01.' That the woni 
1 used by Scandinavians in Biitain is proved by the Gaelic sietnlath, ' a 
r that gives milk without Ihe calf (Madeod-Devar], which is bonowcd 
n Old Norse. In the conversation with Cuchulinn, Morrigsnsays that 
will change heneir into a (homless) cow {IHuhe Tixit, II, 3, 147-3S3). 
■I limul (H, H,, 1, 42) was, however, understood In ancient times as 
e-wolf,' we may conclude from sim . . . (i>e. limu!) in Sn. Ed., II, 258, 
mul in Sn. Ed., 1, 592 ; 11, 4S4: 11, 617, nmong words for 'wolf,' 
ich is doubtless taken from II. H. , I, 42. 

• See n. Hj., 12, and precedir^ prose passages ; also II. Hj., 30. 

* Keyser [Efterladte Skrifiir, I, 161) and Vigfusson {Grimm Ctnlrnary, 
3oJ have made conjecture* as (o where Hati-ljoid is to be souglil for 1 

It Ihey seem to me to lack firm foundntion. 



I 



HJQRVARTH AND SICRLINN 271 

if coarse — of the life of Viking chieftains on the billowy 
deep, struggling against perils from sea and storm. 

Down below we perceive the troll-wife before the 
king's fleet, which she would fain destroy ; but our gaze 
is fixed on the noble woman whose superior power is 

• exercised in Helgi's defence. Over the surging sea she 
rides with golden gleam, a radiant helmet-decked 
maiden, before the valkyries who attend her. The 
manes of their steeds are shaken as they fly, causing 
hail to descend on the high trees and fertilising dew in 

( the deep dales. Towards the strand the fearless woman 

I rides erect, there, with powerful hand, to make secure 

r the ships of the chieftain she loves. 



»XX 
HjQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN. 

Wolf-TheodorIC, from whom, as we have seen, a 
legendary feature was transferred to Helgi Hji^rvarths- 
son, was brought into connection with the Merovingians: 
his father is called Huge Dietrich, the name given to 
Chlodovech's son Theuderik in the Wfd.-saga. 

Certain other West- Prankish, particularly Merovin- 
gian, stories of Chlodovech and his immediate successors 
have, in my opinion, left traces on the story of Hjorvarth 
and his son Helgi. 

The Lay of Helgi Hjor. in the Edda, has a prose in- 
troduction concerning Helgi's father, in which we read : 
' King Hjgrvarth had four wives. The first was called 
Alfhild ; their son was called Hethin. The second was p. 




»ya 



fOF THE EDDIC POEMS 






; their son was called Humlung, The 
JSinrj6th ; their son was called Hymling.' 
: to this passage, Finnur J6nsson writes': 
e and the same person 
yS, Humlungr= Hym- 
le same opinion ; but I 
ily on the assumption I 
ally Norse, I would 
A.S. forms, which in 
ish names. Hymlingr I 
S. form in -ling, while 



called £ 

third wa 

With reit 

' Here [in n 

made into tv 

lingr)' I have 

this view seems to 

that the names were noi 

suggest that they are ba^ 

their turn may come from 

corresponds, doubtless, to a 

Humlungr is probably a Norse reconstruction. The 

relation between the two names is the same as that 

between A.S. cyniug and O.N. koniingr, A.S. Scylding 

i^Scyldmig) and O.N. Skjqldungr, etc. 

The wife was probably called in A..S. *Sinred, which 
may have been the A.S, reproduction of the FrankisE 
Sendrada, "Sittdrada, though by rule the corresponding 
A.S. forcn of this name should be *SiSr£d. A.S. e in 
*Sinred, which was perhaps half long in pronunciation, i 
was reproduced in SirreiSr by O.N. fi ; cf O.N. HeiSretr 
strjona in Knytlingasaga from A.S. ^adric (Edric) I 
slrt'oii. By another Norseman the e in "Sinred was re- I 
produced by ye' in Sin/yoS ; cf. O.N. Langaspjot from 
Lougospeda, O.N, fljo'^ from A.S. -fled in names of 
women. In the O.N. reconstruction there was also a 
change of meaning. Sinrjoii betrays the influence of 
rjaiir, 'ruddy-cheeked'; SareiSr that of names of 
women in -ei-Sr, e.g. JiJrei^ir. Jdrei'Sr may also have ' 
influenced the first part of Si^reitir. It may have been 
mistaken for a compound of which the nominative y.ir, 



'ding I 
■hich I 




HJpRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 

Tiorsc,' was one part ; and similarly SctreiiSr may have 
been thought to contain the nominative Jtyr.' Possibly, 
therefore, 5(?re/iV{A.S. •i"i«rc<^, Prankish * Sitidraiia) 
has some connection with SlJrdf, the name in Wfd. D 
of Orlnit's widow, who marries Wolfdlctrich.- 

Here in the Hjgrvarth-lay, as is the case elsewhere, p. 
the prose passages contain saga-material not preserved 
in verse. 

The polygamy of Hjyrvarlh recalls the customs of 
the Merovingian kings. Helgi Hjorvarthsson's mother 
is called Sigrlinn. This is identical with Sigelinlt the 
name of Sigemunt's mother in several M.H.G. poems. 
In the O.N. lay, on the other hand, the wife of Sigmund, 
and mother of Sigurth Fafnisbani, is called Hjgrdis 
Eylima dottir ( Hjyrdis, the daughter of Eylimi). 

Several German scholars^ have observed that Sigrlinn 
was not from the outset the name of the wife of the O.N. 
saga-king Hjorvarth. In stories current among the 
Franks, and notorrginally Norse, SigrU'iti(Sige/irit)w^s, 
on the contrary, the name of Sigmund's wife. Fic£ 
versa, Hjgrdts seems at the outset to have been an O.N., 
and not a German, saga-figure. Some shift is thought 
to have taken place. The names 

//jorvaT^r : Sigr/i'in, 
Signiundr : Bj^rdh, 

' The pUee-nitne Sitkeimr h>a in Notthem Norw^m the form SUimr. 
Did SirreiSr replace 'SlniOrf 

' Wolfdieliich haiJ with Stdint ihe soa Hut,'<lielrich, i.e. Huga Theo' 
lieruus, ihc Prankish Theodoric. In Parise la diuiesse, Hiiglit^ (i.e. 
H»S9, wiih diminutive suffijt -</) cotrespondi lo Wolfdieltich. May we 
ihcrebn believe that Humlattgr and Hymliugr nre Norte roconat ructions 
or a FrulkUh nime Hugiliag or Huginling, i.i. the little Frank ? 

' Uhland, Schri/ten, vtii, ijof; Sljmons in r«ul-Bniunc, Beit., iv, 
■t97 f ; Mullcnhoff, Zmk. f. d. Alt.. N.F., XI, 139 f, 170 ff. 



HJQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 277 

This story, as preserved in the J^i^rekssaga^ cannot be 
the basis of the Eddie account of Hjgrvarth and Sigrlinn, 
nor can it have influenced this account in any consider- 
able degree. Still, it looks as if the author of the Eddie 
lay heard some version of the Sigmund-story different 
from that in the J^Xrekssaga, and from it got Sigrlinn 
as the name of Hjgrvarth's bride. Sisibe^ which appears 
in the pXrekssaga^ is less original as the name of 
Sigmund's queen and Sigfrid's mother than Sigelint, 

I believe, therefore, that the O.N. story of Hjgrvarth 
and Sigrlinn was influenced partly (if not to any great 
extent) by a foreign, West-Germanic tale which told 
how Sigemund despatched messengers to woo for him 
the king's daughter Sigelint, of whose beauty he had 
heard, and how he failed to win her until he undertook 
the suit in person. Yet, with respect to many details, 
it cannot be decided how much resemblance there was 
between that lost West-Germanic tale of Sigmund, 
which I suppose the O.N. poet to have heard, and the 
story as we have it in the JyPSrekssaga, 

In the story of HJQrvarth and Sigrlinn there are many 
poetic features which have no parallels in the story of p. 256. 
Sigmund in the Jyi^rekssaga, Several of these are 
connected with a story, preserved in the same saga 
(chaps. 42-56), of Attila's wooing.^ This is found in 
two different redactions in the Norwegian parchment 
MS. of the saga, and also in both Icelandic paper MSS. 
The forms of several names seem to show that the 

* MlUlenhoff has already remarked {Ztsch. f, d, Alt., N.F., xi, 142), 
that the story of Attila in the }»i^rckssajs^a belongs to the same type as that 
of Hjorvarth. 



HJQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 279 

back safely with his warriors to Attila, who then 
returns home. 

When Attila has been at home a while, Rotholf 
comes to him and begs him for the men and equipment 
necessary for an expedition. The king's nephew 6sith 
will follow him. He is to be away three years, but 
does not say where he intends going. When he gets 
what he wishes, he sets out for Vilcinaland, and again 
makes good provision for his men in a large forest. He 
himself comes in disguise to 6sangtrix. He calls him- 
self Sigifred (which name in Norwegian, as the saga- 
writer notes, is called Sigurth), and says that he has 
travelled thither because of King Attila, who is his 
enemy. He wins Osangtrix's confidence, and remains 
with him a year, but without speaking with the king's 
daughter Erka. 

Then Northung, King of Svdfaland, comes to woo 
Erka. The Earl Hertnit and his brother Hirthir 
support the suit. 6sangtrix is willing to arrange the 
match, and sends the supposed Sigurth to plead 
Northung's cause to Erka, who dwells in a castle of 
maidens, to which, as a usual thing, men were refused 
admittance. 

When Sigurth is able to converse with Erka in the 
garden outside of the castle, he reveals to her that he is 
Attila's messenger, and urges his master's suit. As a 
result of their conversation, Erka promises to become 
Attila's wife, while her sister Berta (in the Icelandic MSS., 
Herat) agrees to marry R6tholf. 

Both Osangtrix and Northung are befooled by 
R6tholf. Northung, assured that Erka will marry him 
at the end of a year, turns homeward. Osangtrix 




HIQRVARTH AND SIGRMNN 



time. (5) Both in A and H there is also another king 
who woos the foreign king's daughter. (6) In H the 
proposal of the chief hero of the story is rejected in 
accordance with the counsel of the foreign king's earl. 
In A it is the foreign king's earl who, after Attila's suit 
is rejected, supports that of another king. (7) In both 
A and H, when the rejected king has come to the land 
of the king who refuses him his daughter, there is 
burning and plundering in that land ; but while in A 
it is the chief hero of the story who burns and plunders, p. s 
in H it is the rival suitor. (8) Neither in A nor in H 
does the chief hero meet his rival personally ; for the 
rival leaves before the hero wins his wife, (g) After 
the chief hero of the story has come into the land of 
the king whose daughter he has wooed, it is said, in 
both A and H, that he halts for the night — in H by a 
river, in A by a forest. (lo) In both A and H the 
man previously sent out as a messenger fin H an earl's 
son, in A a duke or margrave), keeps watch in the 
night. In both he leaves his master. In H he crosses 
the river ; in A he traverses a forest. (11) In both he 
comes in the night to a place where he finds country- 
men of the foreign king's daughter. In A he kills 
many of the followers of the foreign king ; in H he 
slays the king's earl who has advised the rejection of 
his suit. (12) Finally, the messenger carries off with 
him both the foreign king's daughter and another 
woman (in A her sister, in H a daughter of her father's 
earl). The king's daughter, in both A and H, becomes 
his master's wife of her own free will, while the 
messenger marries the other woman. (13) Svdfaland, 
' the land of the Swabians,' is named in both A and H. 



.TE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



In Ai 
In H 
harries. 
(in the 
But in the 
the story, as 1 
in the O.N. t 
wooing. This aiHere 
0. The O.N. poet appear 
of Attila's wooing with 
journey in search of a L 
the story formed by th: 



he land in which the chief hero's rival firtt 

that of the foreign king, which the rival 

4) The name /I///' occurs both in A and H 

mer in the foreign form Attila or AtHay 

■ttila is the chief hero of 

jn king's daughter, while 

iger sent out to do the 

to admit of explanation. 

ive united a foreign talc 

foreign tales of a king's 

and to have transfemd 

in to the O.N. saga-kin^ 



Hjnrvarth. He had no use, therefore, for Attila or .^lli 
as tlic name of the rival suitor ; but, observing that the 
name of the messenger in the story he was following I 
was one which would sound strange to the car ol 
Scandinavians, he replaced it by Atli, which u'a= 
familiar to them all. Similarly Herkja, which was 
originally in a foreign tale the name of Atli's (Attiia's) 
queen, was degraded, in the third Gutiirun-!ay, to 
the name of Atli's concubine, the slanderer of his 
queen Guthriin. 

The Prankish story' of the wooing of the Merovingian 
King Chlodovech is closely related to that of Hjorvarth 
and Sigrliiin, It deserves especial attention iiere, not 
only because it is older than the other stories under 
discussion, but also because it keeps closer to his- 
torical events. 



lu ttlali"!! oflllis 
/ dtir cpcptafra, 



.kfroiJ Kurih. //( .■ 



HJQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 283 

In Gregory of Tours (second half of the sixth cen- 
tury), we read as follows (II, 28) : Gundobad, king of 
the Burgundians, killed his brother Chilperik, and 
exiled {exilio condemnavit) Chilperik's two daughters, 
of whom the elder became a nun, and received the 
name Chrona, and the younger was called Chrodechildis. 
Chlodovech sent messengers repeatedly to the King of 
the Burgundians. These met Chrodechildis, found her 
fair and wise, and heard that she was a king's daughter. 
They spoke of her to their king. Thereupon Chlodovech 
sent a message to Gundobad, demanding Chrodechildis 
to wife. Her uncle dared not refuse, and gave her over 
to the envoys, who bore her in all haste to Chlodovech. p. 261. 
He rejoiced when he saw her, and the two were 
married. Chlodovech had previously begotten by a 
concubine the son Theuderik. 

Gregory's short account of Chlodovech's marriage, 
which took place about the year 492, seems to indicate 
that he knew a more elaborate popular narrative of the 
event. 

We have a much more detailed account, which evi- 
dently has been influenced by a popular epic treatment 
of the subject, in the chronicle attributed to Fredegar, 
which seems to have been composed in Aventicum in 
West Switzerland about the middle of the seventh 
century.^ Here the elder sister is called Saedeleuba. The 
messengers whom Chlodovech first sends to the King of 
the Burgundians are not permitted to see Chrodechildis. 
A Roman named Aurelianus is then despatched thither. 
Disguised as a beggar, he gets an opportunity to speak 
privately with the king's daughter, who is at Geneva. 

* Fredegar, 11 1, 17-19, ed. Kniscb, pp. 99-101. 



HJQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 285 

ages. It was composed in Neustria in J2y, This 
version is much altered by the introduction of a marked 
religious element which was foreign to the original ver- 
sion ; and in secular features also it shows considerable 
variation from Fredegar's account. We may note the 
following differences: (i) When Aurelianus disguises 
himself as a beggar, he leaves his own clothes with his 
comrades who remain behind in a forest. (2) Chlodo- 
vech threatens Gundobad with war if he will not give 
Chrodechildis in marriage to him. Gundobad refuses 
at first 

In the version of the monk Almoin, which follows 
that in Lib, Hist Franconim, we read that when Aure- 
lianus dresses up as a beggar, he bids his companions 
conceal themselves in a wood. Here, too, it is said that 
Chlodovech later, after having wedded Crotildis, makes 
a harrying expedition into the land of the Burgundians 
at the instigation. of his wife, who wished to have 
revenge for the death of her kinsmen. 

If, now, we compare the three stories of HJQrvarth, 
Attila, and Chlodovech respectively, we observe that 
the first two have some features in common in opposi- 
tion to the Prankish tale (C). (i) In H and A messen- p. 263. 
gers are despatched to the bride's father, not, as in C, to 
her uncle. (2) In both H and A the suitor is definitely 
rejected by the foreign king. To this the account in 
Lib, Hist. Franc, lies nearest. (3) In both H and A 
there is another king who woos the king's daughter ; 
and in both the bridegroom himself sets out with an 
army before the wedding. C says nothing of this, or of 
the events closely connected with it. (4) H and A have 



s86 H 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



the name i!and^ and Ar/i(Afti/a)in commoa. Yet 

the Frai ironicks relate that Chlodovech waged 

war with ^abians or Alamannians. (s) In both H 

and A the 31 v enHs with a rfoiible wedding; for the 



messenger maj 

On the other n 
wins his bride agn 
not a few points where Ij 
(l) In A and C the king 
4. veillance tt^ther with hei 
princess who later marries 



5ft he king's daughter 
le story of how Attila 
>r/ of Chlodovech in 
on Hjorvarth differs; 
;er is kept under sur- 
Yet A, in which the 
ireign king is waited 



upon by her sister, i.s the closer to H, where the com- 
panion is an earl's daughter.' (2) In both A and Cthe 

■ I omn.il, Ilicrefotc, ;igtoo wiih Sijmons in raiil-Briiimo, /i,^it.. IV, 185. 
*lu> Ihinks ihm Si:i/iil,iml in thi^ probC is found afli^t ihe name of iht King 
.S.-ii/«i>inlhovi.TStf, aiullhal ihinnamo is gtnuine O.N,, of llie same origia 
as O-linV name anil thai of Ihe setpcnl S-.;i/>iir. I share with L'hUnd 
{S.hri/Uii, VII, 129I anil I". Ji>nsson (/.//. Hisl., 1, 250I iho ..piio^ile 
opinion thai Sz-.\f'iir is nuulc ii[t fiom tho folk-name contained in ir.J/J- 
land, llic fuim being determined l>y Ihe native names of the serpent and of 
Odin. 

Jes-vn {EJSaik.lir, ).. 5, notv H s:i>i: ' Dass ilie rr.>sasi,ickchen Krii-jc 
in den "Siidlanden," -[leciel " Schwaliciil.indc" erwahnen, . . . bettti.i. 
da;si\ir eine><patc(iL>slahungdet Sage vor tins haben, ans dcr ;^cil, wo nun 
e^ lieble den Schauplai/ ins linorme zu erweilern, wie das in der I leivarir- 
s.iya iind amlern /'.'j-iM/.i'ifi-JiS,''"' Ije'cliiehl.' On the Conltary, [ have, I 
think, proved that the name Sr.ifiilaiui lielonj;ed lo the storj- in iis cAAca 
Nor^; fiitm, and thai it is In be explained by the fad that from ihe vtiy 
beginning the story w.^^ sidijeeteil 10 foreign influence. 

- On double and triple ive<idinys in later Seandin;n ian tales -t= 



A. i; 



-s OlJhi: 



■I We have ii variati.m 
slory of Jason and Mcdi 
sends her sister lo Jason. 
7>i)i she sends a h.indr 



le s^ime kind in the nledi.eval versions of the 
.Vecoriling lu the Trvjumaiiiia sagj, Medta 
in ISenoil dc Ste. More and the Irish Ti-jui.' 



HJQRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 287 

mitor threatens war if he does not get the king's 
laughter. (3) In both the bridegroom's messenger 
eaves his companions behind in a forest while he, in 
disguise and without any following, seeks to gain ad- 
mittance to the presence of the princess. (4) In both 
he succeeds in talking with her in private, and tells her 
that his master will make her queen. (5) In both she 
g^ves her consent to the proposed marriage, and the 
messenger departs with her ring. (6) In both A and C 
the princess rides away with the messenger of the foreign 
king. They are pursued, but yet come safely to the 
bridegroom. 

It seems clear that the story of Attila's expedition to 
bring home his bride is an imitation of the story of 
Chlodovech. 

The points of contact between the O.N. poem alone, 
as opposed to the Attila story, and the Prankish account, 
are far less numerous. Yet we may observe the follow- 
ing : The foreign king's counsellor Franmar, who is 
said to be wise in magic, persuades his master to reject 
the offer of marriage. In the Prankish story, Aridius, 
ivho is said to be wise {sapiens), induces the King of 
the Burgundians to send out warriors to hinder the 
marriage. 

In the O.N. poem, which evidently stands in his- 
torical connection with the Chlodovech story, the name 
Sigrlinn is not the only thing which points to a Prankish 
saga.^ Hjgrvarth, the hero of the O.N. story, is Helgi's p. 265. 
father. Chlodovech, the hero of the Prankish story, 

' That Alofzs the name of the royal bride's companion had its origin in 
Saedeleubaj the Frankish name of the royal bride's sister, is quite possible, 
md seems to me probable ; but it cannot be proved. 



v-44^v>c4ii 1.^,1 wiLii a in 
Frankish hero corrcs 
Mjorvarthsson. It h 
either in Britain, or, 1 
some version of the 
wooing, which he tr. 
influence of related st 
because he knew th 
father. 

This conjecture is 
Lay of HJ9rvarth ant 
other Merovingian si 
about the same perioc 

Chlodovech's son 
daughter of the Burj 
Gundobad. Theuderi 
an expedition against 
captive, and ordered I 
in-law) to be killed in 
on Theuderik for helf 
of the Bur^undians. 
accord! ni^ to inferior 



HJpRVARTH AND SIGRLINN 289 

Hr^marr of the Eddie poem. The latter was a suitor 
of Sigrlinn before she became HJQrvarth's wife. Being 
unsuccessful, he kills her father, and plunders and 
bums in his land. He is afterwards killed by Helgi, p. 266, 
who, for the expedition against Hr6thmar, obtains 
auxiliaries from his father HJQrvarth. 

The names Chlothildis and Chrothildis were inter- 
changeable among the Franks. It was very natural 
for Scandinavians to alter in like manner the Prankish 
name Chlodomer into HrffSmarr^ because the first part 
of the name, Hlod-^ Chlodo-^ was not used in Scandi- 
navian names, except in the case of Chlodovech or 
Ludwig, which was reproduced by Hl^vir, 

That the O.N. poem has in this incident completely 
distorted the historical course of events, is not sur- 
prising. 

Helgi HJQrvarthsson's love is called Svdfa. Theu- 
derik's wife was called Suavegotta, according to 
Flodoardus.^ Gregory of Tours tells (III, chap. 5), that 
Theuderik (in the year 522) married the daughter of 
the Burgundian king Sigimund ; but he does not give 
her name. This daughter must have been Suavegotta ;- 
and of her name the Svdfa of the Eddie poem may be 
a shortened form. We may compare Berta^ Bertrada, 
Lioba = Liobgytka, Hruada — Hruadlauga, and similar 

* Historia Remensisy II, chap. I ^ ; Bibl. max, patr.y xvii, p. 530. 

* Detter, in Sievers, Beit,^ xviii, 96-98, points out resemblances 
between Svanhvita in Saxo (ed. M tiller, Bk. II, p. 96), on the one hand, 
and Svdfa^ together with Signin, on the other. He concludes from this 
that Svdfa, for ^Svanfa, is an abbreviation of Svanhvii. I cannot accept 
this explanation. The poem on Svanhvita and Jiegnems is a compara- 
tively late poem. It has features borrowed both from the Helgi-poems 
and from the Wayland-lay. From the latter Svanhtnta got her name. 

T 



ATLI AND THE EAGLE 291 

in the Scandinavian ballad Raadengaard and the Eagle} 
which is known in Danish and Norwegian forms. 

Rigen Raadengaard, while riding alone in the grove 
in the early morning, listens to the cry of the eagle of 
Bejerlund (i.e. ' the grove by the dwelling '). The eagle 
says that it will visit him, and asks what food he will 
give it Raadengaard offers oxen, cows, and fat horses. 
But the bird declares that it must have his two fair 
foster-daughters.^ ' God forbid 1 ' says Raadengaard ; p. 369. 
whereupon the eagle exclaims, *I will do thee still 
greater harm ; I will devour thy betrothed.' Then 
Raadengaard writes runes under the eagle's wings, so 
that it is bound fast. He rides to his betrothed, and 
weds her without delay. 

This ballad came to Norway and to the Faroes from 
Denmark. It is localised in Vendsyssel. 

Its resemblance to the Eddie poem is not confined to 
the general feature that a bird begins a conversation 
with a young chieftain ; there is close similarity in 
details: (i) Atli, like Raadengaard, talks with the bird 
when he is alone in a grove. (2) The bird demands of 
Atli gold-horned cows, which (as we may infer from 
the words in the lay) Atli pledges himself to give. 
In the ballad Raadengaard promises the eagle oxen, 

^ Gnindtvig, Danm. gl, Folkev.^ No. 12 ; Bugge, Gamle norske Folke- 
viser^ No. 3. This similarity has already been pointed out by Grundtvig, 
i.e., I, 174. 

2 Danish A has sister, C sisters, B ' funster,' 6», but sisters 8» ; the 
Norw. ballad foster-daughters. Originally it was possibly />j/r^r (=O.N. 
fdstrur) ox foster (from et foster, a foster-child). In feivour of this view wc 
have the following words in the ballad : * I have kept them so honourably 
ever since their father died * ; for, if sisters were right, we should expect 
• our father,* not * their father,* although the latter could, indeed, pass for 
half-sisters. 



ATLI AND THE EAGLE 293 

read of him : * He knows well the runes,' and he bears 
in his shield ' the brown eagle/ 

But this Raadengaard, who in the Danish ballad 
last named is one of Didrik's champions, was evidently 
regarded (as Grundtvig has pointed out, vol. i. p. 73), 
as identical with RiidegSr von Bechelaren in German 
heroic saga, who is connected in many ways with 
Dietrich. In the J}t^rekssaga he is called RS^ingeir 
a/Bakalar. 

In one redaction of the p^rekssaga (chaps. 43, 44), 
this R&Singeir woos the daughter of 6sangtrix on 
Attila's behalf. I have pointed out above that 
RXingeiry as Attila's messenger, corresponds to Atli 
in the O.N. Lay of Hjgrvarth. Since, now, the poem 
concerning Atli and the bird is, as I have shown, 
related with the ballad of Raadengaard and the Eagle,' 
we may suppose that Atli has taken the place of 
R6thingeir or Raadengaard, not only as the messenger, 
but also as the person who converses with the bird. 

Some form of the West-Germanic story of Attila's 
wooing, current in Britain, may be supposed to have 
had an episode, lacking in the }}i6rekssaga^ regarding 
Attila's messenger R6thingeir and a supernatural bird, 
which episode corresponded to the Danish ballad of 
' Raadengaard and the Eagle/ and recurs in the incident 
of Atli and the bird in the Hjgrvarth-lay. 

The hero's name, in the ballad of *Rodengaar 
[Raadengaard) and the Eagle/ must have been drawn p. 271. 
(directly or indirectly) from an English^ and not from a 

:he Norwegian ballad Rodenig&r, In the ballad ' Didrik and his 
Champions,' Danish A H has Raadengaard \ G, Radenngaard\ D, Raitffen- 
petard. 



supposition that the h< 

an English source. In 

vig (No. 13) under 

Memering,' which wa: 

Scotland, there appeai 

the hero who binds the 

in Enghsh, in Percy's I 

pronunciation Sir Ridi 

Scott's collection, Rodin 

the Confessor, written i 

(which appears to hav 

Rodegan, this form of t 

by the influence of Mi 

opponent in the ballad 

called in John Brompt 

half of the fourteent 

in an old marginal nc 

garus} 

There are several cin 
that this slanderer wa: 

" For full information on th 

.S..V//V/ Popular Puirads, in, -^^-j. 
■ (0 The nmliVncd niu-on^ h.,. 



ATLI AND THE EAGLE 295 

Didrik's champion of the same name (in Grundtvig's 
No. 7), who bound the eagle with runes. 

We may suppose therefore that the Scandinavians 
in England had a story, probably in poetic form, 
corresponding to the Lay of HJQrvarth and Sigrlinn, in 
which the king's messenger who set out to woo for p. 272. 
him, bore the name Rodingdr (which was borrowed 
from English), and met a supernatural eagle. 

That the Rodengaar who in the ballad binds the 
eagle with runes, in the more original form of the story 
met the eagle when he set out to woo for his king and 
for himself at the same time, agrees well with the fact 
that in the ballad his marriage takes place after his 
meeting with the eagle. Since it is said, in the other 
Danish ballad of which we have spoken (No. 7), that he 
has the eagle as a mark in his shield, we see further 
that the meeting with the eagle must have taken place 
in his youth. 

The eagle-episode as found in the Eddie Lay is 
obscure and curious. In the conversation between 
Atli and the eagle, the eagle seems to be regarded as a 
god in bird form, who wishes to help HJ9rvarth, just as 
Odin aids the Vglsungs.^ 

But even if we accept this view, the nature of the bird 
is still obscure ; for we learn nothing of its later doings. 
It would, moreover, be very remarkable if the poem 
from the outset had two great supernatural birds 
different from each other. Further, this theory would 

* This view Mullcnhoflf (Zisch. /. d, Alt.^ xxiii, 142) thinks correct. 
Simrock, moreover (in his translation), is of the opinion that the bird who 
talks with Atli is a god, and has no connection with the bird which Atli 
kills. 




OF THE EDDIC PO 



also lea xplained the relation of the poem to the 

Danish ; for the eagle in the ballad corresponds, 

on the ( id, to the bird with which Atli talks, and 

on the otnei o the eagle which he kills. 

I am, I ^"' "*" •'"' ""In!"" that in a more original 



which Atli talks n 
lis, viz. the magic-wise 

ory known in England, 
h-lay, had the motive 
king whose daughtet 
[e with the chief hero 



form of tne 
identical witii ' 

earl transformcu into 

We may also suppost 
corresponding to the h 
m- that an earl at the court • 
was wooed, opposed her m 
of the poem. He sought to hinder it b\' magic, and 
therefore transformed himself into an eagle ; but in this 
form he was killed by the messenger Rodingar, who 
thereby won a bride for the king and another for 
himself. 

There is no trace of the supernatural eagle in the 
piiSrckssii^ii, where Rothingeir or Rotholf brings Attila 
his bride, and where Osangtrix's earl Hcrtnit and tiie 
latter's brother Hirthir enthusiastically support the suil 
of Attila's rival. Nor is there any trace of it in the 
Krankish story, where Aurelianus plays a role which 
corresponds to Atli's in the O.N. poem, and to that of 
Rotholf or RuthiLigeir in the })i<irekssaga, and where 
Aridius at the court of the King of the Burgundians, 
like Franmar at that of the King of Svafaland, opposes 
the marriage of the king's daughter with the chief hero 
of the tale. 

How did the motive of the supernatural bird arise? 
' This opinion is ■ihare<i liy Grundivic, i, 174, and F. J,ins5.>n, Lii:. 



ATLI AND FRAnMAR 297 

On this point I would make the following sug- 
gestion. 

In the O.N. story we read that the earl Frdnmar 
transformed himself into an eagle, and guarded the two 
women by magic. This Frdnmar, who advises the king 
to reject King HJQrvarth's suit, corresponds to Aridius 
in the Prankish tale, who by his representations induces 
the Burgundian king to send out an army to recover 
Chrodechildis and to prevent her marriage with Chlodo- 
vech. Now, Aridius is called in Fredegar sapiens and 
prudentissimus, A corresponding expression might 
easily have been taken by the Scandinavians to mean 
* wise in magic,' just as a similar development in mean- 
ing may be traced in O.^, fjglkunnigTyfrc^iyfr&Sleikry 
Aunndtta. 

What connection there is between the nsLtne Aridius, 
or Aredius (as it is also written in Gregory of Tours, and 
in Lib, Hist Francorum\^nA Lat aridus, I shall not say. 
But by Germanic peoples, at any rate, the name might 
easily have been regarded as a compound, Ari-dius, 
Are-dius. The Franks had very many names of men 
of which the Latin form of the last part was -deus, as e.g, p. 274 
in Irminos Polyptychon, Acledeus^ Aldedeus^ Agedeus, 
Ansedeus^ and many others. It should be mentioned 
also that the Franks could write in Latin -eus instead 
of 'ius. This we see from forms like Galleae, osteuin^ 
palleiSy etc., in the oldest MSS. of Gregory of Tours. 
Such compound names in -deus, as e.g, AnsedeuSy had in 
different West-Germanic dialects forms in -deo^ -dio^ 
'diu. Further, Are-, Ari- could be used as the first part 
of Frankish names of persons, eg. Arigis, pol. Rem., 
AregiSy pol. Irm., Arehildis or Arechildis, pol. Rem. 




the name Arintheo, i 
ck ' P\.pivQaXo'i. Prankish 
D.N. names in -/»tV, -RiV, I 
il meaning was attached 
s see that EgfSir, Egg}kr \ 
3f an eagle, and SigHir, I 
15, therefore, natural fcr j 



agS HC [E OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

This first part of the compound must be explained by 

a word corresponding to Goth, ara, O.N. an, 'eagle,' 

but could easily be confused with Hari-, Chari-, from ^ 

a word correspondine to Goth, harjis, ' army.' Among I 

other Germanic race 

Latin written Arinthms 

names in -deus correspoi 

e.g. Hamfiir. In O.N. no ; 

to this element -JjJr, -Sir ; 

is used by poets as the na 

Simper as Odin's name. 1 

the Germanic peoples to give to the name Andivs. 

Arcdiiis, the meaning ' the eagle-man.' 

The story of the wise Aridius, ' the eagle-man,' who . 
opposed the marriage of Chlodovech and Chrodechildis, ] 
was told, as I suppose, by Englishmen to heathen or 
half-heathen Scandinavians, and from it some O.N. 
poet made up the story of the magic-wise ear! vvhn 
transformed himself into an eagle to hinder the marriage 
of Hjnrvarth and Sigrlinn. This story took its present 
form in the imagination of the O.N. poet under the 
influence of mythical and romantic conceptions of 
supernatural birds, especially eagles, with which the 
poet may have been familiar from native tales, or from 
those which came from the West. We are reminded, I 
e._^., of the giant Thjassi who, in eagle-form, demands i 
hi.s fill of the ox that the gods wish to cook. Hnr- 
svelgr (corpse-devourer) is the name of a giant who ' 
had the form of an eagle ; the -motion of his wing^ ' 
causes the winds. Odin himself takes the form of 



On the other hand, it may be noted that a modern 



ATLI AND FRANMAR 299 

Norwegian tale ^ has a king's son changed into an eagle p. 275. 
which eats up a whole ox, and thereupon flies away 
with the hero of the story on its back, to rescue him 
from peril in the mountain. 

The earl who transforms himself into an eagle, is 
called in the O.N. poem Frdnmarr^ from the adjective 
frdnn, which has about the same meaning as the Latin 
caruscuSy and is used of serpents. If I am right in my 
conjecture that this saga-figure has his origin in Aridius 
in the Frankish tale, the questions still remain : How 
did he get his O.N. name ? and how well does this name 
suit the conjecture as to Aridius which I have just 
made? The following is an attempt at an explanation. 

Both Gregory of Tours (II, 32) and the Liber HisL 
Francorum mention viruin inlustrein Aridium. When 
the story was carried over from the Franks to the 
English, vir illustris may have been translated into 
A.S. by fr^am&re (or fr&m&re) eorl. From this an 
O.N. poet could have made the name Frdnmarr Jarl? 

Gregory tells ^ how Aridius later (in the year 500), 

1 ' The Eagle my Companion,' in Folke-Eventyr^ ed. Kristofer Janson, 
p. 37. In an Irish story in the Book of Leinster (fol. 168 b) Mossad tnac 
M6in finds a vulture {siig) and supplies it with food. It tears to pieces 
horses and cattle and human beings. Finally it eats up its own master. 

' Observe that Magnus the Good got his name from the surname of 
Charlemagne, and that the latter in a Swedish MS. of the fifteenth 
century is called 'Konung Magnus' (Munch, Norske Folks Hist,^ b, 
p. 666), in the ballad of Roland, Magnus Kongjen. In what follows I 
shall try to show that Ribold {Rikeball), the name of the hero of a ballad, 
arose from the epithet rikr baldr in an old poem. The Icel. svanni, 
* woman,' is changed into the name SvanelilU in several Danish and 
Norwegian ballads. See Grundtvig and S. Bugge in Danm, gl, Folkev. , 
II, 81 f, and III, 823 a. 

' Gregor, Turon, Hist, Francy lib. 11, cap. 32; Fredegar, lib. Ill, 
cap. 23. 



ATLI AND FRANMAR 301 

in the fyXrekssaga. Rotholf comes to 6sangtrix, feigns 
to be Attila's enemy, and is received by the king. 
Here we have an obvious imitation of the following 
incidents: Aridius comes to Chlodovech, feigns to be 
Gundobad's enemy, and is received by the king of the 
Franks.^ 

I have tried to make it probable that Atli, in one of p. 277. 
the stories on which the Lay of HJQrvarth and Sigrlinn 
is based, as well as in the i>i^rekssaga^ was the name of 
the chief hero of the story, viz. of the king who 
would wed the foreign king's daughter. If so, then we 
may suppose that in the tradition which was the source 
of our poem, the Atli with whom the transformed 
earl talked was the chief hero, the king for whom the 
foreign king's daughter was wooed, just as it is Chlodo- 
vech in the Prankish story with whom Aridius converses. 

Very frequently in popular heroic poems the form of 
the story presupposes a fusion of several different 
historical personages having the same name. We seem 
to have an instance of this in the poem under discussion. 

The story of Frdnmar, who in eagle-form talks with 
Atli, presupposes, as I take it, the fusion of that Aridius 
who was Chlodovech's contemporary with a later 
Aridius who was Abbot of Limoges at the end of the 
sixth century, and one of the canonised saints. Of 
him Gregory of Tours relates (x, 29) that a dove 
hovered over him, alighted on his head or on his 
shoulders, and followed him constantly, the explanation 

^ Osangtrix says to R6tholf, who has given himself out as Attila's 
enemy : }>ii eri rnc^r vitr ok gd^r drengr, tnilyndr ok rHtorHr ( * thou art a 
wise man and good fellow, faithful and of just speech ') chap. 49. We 
read of Aridius, when he is with Chlodovech : Erat . . . strenuus in 
consiiiis, iustus vt iudiciis et in commisso fidelis. 



303 




HE OF THE EDDIC PO 



being thi be was full of the Holy Spirit. This si 
to have sc mcthing to do with the fact that the poem 
represents Frdnmar, who corresponds to Chlodovech's 
— -"sforming himself into a 



not a dove, whose form 
) the name of his proto- 
ht of as Ari-deus, partly 
ke the dove, was a well- 
^'thoiogy. 

many miracles in curing 
helped to bring it about 
magic. In the convcrsa- 



contemporary i^ —'•]""■ -" ' 
bird. That it is an . 
Franmar takes, is dm 
type Aridius, which wa 
to the fact that the eagle 
known bird in Scandinavi; 

The holy Aridius perfon 
the sick, etc. This may h 
that FrAnmar is called wise 

tion with Alii the bird demands divine sacrifice {bli-'ta. 
=73. H, Hj., 2), temples and altars {hof mun ek kj6sa, htjrga 
vtarga, H. Hj., 4). This is doubtle.ss the heathen O.N. 
poet's fantastic interpretation of the statements made 
about the holy Aridius: he claimed as his only privi- 
lege the building of churches. He raised temples to 
the honour of the saints of God, and founded a 
monastery.' 

In the jii&rekssaga, the episode of the false deserter is 
transferred from the enemy of the suitor-king to this 
king's faithful follower. Such a transference did nol 
take place in the O.N. poem, which in this respeci, 
therefore, adheres more closely to the Prankish tale. 

As I have already hinted, the 0,N. poet, by liis 
alterations in this ffaturo, made the course of the slor\' 
and its tnotii'ierung ohs,care. 

Aridius seeks to prevent Chlodovech's marriage witli 

I ' Uiiii'ii iiln laiiltim priviltiiiim i-indkun!, ut ad talesia! a,-diji,j«.a> 



ATLI AND FRANMAR 303 

Chrodechildis. In the pXrekssaga, chap. 49, the earl 
Hertnit and his brother Hirthir enthusiastically support 
the suit of Northung, Attila's rival, for the king's 
daughter Erca. We must, therefore, imagine Hertnit 
and Hirthir to have been opposed to Attila's suit. In 
the complete story they doubtless advised 6sangtrix 
openly to refuse his daughter's hand to Attila. The 
earl Hertnit and his brother Hirthir correspond, then, 
in this connection to Aridius in the Prankish tale. 

The alteration in the name may be explained in the 
following way : Aridius was, perhaps, thought by the 
Germans to stand for Hari-deo^ Heri-deo (which name 
occurs several times), Herdeo\ and from this Herdeo, 
possibly through an (etymologically different) Low 
German Herder^ we may get the form Hir^ir of our 
story.* 

The pXrekssaga mentions, following Low German 
accounts, three Hertnids in Slavic lands.^ One, Hertnid p. 279. 
of Holmgard (Novgorod) has a brother //iXJ/r (chap. 22). 
One of the sons of this Hertnid is Osangtrix of 
Vilcinaland. Another Hertnid, an earl at 6sangtrix*s 
court, is son of the Earl I lias of Russia. His brother 
is also called Hirthir in a version in the Stockholm MS. 
This Hertnid plays a prominent part in the story of 
Osangtrix in the pi'^rekssaga. 

The fact that the Earl Hertnid and his brother 
Hirthir, in the story of Attila's wooing, correspond to 

* According to MuUenhoff {Ztsch, /. d, Alt,, Xll, 348), IfiriSir= Low 
Ger. Herder, O.S. Hardheri. This is supported by the fact that the 
Swedish translation, chap. 17, calls another person of that name now 
Hirder, now Herder, 

'^ Cf. MUllenhoff, as above. 



304 I 




■: OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



Aridius : tale of Chlodovech (of which the Attili- 

story IS nitation), may be explained as follows; 

Even betore the Attila-story arose, Herder may ha« 
been known as a brother of Hertnld, who was an eail 



^'hen, now, the name 
' in sound, was changn] 
;rdeo) to Herder, this 
■king's winning of his 
lermans with Herder, 
ification not only sug- 
iertnid along with hii 
ihe suit, but also helped 



at the court oi 

Aridius, because ot 

(through Harideo, 

Herder, who opposea 

bride, was identified oy 

Hertnid's brother. Thi; 

gested the naming of It 

brother Herder as opponeni; 

to bring it about that the story of the king's wooing 

was transferred from Gundobad, Chrodechildis, and i 

Chlodovech, to Osangtrix, Erca, and Attila ; so that the f 

action was carried from the lands of the Frankti and of ' 

the Burgiindians to districts in the north-east. 

Thus, in my opinion, the Lay of Hjorvarth, Helgi's ' 
father, was composed by a Scandinavian poet in Eng- , 
land, after the model of various West-Germanic (par- 
ticularly Prankish) heroic stories closely related with 1 
one another. The O.N. form preserved in the Edda 
was not the only Scandinavian treatment of the story. 
The ballad of Raadengaard and the Eagle presuppose? 
280. another Scandinavian (most likely Danish) version 
known in England, in which the king's messenger was 
not called Atli, but Rodcngaar (Raadengaard), just as 
R6thingeir is named as messenger in one version of 
the Jn^rekssaga. 

From the name Atli in the Hjorvartli-lay, I have 
inferred that the Norseman who gave the story ii.- 



ATLI AND THE EAGLE 305 

extant form, knew a version of the foreign tale in which 
Atli (Attila), as in the J}i^rekssaga, was the hero for 
whom the messenger wins the foreign king's daughter. 
In this version the messenger was doubtless called 
Rodingdr, But, even if I am right in this, it is probable 
that the foreign version, which the author of the Lay of 
Hjgrvarth knew in one of the British Isles, varied both 
in the forms of the names and in saga-features from 
the account in the pXrekssaga^ although in just what 
particulars it is impossible now to determine. 

It seems to me probable that some at any rate of the 
Prankish episodes which influenced the O.N. poem, had 
indirectly a literary source. I consider it as especially 
probable that we have in the Lay an echo of Gregory's 
written account of St. Aridius in thi^ Historia Francorum, 
On the other hand, the other Prankish features may, 
like the written accounts of Gregory and Predegar, have 
been drawn from oral Prankish tradition. 

In several of the proper names in the story of 
Hjgrvarth and Sigrlinn, we see a tendency to avoid 
forms which had a foreign sound, and to insert Norse 
names instead. Thus in the Lay we have ^/^ instead 
of Saedeleuba in the Prankish tale, Atli instead of 
Rodengaar in the ballad, and HrS^marr instead of the 
Prankish Chlodomer, Even the chief hero of the story 
is replaced by a Scandinavian saga-hero. 

Atli is called in H. Hj., 2, * the son of Ithmund ' (in 
the MS. ipmundar). In agreement with this, we read in p. 281. 
the prose account of Hjgrvarth: *His earl was called 
Ithmund ; Ithmund's son was Atli.' Of the name of 
Atli's father, which in the form IfSmundr has no parallel 

U 




3o6 H 



;e of the eddic poems 



in any other story, I venture to propose a bold explana- 
tion. I have given reasons for the opinion that Alii, 
the name of the earl's son, was borrowed from a story 



by the famous King of 
lis king was called by 
us MotJt'Sioi'^o;, which 
1 Germanic *Afundiwik. 
ler of Attila that one of 
Mufido? Perhaps, then, 
ween these two nama 



in which this nan-.- 
the Huns. The 1 
Jordanes Mundsuca 
Miilienhoff has explainei 
It was doubtless after thi> 
Attila's descendants was ci 
there is some connection 
I^triundr and Mundo.* 

We have seen that Hjorvarth's messenger Atii 
corresponds to Chlodovech's messenger Aurelianus in 
tlie Prankish tale. The home of Aurelianus is Orleans, 
Aurelianensiitm territorium:' The place where Alii 
■2. dwells is called at Giasisliindi {H. Hj., i). This name 
was influenced by an O.N. myth : Glasir was the name 
of a tree {liindr') with goiden foliage, which stood before 

's fWhcr is called On'S, anti he [s tcprescnlri 



' In Ihc /■itirfissai;a Allil: 
a king of FiiesUnil. 
> In Zn.A. /. d. Alt., 
I5Z I,. 



i6of; 



Mon 



cd. of Jordants 



^ Mundo Jc Altilanh quondam ori^'nc descmdini (Joidaiies, cliap. 5S, 
td. Mommsen, p. 135). 
' It is juji jiussiblc thai in an cailier foim H. Hj., 2 read as follows:- 
Miiiidu i'(5 A/la 
iS Miindar {01 Afiinda) si>ii, 
fliglfr/fii uj;a<fr .' 
fitha tmda ? 
' Will ihou, wise bird, talk slill more with AIIl, the son of Mundi.' The 
word iV( would then be the A.S. git (pronounced yit\ 'still,' which odfo 
occurs l>efore s comparative. Wc should thus have circular alii ten; ion 
{Miindii ■^Mtindai; Atliiy itij. This 1IS, from A.S, ^V, might be taken m 
Buppoil the opinion that ihe O.N. poet imitated an A.S. poem. 
' Frcdegar, ni. iS, ed, Kriisch, p. 100. 



ATLI AND THE EAGLl 



307 



Valholl. I would connect the O.N. name with the 
French. The Norse poet, I imagine, heard the name 
of Orleans, -4 are/ww/, explained by auriim. gold, and 
therefore reproduced it by at Giasis lundi, from Glasir, 
the tree with t\\c golden foliage.' 

In the conversation with Atli, the bird demands as 
sacrifices gold-homed cows {gullhyrndar kyr, H. Hj., 4). 
This phrase also occurs in }>rymskvi^a, 23, where the 
giant Thrym says that gold-horned cows go about in 
his courts.* It is worth while to mention here certain 
parallels to this feature in Irish poetry. In the old 
Irish story of the Battle of Ross na Rt'g, we read of an 
ox with two horns of gold.^ In a modern Irish 
■ popular story,* a giant has five hundred oxen with 
F golden horns and silver hoofs. Yet gold-horned cows 
are to be found elsewhere,* 

' Iljorvirih's men aie obliged lownde atnom S.ciii0m (H. Hj., S) on 
Ihcir way (o Svdvaland. The name of ihis river must have been regarded 
35 a combination of jut, sea, and the rivet-name Mem (Snorri's Edda, 1 1, 
576, ftloi^de Afgtn) ; but it is probably a working-over of the name of a 
foicigD ti»er. Couid this river be the SaiigotiHa, Saogaiina (i.e. SaSnt ; 
see Fredeear, ed. Knisch, pp. (41, 1G7)? 

= H. Hj.,5, H^uM erfiiii at etii priiidi, shows also similarily with 
l-ri., II, Hefi ek er^i ok ^'idi. 

* Hogan's edition, p. 7. 

• Cunin, Mj/lh! and Feik-Lere ef Ireland, p. 33. 

' Gtila Ramanerum (ed. Oeslerley, chap, iti) has a corrupt account 
or the myth of lo, Argos, and Hermes, in which we read that ' qnidam 
nolnlis' had a cow WhJcb gave a full quantity of milk. ' Nobilts ilie pie 
iiimio amore ordioaTil, quod vacca duo coraea aurea habuii.' Among 
[.^■ Greeks, Ibc horns of animals offered in sacrifice were covered with 
Id : Homer, Odyticy, III, 3S4. 416, 432-436- Enilsson adduces other 
\,unples from later Icelandic writings under gullhymar. Lllning says 
1 1 'if Edda, ^. m): ' In Wcstphalen ist es heute noch hie unddasille, 
bei fesUichkeitcn auf den Laucrn-hofen ... die horncr der klihe mil 
guldschaum zu llbcniehen.' 




3o8 H [E OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

p. aBj. The N vegian author of the Lay of Hj^rvarth 

Sigrlinn » s himself a heathen, but he had heard from 
Christians ihe stories of the FrankUh Christian kings 
and saints. 

The poem shoi strong was the myth- 

making imaginatior ; heathen Scandinavians 

who in Viking times trai ibout in Britain. There 

is an incorrect idea fairjy espread, that of several 

forms of a story the one ich is plainly mythical 
must necessarily be the old md that it must go bade 
to far-distant and obscure vj The Lay of Hj^nrarth 

and Sigrlinn gives us a good example of the develop- 
ment of the mythical element out of the historical. 



TeIE HELGI-I'OEMS .and the B.\LLADS of RlIiOLIi 
.\ND OK HjELMER. 

SVHND Gkundtvk; has already expressed the 
opinion ' that there is historical connection between the 
story in the Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani and 
the Scandinavian ballad of ' Ribold and Gutdborg' 
(No. 82). The author of the ballad must have knoim 
the Eddie lay, or perhaps a corresponding old Danish 
poem, and must have borrowed from it a series of 
motives. 

In the Edda, Sigriin follows her lover Helgi, although 
her father has pledged her to another king's son. In a 

' Dti'im. ,,-/. Folk.-'., ri, 340; cf. Child, Ens- anJ Si.'t. Pop. Biilii.. 



RIBOLD AND GULDBORG 309 

battle Helgi slays her betrothed, her father, and all her 
brothers except Dag, whom he spares. Afterwards 
Dag kills Helgi treacherously. 

In the ballad, Guldborg follows her lover Ribold, 
although she is betrothed to another man. Her father 
pursues the fugitive couple with a great company. In 
the ensuing struggle Ribold slays Guldborg's father 
and her betrothed, along with many of her nearest p. 284. 
kinsmen (according to some versions, her six brothers). 
She begs him to let her youngest brother live, at the 
same time addressing Ribold by his name. Then he 
gets his death-wound from her brother. In the English 
ballad (Child, No. 7 A), the only one of the father's 
men whom Earl Brand does not kill, steals up behind 
him and gives him a fatal wound in the back. There 
are, moreover, other points of contact between the 
Eddie poem and the ballad. 

Guldborg says, before she rides away with Ribold, 
that all her kin are watching her: *My betrothed is 
watching me ; him I fear most.' Ribold answers : 
* Even if all thy kin watch thee, thou shalt keep thy 
promise to me.' With this we may compare sts. 16, 18 
of the Helgi-lay, where Sigrun expresses her fear of 
the anger of her father and relatives, and where Helgi 
answers that, nevertheless, she must follow him. The 
expression *thy kin 'occurs in both poems (H. H., Ii, 
18; Rib., B 11). In one form of the old lay, Sigrun 
rides as a valkyrie through the air and over the sea, 
armed with helmet, birnie, and sword. This feature 
the ballad-writer in the Middle Ages could not preserve 
unchanged. He represents Guldborg, when she rides 
away with Ribold, as armed like a man, with helmet 




But the ball, 
features from th< 
or perhaps from ; 

In the Lay (st 
Svifa that he is f 



'The chieftain 
has reached (comt 
compare the words 
the ballad : ' The 
second is that froi 
worst of all forme 
heart." • 

Directly after tl 

' The text aflhebalbd 
Det f^rste 



RIBOLD AND GULDBORG 311 

Helgi begs Svdfa to become his brothet^s bride (H. Hj., 
41); but she answers (42) that when she became 
Helgi's betrothed she vowed never after his death to 
be the bride of a man who was not famous. In the 
ballad, Ribold says that he commits Guldborg to his 
brother \^ but she answers: 'Never so long as I live 
will I give my troth to two brothers.' * 

There seems to be some connection between the p- 286. 
name of the hero of the ballad and that of the hero of 
the lay. In the corresponding English ballad in the 
Percy MS. (Child, No. 7 F), the hero is called * the Child 
of EU {ElUy Hillebrand (as the hero is sometimes 
called in Denmark) and Hillemo (the name given him 
in Sweden) seem to be only expanded forms of a name 
corresponding to Ell? The name Earl Brand in 
Northumberland is evidently a variant of Hillebrand? 
The form Ell or ^Helle appears, thus, to lie at the 
bottom of these variations ; and Grundtvig was, there- 
fore, justified in saying : * Whoever feels disposed may 
think of Helgi (Hundingsbani) [when he reads of the 
Child of Elle]: 

1 The same also in < Elarl Brand,' the English form of the ballad. 

' Cf. also Dan. B 25, where Ribold says to Guldborg, ' Weep not so, 
my dearest!' with H. Hj., 41, where Helgi says to Svifa, brtiiSr, 
grdtiattu ! * Weep not, my bride ! * In Dan. B 27, Guldborg says, * for 
I am not very glad in heart'; cf. H. Hj., 38, where Svdfa says, m/r er 
hafHiiga harma leitaty ' I am sorely smitten with grief.' The fact that 
Ribold gets his death when his beloved calls him by name, forms a sort of 
contrast to the situation in the lay, where Svifa awakes Helgi to activity 
when she gives him his name. 

' See Grundtvig, i, 34a In the changes which take place in the 
proper names in ballads, similarity in sound, not etymology, is oftenest 
the deciding factor. 

* Sec Grundtvig, iii, 854 ff. 



iL seems certain, theref 
and Guldborg was comp 
Lay of Helgi Hjgrvarths; 
Lay of Helgi Hundingsbs 
these Eddie poems^ were ^ 

Where, then, was this d 

A comparison of the I 
with the Swedish, Norwc 
shows, I believe, that the I 
Sweden, Norway, and lo 
p. 387. forms are on the whole t 
ballad was also known in 
have a modem Northumbr 
and fragments of the same 
Child of Ell ' in Bishop Per 
* The Douglas Tragedy.* • 

We have, then, to answ 
Was the ballad originally < 
Britain? in England or in 
English ? A feature in the 
to throw light on these que 



J.1- 



RIBOLD AND GULDBORG 313 

carl Hood, he 's aye for ill, and never for good/ This 
old man informs the king that Earl Brand has ridden 
away with his daughter. To * auld carl Hood * corre- 
spond 'the carlish knight, Sir John of the North 
Country/ in Child of £11, and in the Scandinavian 
versions * the rich Count (Greve),* * Count (Greve) Paal,' 
' an old man,' ' a wily man/ Other poems also know 
this typical personality, a malicious old man who be- 
trays the lovers and brings about their misfortune. He 
appears e,g. in the Norwegian version of the Benedict- 
ballad, from Finmarken, as Blinde Molvigsetty i.e. Blindr 
enn bglvisi^ * Blind the bale-wise,' who betrays Benedict 
to his loved one's father.® He must have been transferred 
from a ballad on Hagbarth and Signy. Saxo mentions 
Bolvisus luminibus captus^ i.e. Bglviss blindr^ as King p. 288. 
Sigar's wicked counsellor and Hagbarth's enemy. 

In the Second Helgi-lay, Helgi disguises himself as 
a peasant-woman in order to escape from his enemies, 
who pursue him. One of them, Blindr enn bglvisi, 
recognises him and wishes to betray him. Exactly 
the same feature is attached to Hr6mund Greipsson in 
the saga concerning him. Here Blindr enn illi is King 
Hadding's counsellor, and reveals to him that Hr6mund 
is alive. 

There can be no doubt that in this malicious old 
man we have a human alter ego {gjenganger) of Odin, 
/>. of Odin conceived as a devil. Odin appears as an 
old man {karl) with a grey beard, and is, therefore, 
called Hdrbar^r (Hoary-beard). In * Earl Brand ' he is 
called Hoody * a head-covering, hat.' Similarly, in the 
first chapter of the If dl/ssaga, Odin appears among men 

* See Gnindtvig, ill, 795 f. 



Kinsmen.' 

ses. Since •> u 
heathen ^od o^ 
been re^5 ^"^ 

'«'n, most J,t„,. . 
'^ "'as, on fh ^ '" 

The J ?«"n,ar;c.3 



RIBOLD AND GULDBORG 315 

god.^ This fact argues in favour of the view that it 
was the work of an Old Norse poet which influenced p- 289. 
the ballad that was composed by a Danish poet in 
England. 

The name Ribold^ Rigebold (drawn, as I believe, from 
Roga rikr baldr in the old lay), also supports the 
hypothesis that the ballad was composed in England ; 
for names in -bald were used in England, but not in 
Denmark. 

Still another feature argues for the view that the 
ballad as sung in Denmark was carried over to that 
country from England. Ribold says to Guldborg in 
their first conversation : ' I will take thee to the isle 
where thou shalt live and never die. I will take thee 
to the land where thou shalt not know sorrow — to a 
land where grows no other grass than leeks, where 
sing no other birds than cuckoos, where runs no other 
liquid than wine.' 

This opening, in which a man promises to take a 
maiden to an earthly paradise,^ is common to several 
ballads. It occurs, for example, in the ballad of * The 
Murderer of Women ' {Kvindetnorderen^ Grundtvig, No. 
183). Grundtvig is doubtless right in his remark 

> Olrik, Saxses OUhist,, I, 31. 

* It is not to be found in the extant forms of the English ballad * Earl 
Brand ' ; but, as Professor Child points out {Ballads ^ I, 90, note), there are 
traces of it in the following opening verses of another ballad, * Leesome 
Brand ' (Child, No. 15): 

My boy was scarcely ten years auld, 
WTien he went to an unco land. 
Where wind never blew, nor cocks ever crew, 
Ohon for my son, Leesome Brand ! 

This ballad has also other points of contact with ' Earl Brand. ' 



.V6 




E OF THE EDD 



(IV, 28 
in whic 
mortal, 
p. 290. The 
original 
' Land c 
far out II 
the sun, 

precious stouca, oi nt" 
bear fruit, flowers blot 
whole year through, 
never grow old. In Irish 



these verses belong originally to a ballad I 
upernatural being woos the daughter of a : 

iption of this marvellous land certainly 

' "y Irish) stories of the j 
the Living,' an island ' 
—the finest land under 
ince of silver, gold, and 1 
wine. There the trees 
een foliage abounds the 
habitants of that land I 
i we read that men who jl 



belong to that wonderful place succeed in luring mortai 
women thither by their description of its beauty.' | 

The use of this motive in the Ribold-ballad may 
possibly be connected with the fact that in the Lay of 
Helgi Hjorvarthsson the hero's father, or his faithful 
man, is said to dwell a( Glasislundi, ' by the tree with 
the golden foliage' (i.e. in the earthly paradise); and 
Helgi is said to rule over Ro'fiiilsi'ellir, ' the radiant 



In what precedes I have tried, then, to show: (i) 
that the man who composed the ballad of which ' Earl 
Brand ' and ' Ribold and Guldborg ' arc different forms, 
knew the Eddie Lay of Helgi Hjorvarthsson (though, as 
appears frocn a single expression employed, in an older 
form than that now extant), and the Second Lay of 
Helgi liundingsbani ; and (2) that this ballad was 
composed by a Dane in Northern England in the early 
Middle Ages (in the thirteenth century?). 



' cf. ; 



et, A-f/L B,i/ras<\ ir, 279 ; Alfred NiUI, Tlit Happy OlI-./i- 



^Nd GUI.DBORG '^ff 

ir I am right in these conclusions, it follows that the 
Lay of Helgi Hjgr. and H. Hund,, II, were known in the 
Middle Ages (about 1 200, or in the thirteenth century ?) 
among the Scandinavians in Northern England. 

The ballad of Ribold and Guldborg, however, also 
shows resemblance to other poems known in England. 
Both Grundtvig and Child have observed ' its resem- 
blance to the story of Walter and Hildegund. Thisp- 
seems to me unquestionable. But I would go further. 
In my opinion, the Ribold-ballad, in which the mystical 
motive of the hero's being called by his name is made 
the cause of the tragic conclusion, is, so far as its saga- 
material is concerned, a combination of two different 
poems: (i) a ballad which contained a working-over of 
the O.N. lay that corresponded to the so-called Second 
Melgi-!ay and to the Lay of Helgi Hjyrvarthsson ; and 
(3) a ballad which was a working-over of an old lay on 
Walter and Hildegund, 1 believe, further, that it can 
be shown that some of the different forms of the 
Ribold-ballad have preserved more of the Walter-story 
than others. 

For the sources of our knowledge of the story of 
Walter and Hildegund I may refer to Heinzel's ex- 
cellent dissertation, tjberdie lVa/(Aersa^€ {Vienna, 1888). 
The oldest of these sources are (i) fragments of an 
A.S. poem in a MS. of the ninth century, and (2) a 
poem composed in Latin in the South of Germany in 
the tenth century, which is preserved in a redaction of 
the eleventh century. Of the other sources 1 shall 
mention only that in the }>lGrekssaga, which is based on 
Low- Germ an material. 

' SeeUrundlvij;, ZJaMBLi^/, /^nZ-tti',, II, 34O! Child, Ballads, i,9^, 106 f. 



L 




3i8 E WE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Let I now compare the Ribold-ballad with tfae 
Walter-sti -y. (i) Riboid is a king's son (Dan. A i,B i). 
He servi many years at the court of a foreign king 
(Dan, <ft; Landstad, No. 33), where he converses in 
^rees with the situation 
is a warrior in Etzel's 
pedition talks atone with 
nts decide in his chiid- 
gund. The refrain in the 
ints to a similar relation 
laiden ; ' For that one t^J 
his youth'; in Nonvegiail 



secret witb 
in the story 01 
service, and after a .. 
Hiidegund. (2) Waltc. 
hood that he shall marry 1 
Swedish form of the balla 
between the knight and tl 
>. 251. whom he has pledged himscj 

(in Landstad, 33) thus : 'Thou art that one, thou art that 
one who was betrothed to me in my youth.' (3) In the 
ballad the knight asks the maiden if she will accom- 
pany him : ' To the land of my father I will take thee,'' 
Similarly, Walter says to Hiidegund that he will gladly 
flee to his native land ; but that he will not leave 
her behind. {4) Riboid tells Guldborg to collect her 
gold in a box. Walter tells Hiidegund to fill two 
bo.xes with gold and jewel.s, and take them with her 
(or, in the }iii)rei.'s.<:aga, to take with her as much gold as 
she can bear with one arm). (5) In both the ballad 
and the Walter-story the hero and the maiden ride 
away on one horse. In the ballad he lifts her upon 
the horse ; in the Latin Waltharitis he gives her the 
reins. (6) In the ballad they leave the court secretly 
while the people sleep and the dog lies in a trance.- 
Walterand Hiidegund ride away while all the Huns sleep 



1 Itanish li 2, K 2. 

Land' (/.f. 10 a fairer 1: 
" Landslad, No. ij. 



.nJl, ir 



RIBOLD AND GULDBORG 319 

after a carousal in which Walter and Hildegund have 
managed to make them all drunk. (7) When Walter 
and Hildegund are riding into the land beyond the 
Rhine, they come to a difficult pass which lies between 
two cliffs, and is concealed by green foliage, bushes, and 
high grass. ' Let us rest here/ said Walter. He had 
been forced to go too long without sweet sleep. He 
laid aside his armour and rested his tired head in the 
maiden's lap. We have practically the same situa- 
tion in the ballad: 'When they came into the 
green grove, Ribold desired to rest there. ^ They p. 293. 
gathered twigs and leaves, from which they made 
themselves a bed.^ So he laid his head in Guldborg's 
lap ; he slept a sleep, and found it sweet* ' Both 
in the Walter-story and in the ballad, the maiden 
wakes the hero and says that the enemies are near. 
(8) In the Waltharitis^ a ferryman whom the fugitives 
have met gives information about them to Guntheri, 
who is sitting at meat. The king bids his men put on 
their armour and pursue them. In the ballad a man 
who has met the fugitives reveals their flight to the 
king, who is sitting with his men in the hall and drink- 
ing. The king bids his men rise up and array them- 
selves in steel.* (9) When their enemies draw near, 
the knight says to the maiden in the ballad : ' Be not 
so anxious, dearest 1 ' (Dan. B, 29). Walter bids Hilde- 
gund not to* be afraid. Before the last flght he bids 
her take the reins and drive the horse with the treasure 

1 Danish D 31 ; ^ 6 ; .€ 10. 

' Landstad, No. 34, v. 20. 

• Danish iE 1 1 ; ^7. 

^ Landstad, No. 34 ; No. 33 ; Danish D, etc. 



BALLAD OF HERR HJELMER 321 

possibly arose from urtg). By the influence of Ri&ebali, 
Riboid, V was changed into b in Boldrik (Dan. jE), herr 
Ballderox BalUrman (Swed, G).^ 

The first part of the name Hilde-guml seems to be 
preserved in Hite-bj^r in a Norwegian form of the 
ballad from Fyresdal in Telemarken,* and in Olte-ber in 
Landstad, No. 34. 



The connection between the Ribold-ballad and the 
Walter-story supports the theory that the ballad was 
composed in England; for the fragments of the A.S. p. =95 
epic poem Waldere^ show that the Walter-story was 
known there. By this I do not mean that this par- 
ticular poem is the definite source which we may pre- 
suppose for the ballad. We know too little of the epic 
poem to be able to make that assertion. But the 
ballad gives us, at any rate, important evidence as to 
the form in which the Waldere-story was known in 
England. 

The Scandinavian ballad of Herr Hjelmer {as Pro- 
fessor Moltke Moe has pointed out) is also connected 
with the Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani. 

The version of this ballad which, on the whole, is 
most complete is in Swedish, No. 21, in the collection 
of Arwidsson (from that of Verciius). 

Hielmer (Hielmen, Hieim) serves several years at the 
king's court, and wins the love of the king's daughter. 
Her father, getting wind of this, has Hielmer brought 
to him, and says that it shall cost him his heart's blood 

' Somewhat diffefently in Grundlrig, Danm. gl, Folhev., II, 340. 

* Giundtvig, id.. Ill, 854. 

* Cf, Bini, in Sieveis, BcU., XX, 217 ff. 




32a :e of the eddic poe 



if he nd speaking in private with the princest |j 

Then ler cuts off the king's right hand and lufj 

head, _ iocs not follow the advice of his follower* ' 
and flee im the land, but rides against the king's I 
seven sonb arden. When they refuse 

to accept rec im, he fights with thes 

and kills six. he spares the seventh^ 

and by him he is irt. skilled. The murdcra I 

rides to his sister's dwc :h Hielmer's head od fait 

spear, and tells her thai as killed her betrothed I 

She invites him into her and gives him to drink;! 

but when he raises the va o his h'ps, she stabs him 
to the heart. Then, full of joy, she exclaims: 'Well 
shall I bury my betrothed.' 

Inferior Swedish versions are printed in Geijcr and 
Afzelius (2nd cd., No. 47, i and 2). In 47, 2, Hjalmar 
has children with the little Kirstin. The youngeit 
brother swears fidelity to Hjalmar. 

The Hjelmcr-ballad is also known in Denmark. A 

version from southern Zealand is to be found in Svend 

;y6. Grundtvig's Gniii/e Danske Minder, III, 8 1 ff. Here the 

maiden gives Ilerr Hjjtim a splendid burial, and builds 

a church over his grave. She herself dies of grief.' 

In a Norwegian version taken down in Fyrcsdal in 
Upper Tclcmarken, the youngest brother, 'Graasvennen,' 
who is spared, promises to be a faithful comrade of the 
hero ; but he deceives him. 

This ballad has the following motives in common 

' Theie is a versiun ftom Julland in E. T. Kiiatensen, lOO g^mk jyik 
/ij/ferijc'' (1SS9), No. 66. The Danish forms of Ihe ballad, which hart 
given \ip tho tiayic ending (in Peder Syv, iv. No. 82, and in olher places) 
do not concern U5\\cii;. 



BALLAD OF HERR HJELMER 323 

with the Lay of Helgi's Death. The hero wins his 
loved-one without her father's consent, and has children 
by her. The hero is attacked by his wife's father and 
brothers, all of whom he kills, with the exception of 
one brother, whom he spares. This brother swears 
fidelity to the hero, but later murders him treacherously. 
He comes to his sister's dwelling, and announces what 
he has done. In the ballad, she then kills her brother ; 
in the lay, she curses him. In both, she dies of grief 

I conjecture that this ballad, like that of Ribold, 
spread from Denmark to Norway and Sweden, and 
that it came to Denmark from England, where it had 
been composed in imitation of some older work by a 
Danish poet. 

The Hjelmer-ballad in its essentials is independent 
of the Ribold-ballad ; but the two seem to have arisen 
in about the same surroundings, and to have had from 
^arly times points of contact with each other. In one 
irespect the two ballads agree as opposed to the old 
poem : in several versions Hjelmer kills six of the 
brothers of his loved-one.^ 

^ Certain slight resemblances in details between the Hjelmer-ballad and 
forms of the English ballad which corresponds to that on Ribold, are 
perhaps not accidental. In Hjelmer (Arwidsson, v. 7) the king says: 
•That shall cost [thee] thy heart's blood*; cf. Eng. F 2: *My father 
A3rs that he will not eat or drink before he has slain the Child of £11, 
*'and have seene his harts blood. " ' In the English form the father addresses 
the hero angrily as in the Hjelmer-ballad. Hjelmer is killed (Arw., 25) by 
the murderer coming at him from behind, as in the English A 25. The ver- 
sion of the Hjelmer-ballad given by Grundtvig, like 'The Douglas Tragedy,' 
represents flowers as growing up and intertwining over the lovers' grave ; 
but that is hardly an original agreement. These resemblances might be p. 297. 
taken to support the theory that the Hjelmer-ballad also arose first among 
Danes in England. It does not seem to have been influenced by the 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRVARTHSSON 325 

of the Lay of Helgi Hjgr. which contain strophes in the 
metre /ornyrfiislag- were, therefore, known by the Norse 
poet in Britain at the beginning of the eleventh cen- 
tury ; and it looks as if we could trace the influence of 
these verses in the First Helgi-Lay.^ 

With the exception of the Hrfmgerth part, the Lay 
of Helgi HJ9r. is throughout consistent in treatment, 
the mode of presentation in all the other sections being 
the same as that with which we have already become 
familiar from the Lay of Helgi Hund.'s Death: the 
purely narrative parts are in prose, while the speeches 
of the leading personages which determine the action 
and reveal the nature of the characters are in verse, in 
the metre fornyf^islag\ only one half-strophe (36) is 
narrative. 

Here also, then, the prose passages are to be regarded 
as an original and necessary part of the work, though 
Driginally of course they had not exactly that form 
and order in which they are preserved in the extant MS. 
On the contrary, the editors have shown that both in 
the story of Hjgrvarth and Sigrlinn and in that of Helgi 
and Hethin, there is a confusion in the prose which 
cannot be ascribed to the poet who first gave the work 
its form. 

There is apparently every reason to believe that it is p. 399. 
to the author of the story of HJQrvarth and Sigrlinn that 

^ The poetic designation of the sword which Helgi, son of Sigmund, gets 
at his birth, viz. bUfiorm btiinn, H. H., I, 8, appears to have been suggested 
by the description of the serpent-sword which Helgi HJ9rvarth8Son gets at 
his birth, H. Hj., 8-9. With itrboHnn, H. H., I, 9, cf. H. Hj., 37; 
with fdit hygg ek ytSr sjdsk, H. Hj., 12, cf. sd shk fylkir fdtt at Ufi, 
H. Hj., II ; with vinnagrand, H. Hj., 13, cf. grafidum vinna, H. Hj., 

38. 



326 




ME OF THE EDDIC POE 



we mi ascribe the account of Helgi's first meeti 
with S\ a, and of his expedition of revenge agai 
Hrithmar, together with that of Helgi's relatioas w 
Hethin, and the Lay of Helgi's Death.' In w" 



follows, then, 
Hjprvarth and his ^ 
Hrimgerth-Iay, as ont 

I have shown (pp. j. 
work was composed in 
tion to certain details ».. 
even though they prove 



all the matter regard 
i, with the exception of 
; work, 

290 ff, 317 above) thai I 
in. I shall now call att 
point in the same direct] 
iiing, since the expressii 



under discussion were also familiar at a later per 
in Iceland. 

Of the sword which Helgi receives from Svafa, 
says (St. 9) : 

ormr dreyr/ditSr, 
en d valb^stu 
ver/ir va'Sr ha la. 

' A blood-stained serpent lies along the edge, and 
the vail'ost (some part of the sword, but just what 
uncertain) the snake casts its tail.' 

In Icelandic skaldic poetry it was very common 
call a sword battlc-scrpcnt or battle-snake, woui 
snake, shield snake, etc. JV^iSr, 'the snake,' is said 
have been the name of Kjjil Skallagrimsson's sword, 
was of course natural to imagine the sword, which 
quickly drawn from the sheath, as a viper which lea- 
its hole and stings. This idea even gave rise 

I This is ako v. jr.nsM>ii's ..pinion ; see LiU. His!., T, 245, 



Lay of* helgi hjqrvarthsson 327 

fabulous tales, as €,g. when we read in Kormakssaga^ 
chap. 9, of a sword from whose hilts there crept out 
a young serpent It is connected with the figuring 
of a snake on the sword, and should be compared 
with statements in Anglo-Saxon, Cymric, and Irish 
literature. 

In B/aw.^ 1698, a sword is called wyrmfdh, 'adorned 
with the picture of a serpent/ In the Cymric story 
Rhonabwys Dream} we read of Arthur's sword : * The p, 30a 
picture of two snakes was on the sword in gold. And 
when the sword was drawn out of its sheath, it looked 
as if two flames of fire broke out of the jaws of the 
snakes.' In the Irish tale of the Destruction of Troy in 
the Book of Leinster (1040), it is said of Paris: *a new 
snake-sword (daideb nua natharda) was in his hand.' 
In the Irish tale De Chophur in dd muccida} which 
belongs to the old North Irish epic cycle, mention is made 
of 'a sword which has a golden handle and snake- 
shapes of gold and carbuncle.'' Other Irish tales 
contain similar descriptions. 

In H. Hj., 35, occurs the word fljS^, neut. * woman ' ; 
but this is not the oldest lay in which it is used. It is 
to be found in many Eddie poems of which some, e,g, 
Rigsjfulay may safely be assigned to an earlier date. I 
have elsewhere * tried to show that this word is formed 
after the English names of women in -Jled or -flcedy 
and that the author of Rigspula adduced Flj^ as the 

^ Lady Charlotte Guest, Mabinogion^ London, 1877, p. 306. 
' In a MS. written in 1419. 

• Stokes and Windisch, Irische Texte, III, 238 ; cf. 109 and 252. 

* In my Bidrag til den aldste Skaldedigtnings Histories p. 30. -Jled 
probably had a long or half-long e. 



3»8 



OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



of English-bom women, who usually 

■fed. 

is strengthened by the name of the 

in the prose bit before the Lay of Helgi 

reconstruction of an 

ilf-longtf). Additional 

: name SigrfljS6,^&i. 

jf this name I have 

13, where it is given 

xtreme north-westero 

lentury. In the same 



represen 
bore nac 

This ti 
woman i 
HJ9r. ; for ^ 
A.S.form»JH 
support is founa ... 
SigrfijSSar. The earli 
noted is in the F6sibra'^ra. 
to a woman who lived in 
part of Iceland in the ele^ 
district the name is not uncomniun, even at the present 
day ; but it is hard to say whether the modern use is 
due to the influence of the saga, or whether it is 
I. preserved from ancient times. The only example of 
_/f?('5 in prose occurs in Sigrflju<S, and that name is 
evidently a reconstruction of the A.S. name Sigcpd 
{Sifled, Syffiwd, Sygfled). 

It seems probable that the Scandinavians had recon- 
structed English names in -fled into names in ■flji'^', 
before ttie author of Rigsjtula used Flja>i in his poem 
as a designation for 'woman.' 



In the Lay of Helgi Iljgr. we observe a series af 
agreements with the story of Helgi Hund., as treated in 
various poems, some of which seem to me to show that 
the latter was the model. We have also, I believe, 
evidence that that particular form of the Lay of Helji 
Hjor. which is preserved in the Edda, is later than the 
extant Lay of Helgi Hund.'s Death ; and that tliis 
latter lay was known by the author of the Lay of 
Helgi Hjor. 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRV ARTHSSON 329 

The following agreements in poetic expressions may 
be pointed out : ^ — 

Both HJQrvarth and his son Helgi are called bu^lungr} 
This appellation seems to have been previously used 
of Helgi, son of Sigmund ; for its application to him 
may be explained : the mother of Wolfdietrich, Helgi 
Hund/s foreign prototype (in German A) was Botelun^s 
sister. Moreover, the fact that the author of the Lay 
of Helgi HJ9r. knew the Lay on the Death of Helgi 
Hund., is shown by the almost word-for-word agree- p- 302. 
ment in the expressions used in the poems when the 
fall of the hero is announced.' 

Helgi HJ9r. falls *at Wolfstone' {at Frekasteini^ 
H. Hj., 39). This is also the name of the battlefield 
where Helgi Hund. is victorious.* Its use in the 
connection with Helgi Hund. seems to have been the 
earlier; for Helgi Hund. was intimately associated 
with wolves from his birth : he was the friend of wolves. 

The Lay of Helgi HJQr. agrees in general with the 
various Lays of Helgi Hund. in that it too contains 
several names of places, which exist only in the land of 
poetic fancy, not in the real world. Just as Sigrun is 
from Sefafjgllutn^ * mountains of passion,' so Sigrlinn, 

* Cf. fSlks oddviti, H. Hj., 10, and H. H., 11, 12. Of less special 
resemblances in poetic expressions between H. Hj. and other Eddie 
poems, we may give the following examples : AarHofi hug • . . gfaldir, 
II. Hj., 6, and gaiit (MS. gcUzt) AariSan hugy Fafn., 19 ; if er mir d /z;/, 
at ek aptr koma^ H. Hj., 3, and ifi tr m& d, at ek vara enn kominn, 
Hiv., 108. 

» H. Hj., 2, 3, 25, 39, 40, 43. 

* /V// A^r { morgun . , , btifSiungr sdervar baztr und s6luy H. Hj., 
39; jxrs er buiSlungr var beztr mid s6lu, H. Hj., 43; //// / morgun 
. . . bti6lungr sd er var beztr i heimi, H. H., ii, 30. 

* H. H., II, 21, 26; I, 44, 53. 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRV ARTHSSON 33I 

brought Svclfa and Sigrun still nearer each other by 
regarding both as valkyries, or women endowed with 
supernatural powers. 

Helgi HJ9rvarthsson is slain by the son of the 
warrior he has killed. His beloved Svclfa comes to 
him at his hour of death ; and her grief at his death is 
described in the poem. This was, perhaps, influenced 
by the account of Helgi Hund.'s Death. Helgi Hund. 
is slain by Dag, whose father he has killed, and as a 
dead man he visits his grave-mound, where the living 
Sigrun rests in his bosom a single night, after which 
they separate, and she dies of grief. Both heroes are 
described as noble and mild. Both poems agree, as p. 304* 
opposed to the Hrfmgerth-lay and to the First Helgi-lay, 
in their poetic form, and also in representing the woman 
who follows the hero as a truly human, loving woman, 
who sorrows over her husband's death. They both 
have close connections with Danish works. Still the 
Svifa-lay is but, as it were, a subdued echo of the story 
of the death of Sigrun and Helgi, which surges with 
passion and grief. 

of the Lay of Helgi HJ9r. He thinks that this poet has distinguished 
between a divine valkyrie, who gives Helgi a name and a sword, and 
Helgi's loved -one Svdfa. In opposition to this theory, it may be pointed 
out that the appellation valkyrja occurs only in the prose passages. More- 
over, it is only the younger strophes forming the Hrimgerth-lay which 
describe a supernatural, half-divine woman ; such a description is not 
found in the older strophes which tell of the woman who gives Helgi a 
name and a sword. The identity of Svdfa and the woman, who gives 
Helgi a name, seems to me to be suggested in the hero's words to the 
woman who has given him a name : * I will not accept it unless I have 
(get, win) thee ' (H. Hj., 7). That Svafa is not considered as un warlike, 
we see from her words when she learns that Helgi is near death : ' I will ■ 
bring destruction on the man whose sword has pierced him ' (H. Hj., 38). 




33= H. ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

Nor does the Death of Helgi Hjor. present us wiUlJ 



: pictures which the Hrfai*1 
ith the Lay on the Birfflf 
ast to Hn'mgerth, Sv£& 
3 First Lay, as a sup* 
trayal we have features^ 
nd supernatural woma 

i HJ9r., more uniTorniljl] 
: And pure and sustained 



the imaginative, high 
gerth-lay has in common \ 
of lielgi Hund. "V 
is described, like Sig 
natural woman, in whos 
from Irish battle-goddessei 
in classical stories. 

But in the Death of Hi 
than in the First Helgi-lay, 

lines, with natural feeling and graphic characterisation. 
Especially is it the description of Helgi's noble high- 
mindedncss in the presence of his penitent brother 
Hethiii which gives the poem its characteristic quality. 

The stories both of the First and of the Second 
Ilelgi show the influence of Frankish tales. The 
Wolfing llclgi Hund. may be said to have his foreign 
prototype in W'olf-Theodoric, the saga-hero who cor- 
responds to the historical East-Gothic Theodciik 
(born ca. 455, died 526) in the latter's youth. On the 
contrary, the Ilelgi wliom Svafa loves, and whose 
father Hjorvarth wins his bride by means of a faithful 
messenger, corresponds to the Frankish Theuderik 
(born before 492, died 533 or 534), the husband of 
Suavcgotta and son of Chlodovech, who wins his bride 
through his wise messenger, liut in South-Germanic 
poems IIugc-Diotrich, the poetic representative of 
the Frankisli Theuderik, is made Wolfdjctrich's father. 

This fact, that the two Thcodorics were thus even in 

Wcst-Gcrmanic stories brought into connection with 

■■ 305. each other, the Frankish being regarded as the older, 

the East-Gothic as the younger, was, as I believe, one 




LAY OF HELGI H J QR V ARTHSSON 333 

of the reasons why in the Old Norse lay Helgi Hj^r. 
was represented as born again in Helgi Hund. 

This statement is not made in the strophes, but only 
in the prose passages. After the conclusion of the 
Lay of Helgi Hjor, we read : ' It is said that Helgi and 
Svafa were born again.' In the beginning of the prose 
passage On the Vplsungs ; ' King Sigmund, the son of 
Volsung, was married to Borghild of Br^Iund. They 
called their son Helgi, and gave him this name after 
Helgi Hjorvarthsson.' Hefore H. H., II, S : ' Hijgni's 
daughter was Sigri'm, She was a valkyrie, and rode 
through the air and over the sea. She was the reborn 
Svdfa.' Finally, after the account of Helgi's Death : 
' It was believed in olden days {{ forneskjii) that people 
were born again ; but that is now called old women's 
superstition. It is said that Helgi and Sigrun were 
born again. He was then called Helgi Haddingjaskati, 
and she Kdra, daughter of Halfdan.' 

Gustav Storm has collected the places in Icelandic 
documents where belief in rebirth is mentioned,' He 
has shown that the naming of a child after dead 
relatives is connected with the belief that the relative 
after whom he is named is born again in him who is 
thus called after the departed.* 

I would point out here that nowhere in Germanic 
heroic stories, except in Old Norse, do we find the 
idea that certain of the characters in the story are born 
again, as if that were a favour to them, the reborn 

' Cf. Uhland, Schrifttn, vui, 136 f. 

' Artivf. nisrd. Filnl., IX, 199-112. I may add Ihal I liai-c heard in 
llle weslcrn p«l of Tclcmorkcli rtise upp allt (raise up again) used with 
tcference lu tlie naming of a child aAec a dead poion. 




person no 3eing of necessity of the same race as he | 

in whom ne reappears (for no connection in race 

between the three Helgis is suggested), nor bearing of 



necessity the saiu 
though this is doubt 
Sigriin, and Kdra have 
p, 306. We may observe, howev 
occurs in Irish heroic stones 
Mongdn, and as Mongin 
Tuan, son of Carell, had liv. 
of Starn.^ May we not, there 



in whom he is reborn, j 
ly the case {for Svifa, 
; names). 

at this same belief also 
Finn was born again as 
lembercd his first lifa , 
previously as Tuan, son , 
ure, believe that the Norse 



conception was influenced in the west by Irish beliefs? 
We have seen that Helgi Hund. has his foreign pro- 
totype in Wolf-Theodoric, the legendary hero corre- 
sponding to the East-Gothic Theodorik before the 
latter became King of Italy ; while Helgi Hjpr. partly 
corresponds to the Prankish Theoderik. We find a 
departure from this relation in the fact that the stor^' 
of Wolf-Theodoric's meeting with the mermaid is not 
transferred to Helgi Hund. but to Helgi Hjor. in what 
seems to be one of the latest sections of the story about 
the latter. This variation is doubtless to be explained 
by the supposition that the name of Adas, who in 
the Latin tale kills Scylla's father, reminded the poet of 
Atli, who had previously been brought into connection 
with Helgi's father Hjorvarth. 

At the same time that the Scandinavian poets in 

England heard the Prankish stories of the two Thco- 

dorics, they also heard the stories of Sigmund and his 

> Sec D'Arlxiis ile JuhainvUle, I.c Cydt Mylhol., p. 244 iT; Stoke- and 

WinJisch, Iruihi Te.yU, 111, 231. 




LAY OF HELGI H JQR V ARTHSSON 

^n Sigfried (Sefert), who, as I shall try to show in 
another investigation, had even in West-Germanic 
tradition been brought into connection with the stories 
of Wolf-Theodoric. This gave occasion for the Vol- 
sung-story to exercise influence first on the Lay of 
Helgi Hund., and also on that of Helgi Hjgr, Here 
also it is clear that the former lay in its earliest 
developed form is older than the latter, even if the two 
poems must be regarded as having arisen in practically 
the same environment 

We find a series of points of contact between the p, 
stories of the V9lsungs and that of Helgi Hj^r. Just 
as Helgi Hund. was represented as the son of Sigurth's 
(Sigfried's.Sefert's) fatherSigmund.so the name 5(^/(«», 
which is identical with Sigelint, the German name of 
Siegfried's mother, was transferred to Helgi Hjor.'s 
mother. Both the mother of Helgi Hjor. and the 
mother of Sigurth Fifnisbani were wooed by two kings 
at the same time. The fathers of the mothers of both 
Helgi and Sigurth were killed by the rejected suitor ; 
and the first warlike deed of Helgi, as of Sigurth, was 
to avenge his grandfather, 

Evidently, however, all the agreements are not to be 
explained as due to the influence of the story of the 
Vplsungs on that of Helgi Hjijr. ; there were doubtless 
older agreements between the two stories which helped 
to bring them into connection with each other, as 
appears from the relations they bear to the stories of 
Attila and Chlodovech. 

The name Eylimi * is common to the Sigurth-story 




336 1 WE OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



and to thi Helgi-story : the father of Svifa and the ' 
father of [jgrdfs, Sigurth's mother, are both so called. 
The young Helgi Hj(?r, receives from Svdfa a sword 
The young Sigmund 
,d from its fragments is 



urth. Helgi goes to his 
h to King Hjalprck, at 
ght up, to get ships and 
" revenge. Sv^fa comes 
.ttlefield, just as Hjprdis , 
Both stories give the 



with which to 

receives a swoiu 

forged the sword d.... 

father King Hjgrvarth, v. 

whose court he has been 

followers for his expeditioi 

to the dying He!gi on the 

comes to the dying Sigmui 

dying hero's conversation with the faithful woman he 

loved. ^ 

In still another respect we may observe that the Lay 
of Helgi Hjor. developed with the Lay of Helgi Hund. 
as a model. I have pointed out in what precedes that 
the story of Sigrun was influenced by t!iat of the 
B- Hjathnings. Similarly, the story of Helgi Hjor.'s 
relations to his brother Hetliin certainly arose under 
the influence of the same narrative, especially in the 
form in which it is recounted in Sor/a jxittrr 

In both stories a king's son, Hethin, appears. Hithinus, 
who carries off Hilda, has his home, according to Saxo, 
in Norway. The Norwegian champion Hethin the 
slender, in the Bravalla-lay, is probably the same 
saga-hero.^ The Hethin of the Helgi-story also 
dwells in Norway. When the story begins, both 
are spending the winter peacefully at home. Both, 

1 Cf. MiiUenhoff, Ztsih. f. if. All., xxnl, 141; Sijmonii, in Piul- 
Braune, Beit., iv, 1S7 f. 

s /■/,,/., I, sr5-283i Fornald. ss., I, 391-407- This I have alrcidy 
pointed out in my Slu./ii', (isl Setii:5), pp. 174 f. 



' A. Olrik, Satstt Oldliii. 



. i<)2-i95- 



LAY OF HELGI HJQRVARTHSSON 337 

when alone out in a forest, meet a superhuman 
demonic woman, who converses with the king's son. 
In both stories this Woman confuses the young man's 
mind to such an extent that, after he has drunk from a 
beaker, he offends another king to whom he is bound 
by ties of dutiful affection. He carries off, or wishes to 
carry off, from this king a young woman who is 
described as a battle-maiden (though of Svdfa this is 
only partly true). Hild's home, according to Saxo, is 
in Jutland, and, according to Sgrla pditr, in Denmark. 
There is much which indicates that Svdfa also was 
considered by the author of the Lay of Helgi Hjgr. as 
the daughter of a Jutish king. In the Helgi-story, 
the king against whom Hethin offends is his own 
brother, whose loved-one he would make his own ; in 
the story of the Hjathnings, it is Hethin's foster-brother 
whose daughter he carries off. In both stories, Hethin 
sets out repentant for foreign lands. In both he meets 
in a foreign land — though under different circumstances 
— the king against whom he has offended, and confesses 
to him his sorrow for his offence in words which show 
mutual relationship in the two poems.^ At the time 
when this conversation takes place, Helgi is under p- 309- 

^ In Sgrla ]?iUtr{Flat,, I, 281) Hethin says: J>at er })er at segia^fost- 
brodir^ at mig hefir hetU sua mikit slys at }>at ma einge bata fuvia f>u. 
According to this, the defective text in Helgi Hj^r., 32, Mic hefir my do 
glgpr mciri sdttan^ may be corrected to : 

Mik hefir myklu 
meiri s6ttan 
glapr {eriy brS^ir ! 
bata megak^ 

The words of Hethin from the Hjathning-slory given above were doubtless 
at one time in verse form. 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRVARTHSSON 339 

Hediin and his mother Alfhild appear to be Scandi- 
navian, not West-Germanic saga-figures. 

The attendant spirit (fylgfa) in the tale of Helgi 
and Hethin has no parallel in the Hjathning-story. 
There is, however, something similar in the shorter 
Hallfreth*s saga of the beginning of the thirteenth 
century.^ When Hallfreth Vandraethaskdld was lying 
sick unto death on board a ship, he saw a great 
birnie-clad woman go over the billows. He under- 
stood that it was his attendant spirit, and declared 
himself separated from her. She then asked his 
brother Thorvald if he would accept her. He refused. 
Then said Hallfreth the younger, the skald's son : 
* I will accept thee ' ; whereupon she vanished. The 
Helgi-lay is doubtless the model of this Hallfreth- 
story.* 

The information which the O.N. story gives us 
concerning King Hjgrvarth, and also (though to a less 
extent) that concerning his son Helgi, is based largely 
on Prankish tradition. Moreover, several of the 
persons with whom Hjgrvarth and Helgi are brought 
into connection are really Franks, or persons who had 
something to do with Franks. And yet both these 
heroes were thought of and designated in the story as 
Scandinavian kings. 

In the prose passage before st. 31, Hethin is repre- 
sented as at home in Norway with his father King Hjgr- 
varth. Afterwards he journeys southward (su^r d Ignd) p. 3»i 

^ FormZgur^ ed. Vigfusson and Mobius, p. 114. 

' Of the ceremonial in the course of which Hethin makes his vow, it is 
unnecessary to speak here. 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



until h< ets his brother Helgi, who has been out 
on a wa : expedition. Helgi asks : 

'■— ' '■—*■■ «£/t 

(St. 30- 

' What news from Nor it thou tell ? " 

It is clear at all events the author of this prose 

passage must have unc )d 6r NSregi as 'from , 

Norway ' ; and there is cv ;ason to believe that tbe ' 

poet who gave the lay its present form, had the same 
conception of the words of the verse. Helgi is there- 
fore tliought of here as a Norivcgian hero. His home 
and Hethiu's is called in the last strophe Rogheimr 
That was most likely taken by the Norwegian poet to 
mean 'the dwelling-place of the Norwegian Rygir.' 

Though the situation of Svafa's home is not stated 
plainly, yet everything seems to indicate that the poei 
imagined it to be in Detuiiayk} The sword nhicb 
Svafa presents Helgi, with which to perform warlik: 
deeds, lies in Sigarsliolm (st. S). The man whom llic 
dying Helgi sends after Svafa, is called Sigarr (=X. jf'i 
Helgi had agreed to fight on the Plains of Sigart 
(li ^igiirsvnihim, H. Hj., 35 ; a Sigursi'd/i in the pro-e 
following). Apparently tlic poet did not imagine 
Svi'ifa's home as being very far from this place; for 
Helgi, after being fatally wounded, sends a messenger 
to her, whereupon she comes to his deathbed. If we 
connect the names above mentioned with the Piains 1/ 
Sigarr (Sign rsvi'//ii) which the new-born Helgi Hund. 

' Thie; is :ili.i F. J,'m.vitrs opinion, /.i/. Ilht., i, 149 f. 



LAY OF HELGI H J QR V ARTHSSON 341 

gets as a name-gift, and with the statement in an 
A.S. poem that Sigehere (i.e. Sigar) ruled long over the 
Sea-Danes, together with the relations in which the 
name Sigar occurs elsewhere in Scandinavian tradition, 
we see that this name Sigar and the compounds of 
which it forms a part, point to Denmark. The name 
of Svdfa's father is Eylimi. I conjecture that the O.N. 
poet thought of him as a Jutish king, and brought his 
name into connection with Limafjgr^r^ Limfjord. But 
I do not therefore hold that this was the original ?• 3". 
conception. I intend to discuss this question more 
particularly in my investigation of the Sigurth-story. 

The poet appears to have imagined Alf, Hr6thmar's 
son, who slays Helgi, as king of a more southerly land, 
most likely one south of the Baltic, since Hr6thmar 
has harried in Svdfaland, which may well be the land 
of the North-Swabians by the Elbe.^ 

We have another support for the theory that the 
Lay of Helgi Hjgr. was composed by a Norwegian- 
speaking poet, in the fact that this work was influenced 
by a form of the story of the Hjathnings which, accord- 
ing to Olrik,* was Old Norse (norrcen), and varied from 
the Danish form. 

I am unable to prove in what district of Norway the 
poet who in Britain gave to the Hjgrvarth-lay its 
present form, had his home. But it seems to me most 
likely that it was in the south-west ; partly because 

* Did the poet think in this connection of Ai/r as * King of the Elbe * ? 
Cf. dottur Alfs konuftgSf er land dtti tnilli elf a tveggja ('the daughter of 
King Alf, who possessed land between the two rivers, ue, Gautelf and 
Raumelf,' S^gubrot in Fortiald. ss., I, 376). One of Hunding's sons, 
whom Helgi, son of Sigmund, kills (H. H., i, 14) is called Al/r, 

• SaJkses OldAts/,, 11, 191-196. 



LAY OF HELOI H J Q R V A R T II S S O N 343 

Now I have tried to show that Helgi Hund. was 
considered in the poem as a king of Denmark, a poetic 
representative of the Danish kings, and that he borrowed 
his name from the Shielding king Helgi, son of Halfdan. 
In agreement with this, Helgi Hjgr., who is merely a 
poetical, not an historical personality, seems to have 
had from the outset closer bonds of union with Danish 
than with Norwegian kings. 

The name of Helgi's father, Hjgrvat^r^ like that of 
Helgi himself, was probably borrowed from the Shield- 
ing-race. From B^ow,^ 2160 f, we learn that Heorogdr, 
son of the Shielding Healfdene (Halfdan), and elder 
brother of HrffSgdr (Hroar) and Hdlga (Helgi), had a 
son called the bold {kwcet) Heoroweard (Hjgrvarth). 
From him Helgi's father in the poem may have borrowed 
his name.^ Since the name Helgi Hjgrvarthsson did [?• 345 

I * Hjgrvafiir Ylfingr^ a saga-king, is mentioned in the Ynglingasaga 
(chaps. 37-39, ed. F. J.), in Sggubrot (Fas., I, 338), and in Nornagests 
Jxittr (chap. 2, p. 50 B). He was thought of either as a Shielding- 
king or as related to the Shieldings by marriage ; for Granmar's daughter 
drinks his health with the words : allir heilir Ylfingar at HrSlfs minni 
kraka. In Sggubrot it is said that he killed King Ella (of England). 
This indicates that he belongs to the Danish Shielding-story which 
developed in England, and was thought of as the poetical representative 
of Danish viking-kings. He is so regarded in Nornagests Jxiitry where it is 
said that Half, the Norwegian viking-king, extorted property from him. 
In the Yngl. s., Hjgrvat^r Ylfingr marries a daughter of Granmar, which 
shows that the story about him stood earlier in connection with the story 
of Helgi Hund. When this Granmar was represented as King of 
S^ermanland, a departure was made from the original situation. In 
origin, HJgrvari^r Ylfingr may be identical with the Heoroward of 
Beowulf. (Detter, in Sievers, Beit.y xviii, 104, combines in a different 
way HjgrvarfJr Ylfingr with Helgi's father Hjgrvarth.) 

In the Shielding-stories which developed in Denmark and, following 
Danish stories, in Iceland, there is also a certain Z^j^rz/tfffJr (Hiaruarth, 
Hiarthuar) mentioned ; but he is the slayer of Hr61f Kraki, and is not 
said to have been a Shielding. 



344 




OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



not bel' > an historical person, it is probable that a 

poet ad Hjorvarth from the Shiclding-race as the 

name oi father, not only because of the alliteration 

(cf. Helg undinpshani. Help-i Haddingjaskati), but 
il meaning of the name 



,' since the stories of 
mund, and Sigurth all 
begin his career, gets a 

:Igi HJQr. got his name 
i, son of Halfdan, like 



also becaus'^ 
' sword-Wc 
Helgi Hu.. 

tell that the nero, wneii nt 
sword as a gift. 
p. 3'4. I leave undecided wheth 
Helgi from the historical r. 
Helgi Hnnd., or from another Danish king, who miglit 
be regarded as the historical prototype of him who was 
remodelled from the story in Sogubml into the warrior- 
king Helgi Hvassi (the keen) in Zealand, who wa- 
killed by his brother Hrfcrik ; but, at any rate, Ihe 
name Helgi was, in my opinion, borrowed from the 
Shiclding-story. It cannot, however, be proved that 
there ever lived an historical king who was called Hel;^i 
Hjrjrvarthsson. 

The poem concludes with the following words of 
Helgi's brother Hcthin, son of Hjorvarth, at Helgi's 
dcatii-bed : 
', Kysiu >,!ik, Sv.ifa ! 

kcm ck cigi d^r (better, a/'/r ?) 

Jiosf'dms d vil 
\ ne Ji,J6,iisfJana, 

dUr ek hefnt liefik 

HJ'ir-.'iU^s sonar, 

jiess er l>ufih<iigr var 

be:tr uiid sola. 

'Kiss me, Svafa! I will not come to RogheJm or the 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRVARTHSSON 345 

Radiant Fells before I have revenged the son of 
Hjorvarth, (who was) the best Buthlung (prince) in the 
world/ 

Originally, at any rate, it was not RSgheimr, * the p- 315- 
home of strife,* which was thought of, but Rogfieimr, 
*the home of the Rygir' (from Rygir^ gen. Roga)- 
This name may have brought it about that in some 
later Norwegian redaction of the poem the home of 
Helgi and Hethin was located in Norway, the redactor 
having in mind the Norwegian Rygir, But in the A.S. 
poem Wtdsiti we read (2 1 f) : 

Hagena (sc. wiold) Hoimrygum and Heoden ^ Giommutriy 
Witta wiold Sw&fum. 

Here Hagena and Heoden, i.e, Hggni and Hethin of 
the story of the Hjathnings, are named side by side ; 
and here it is said that Hagena ruled over Rygum, 
i.e. the Rygir at the mouth of the river Weichsel, the 
Ulmerugii of Jordanes. Now there is evidently tradi- 
tional connection between the Hethin of the Hjathning- 
story and Helgi's brother of that name. Therefore it 
seems Tto me probable that Svend Grundtvig was right 
in holding that Hethin's home was not originally 
thought of as the home of the Norwegian Rygir, but 
as that of the Rygir on the southern coast of the 
Baltic. Although the name Riigen is of Slavic origin, 
and was not formed from the name of the Germanic 
people Rygir (A.S. Ryge), the similarity in sound of 
Ryge, of whom Hagena was king, and Rugen may have 
helped to bring it about that Hagena's opponent Heoden 
(Hethin) was brought into connection with He'tSinsey 

^ The MS. has Holmrycnm and Hcndm. 



LAY OF HELGI H JQRV ARTHSSON 347 

This rdgapaldr was in its turn imitated in bryn pings 
apaldr^ * apple-tree of the bimie-meeting/ as the desig- 
nation of a hero, in Sigrdr. 10. The expression used of 
the chieftain Roga baldr^ * lord of the Rygir/ agrees fully 
with such expressions as gumena bcUdor, rinca baldor, 
* lord of men/ in A.S. poems ; cf. Jurbcddr^ in Sigrdr. 18. 

This explanation of rdgapaldr is confirmed in a 
remarkable way by the ballad of Ribold and Guldborg. 
This ballad seems to have been composed in Danish in 
England (probably about the year 1200), and to have 
been influenced by the ancient Lay of Helgi HJQr., a 
fact which proves, therefore, that this ancient lay was 
known among the Danes in England. In the old 
versions of the ballad, the hero is called Ribold {Ribolt\ 
to which correspond the forms Rigbolt^ Rigebold in 
modem Danish, Rikeball in modern Norwegian, and 
fiibald, Ribbald in modem Icelandic. I would explain P- 317. 
the name in the ballad as due to the fact that an 
Ancient (Danish?) poem designated Helgi Hjgr. as 
Roga rikr baldr^ where the extant Norwegian poem 
corresponding has rikr rdgapaldr. From the epithet 
in the old poem the Danish author of the ballad made 
up the name Rikbald (Ribold) in England under the 
influence of English masculine names in -bald. 

Since R^ulsffalla, in H. Hj., 43, clearly corresponds 
to R^ulsvgllum^xn H. Hj., 9, the older (Danish?) poem 
seems to have had in 43, Rg'^ulsvalla^ which the 
Norwegian poet altered by inserting the Norwegian 
mountains instead of the Danish plains.^ 

* Yet the two words interchange elsewhere. In Voluspdy Cod. Reg. 36, 
{anipa) fiollom was first written, but this was corrected to volhm ; cf. 
nipafiolloniy 62. 



R E G N K R A N D S W A N W" HUE 349 

therefore, based on O.N. verses which were united by 
prose narrative. Several scholars^ rightly describe 
this story as a parallel to the Eddie Lays of Helgi 
HJ9rvarthsson. 

Regner and Thorald(us), sons of the Swedish king 
Hunding, are set by their wicked stepmother Thorild(a) 
to tend cattle. In order to save them, Swanwhite, 
daughter of the Danish king Hadding (Ha^lingus), rides 
to Sweden, with * sisters ' who serve her.* She finds the 
king's sons in miserable clothes in the night surrounded 
by monsters of various kinds, elves, and demonic 
beasts, which prevent the maidens from riding on 
farther. Swanwhite bids her sisters not to dismount. 
She questions Regner, who replies that he and his 
brothers are the king's herd-boys. The cattle have got 
away from them, and for fear of punishment they dare 
not go home. Swanwhite looks at the youth more 
closely, and says in substance : * Born of a king, not of 
a thrall, thou art ; that I see by thy flashing eyes.' 
She incites the brothers to flee from the trolls, and 
Regner assures her of his courage : he fears no trolls, 
only the god Thor. When Swanwhite disperses the 
magic fog, the youth sees her in all her radiance, p. 319. 
She promises to become his bride, and gives him a 
sword as a first gift. He slays the trolls gathered 
about him, who after daybreak are burned in a fire. 
Regner's stepmother Thorild is one of them. Regner 
becomes king of Sweden, and Swanwhite his wife. 

* Uhland, Sckriften, vni, 131 f ; Sv. Grundtvig, Heroiske Digining^ 
pp. 83 f; Olrik, Sakses Oldhist.^ 11, 12; cf. I, 40; Mttllenhoff, Ztsch. 
f. <L AU,i xxin, 128 ; Dctter, in Sievers, Beit,^ xviii, 96-105. 

^ Sororibm in famulitium sumptis. 




who Joves Hro 

lover the Had 

was perhaps ti 

from the lost 

originally, at al 

the swan-maid< 

to the influence 

Swanwhite in tJ 

In the feature 

horses, we hav( 

and the Hr/mge 

Kegner, as SvAf: 

sword to the y. 

from the Lay of 

• ^'i^rM Rcgntra «/ 

mt tt ipsa niorbe ex m 

vita distrait fiassa run 

cariiattm, quam mvis 

Undanl (Saxo, p. ga). 

\ We my nole iha! i 

t^S^und. 2 has V 

WMpos,ibIy>,Vorri.r, 

* TJ,r vnr. L-^ 



REGNER AND SWANWHITE 351 

Swanwhite helps Regner, as Svdfa Helgi, against a p. 320. 
female troll who wishes to cause the youth's destruc- 
tion in the night-time, but whose power is broken by 
the approach of dawn. Moreover Regner, though 
dressed as a herd-boy, is recognised by his flashing 
eyes ; with this we may compare H. H., 11, 2, where we 
read of Helgi, son of Sigmund, who is disguised as a 
slave woman: 'Hagal's (female) servant has flashing 
eyes.' The name Hunding was also probably borrov/ed 
from the Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani.^ 

On the other hand, the king's son Regner and his 
brother, whose flashing eyes reveal their noble race in 
spite of their miserable garb, remind us of the brothers 
Helgi and Hroar in Hr61f Kraki's saga. We find, there- 
fore, in this another bond of connection between Helgi 
Hund. and Helgi son of Halfdan. Swanwhite and 
Sigriin both die of grief; here also the influence of the 
Sigriin-story is manifest. 

In the story of Regner and Swanwhite we read of a 
magic cloud or mist.^ This feature was doubtless 
borrowed from the Irish. In Irish tales, both ancient 
and modern, 'a druidical mist' is often mentioned. 
In the story of the first battle of Mag Tuired, we 
are told that the battle-furies Badb, Macha, and 
Morrigu sent out magic showers and storm-clouds 
which contained thick fogs.* In a story in the Ossin 
epic-cycle, * The Chase of Slieve Fuad,' edited from p. 321. 

* With the verse Framea quid prodest uhi languet debile pectus (Saxo, 
p. 72) may be compared Fafti. 30 : Hugr er betri en si hjgrs megiuy 
'courage is better than is the might of the sword.* 

* AbUgato nubilae inumbrationis vapore^ praetentas ori tencbras suda 
^rspicuitate discussit {S20LOJ ed. M., p. 71). 

* Kev. Celi.y I, 4a 



35* 



ME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



MSS. of ; eighteenth century, a magic fog is spi 

about 1 hat men cannot find their way, and so 

Finn co :s into the power of supernatural beings.' 

We hi e seen that the story of Regner and Swai^ 



white is laLc. 
pointed out, se' 
half of the elc\ 
for a time in Uubii 
features from that lay, > 
poems. Since, now, the '. 
Irish account of the mag 
as to the circumstances iri . 
This Kc^'ncr-stor>' date: 
period when all 
The tjod Thor 



wao^ 



:rth-lay, which, as I have j 
;en composed in the first { 
,' a Norwegian who lived ] 
that it borrowed many i 
;11 as from other Helgi- 
er-story also adopted the 
g, it supports my theoi^ 
ch the Helgi-Iays arose.^ 
from the t-arlj' Cliri^^tisn ' 
■ere still familiar with heathen beliefs. , 
htre associated with trolls, just as in 



several stories of a later period he is a troll outright. 



XXV 

Ai'A AND TilUlir.EKTII 



HOLGABRLTII. 



Tin 'KCLKTll HyLGAliRLTH is known especially 
from the stories of Earl Hakon. In a clear ar.d 
thorough investigation,- Gustav Storm has shown that 
Holga l'n'<^r is the oldest form of her surname ; like- , 
wise that, under the name of Tliora, she is spoken of in 
Saxo,-' wliose account cNjilains the original meaning of 
her surname, which cannot be discovered from the 
Icelandic sources. 

Saxo's narrative is as follows: Helgi (Helgo), kirig 

> III Joyce, Old Cellii SomaHits, p. 363. 

~- In Ar^::/-. im.i. filoL. n, 125 ff. 

■> EJ. Miillci, Ilk. ]ll, n'- IIIJIT- 



SVAfA and THORGERTH 353 

of Hdlogaland, sent out men several times to woo in his 
name Thora, a daughter of Gusi (Cuso), king of the p. 322. 
Finns and Bjarms. It was customary at that time for 
young men to woo on their own account ; but Helgi 
had such a bad impediment in his speech that he was 
ashamed to talk, not merely to strangers, but even to 
those of his own house. Gusi dismissed the messengers 
with the answer, that the man who dared not plead his 
own cause did not deserve to get his daughter to wife. 
Helgi then succeeded in inducing Hgth (Hotherus) to 
go to Norway with a fleet and woo for him. Hgth 
pleaded so well that Gusi Anally answered that he 
would take counsel with his daughter and do as she 
wished. Thora's answer was favourable, and Gusi 
consented to the betrothal. Later, Saxo tells how 
Hgth poured out his sorrow to Helgi, and how he gave 
Helgi and Thora rich gifts. 

This story, as appears from Olrik's investigations, 
was brought by the Icelander Arnald Thorvaldsson 
from the west coast of Norway to Denmark. With 
the help of Storm's and Better's ^ articles on the sub- 
ject, I shall try to get nearer to the source of the tale. 

In my opinion, Th6rgerth Hglgabriith, and the 
Thora spoken of in Saxo, arose from a remodelling of 
Svdfa, especially from Svdfa as she appears in the 
Hrfmgerth-lay.2 

' Der Mythus von Hblgi^ Jydrger^r und Irpa, in Ztsch. /. d* Alt,j 
XXXII, 394-402. The same author previously suggested a different theory 
in Arkivf, nerd, FiloLi iv, 66, note 2. 

■ Neither Storm, nor Delter, nor Olrik {Sakses Oldhist,^ Ii, 24) has 
suggested any connection between Helgi or Hglgi, the bridegroom of 
Thora or Th6rgerth, and Helgi Hj^r. ; but Detter connects this Helgi 
with Hrolfs father Helgi. 

Z 




When the ■ 

Svafa receivec 

her name, nam 

P- 3.3. Svifa is placed 

J^erlSr desig 

woman, close)} 

sJie was brougb 

due to the fa. 

Sv^fa-story ima 

gath, to be tie 

He was Jed to 

tions. Atli say 

'rolls ; often hai 

Thor was precis< 

he said Atli h 

g'ant Hati, who 

wolves; and it 

until the sun ra 

into stone.* Thi 

accoiding to the 

Allivisc talkfni; u 



SVAFA and TH6rGERTH 355 

A.tli was really regarded, later, as the god Thor in 
liuman form : in a verse in Snorri's Edda,^ Atli is 
given as one of Thor*s names. This conception of Thor 
is analogous to that by which Odin is often made to 
appear in human form, sometimes as a man in the 
king's service — e,g, as Bruni at the court of Harald 
Hildetann. 

Moreover, it is clear that Th6rgerth was thought of, 
at any rate at a later time, as a being closely connected 
with Thor ; for in a story in Njdlssaga, chap. 88, we read 
that Earl Hdkon and Dale-Guthbrand worshipped p. 324* 
together in a temple in which there were images of 
Thor and the sisters Th6rgerth HgldabriKr, and Irpa. 

Saxo calls the bride of Helgi, king of Hdlogaland, 
lot Th6rgerth, but Thora, Storm thinks this name 
>ut a shortened form of Th6rgerth, used as a term of 
endearment. Better calls attention to the fact that 
Saxo also tells of another Thora who was Helgi's 
>ride — namely, of that Thora who bore to the Danish 
King Helgi a daughter Yrsa (Ursa), who in her turn 
x>re to her own father a son Hr61f (Rolpho), later king 
>f Denmark. It looks, therefore, as if Th6rgerth, the 
name of the bride of Helgi, king of Hdlogaland, was 
:hanged by Saxo into Thora, under the influence of 
the name of Thora, the love of Helgi, king of Denmark. 

Just as hail falls on the high trees from the manes of 
the horses of Svdfa and her maidens when they ride 

' If 553t 2.— -In the story of Regner and Swanwhite, in Saxo (Bk. ii, 
p. 71), which shows the influence of the Hrimgerlh-Iay, Regner says, 
when in the night surrounded by trolls he speaks with Swanwhite, that he 
fears no troll, but only the god Thor. This indicates, perhaps, that the 
author of the Rcgner-story also regarded Atli in the Ilrimgerth-lay as Thor 
in human form. 



SVAfA and TH6rGERTH 357 

varth. Hjorvarth sent messengers to woo Sigrlinn, but 
his offer was rejected ; later, however, he won his bride 
by the help of his messenger, Atli.^ The name Atli 
the author of the Thora-story could not use for the 
king's messenger, since he imagined Atli to be the god 
Thor in human form. Perhaps he chose Hother as the 
messenger because eloquence was ascribed to this hero 
in some other tale with which the poet was familiar.^ 

From Svdfa were transferred to Th6rgerth not only 
the power of calling forth showers of hail, but also that 
of pacifying storms. These marvellous powers were 
ascribed to Finns and Bjarms elsewhere in Scandinavian 
stories.' That explains why Thora (i,e. Th6rgerth 
Hglgabriith) in Saxo's story is represented as the 
daughter of Cuso or Gusi, king of the Finns and Bjarms. p. 326. 
The name Gusi ox Gustr stems to be Norse, not Lappish,** 
and to mean *the maker of wind (of gusts of wind).' 

^ Olrik {S. C>., II, 24 f) thinks that the story of Helgi and Thora, which 
was composed by a Norwegian saga- writer, presupposes earlier stories of 
actual events. So far, in my opinion, he is right ; but I cannot agree with 
the view he seems to hold that the story has no connection with any heroic 
lay. I have, I think, shown that it is a saga-writer*s remodelling of an 
heroic poem. 

' Did the relation between Helgi HJ9r. and H^inn (dat. H^ni) have 
any influence on the relation between Helgi, Thora's bridegroom, and 
U^r (dat. Ht^i) ? There are other points of contact between HdfSinn 
and H^r. See my Studien iiber die Enstehung der nord. Cotter- ii. 
Heidcnsagen, pp. 92-97, 174 f. 

3 Cf. Fritzner in {Norsk) Hist. Tidssknfi, iv, 200 ff; XiWzxi^fSckriften, 

VI, 403. 

* This is Olrik's opinion (5*. O.^ I, 65, note i). Gusi is doubtless con- 
nected with O.N. gtistr, *a gust of wind,* Dialectal Norw. gusa, *to blow 
gently* (in Ross), g^sa, 'currents of air* (in Aasen). I conjecture that 
the form Gusir, with short first syllable, arose from Gusi by analogy. 
Deiier {ZtscA. /, d, Alt,, xxxii, 456) has already brought the name into 
connection wilh^j/r ; but he writes incorrectly Giisi^ and refers it iog/'dfa. 




MiiK. 'twas natu 

hero, should be 

eponym of the t 

in order that his 

his bride. This 

who mentions hii 

Since Helgi, tf 

Helgi, the bctroti 

with e, viz. Helgi 

original than Hgl^ 

of Helgi, and wet 

p. 327 In old Iceland 

eponymous hero ■ 

usual form of his 

a linguistic bom 

' In this poini I disag 
man's name migi, .^ 
woman's name Htlga, . 
a I regard as Norwegian 
363 (Vear 1359, Indre S 
«y^», D.N.,iii,No. , 
kindly called my allentir 



SVAFA and THORGERTH 359 

between the name of the hero and his country. The 
reason why the saga-king with whom Th6rgerth is 
united is usually called Hglgi in Icelandic documents, 
and not Helgi^ appears to be that he was identified with 
the hero of the race of the Hdleygir.^ 

The author of the First Helgi-lay was born in the 
west of Norway, and lived among Irish poets. In the 
First Helgi-lay, which he composed in Britain, he 
describes Sigriin with features borrowed to some extent 
from Irish battle-goddesses. This same poet composed 
the Hrfmgerth-lay, in which Svdfa clearly resembles 
Signin in the First Lay, and is described with features 
drawn from the Irish battle-goddesses. The influence 
of Irish conceptions, which thus affected the portrayal 
of Svdfa in the Hrfmgerth-lay, becomes still greater in 
the description of Th6rgerth HQlgabruth, where other 
Irish ideas appear. 

Although Svdfa is represented as a supernatural 
woman endowed with marvellous powers, she is, never- 
theless, not thought of either as a goddess or as a 
female troll. With Th6rgerth HQlgabriith, on the con- 
trary, the situation is different. From the very fact that 
Thora is represented as the daughter of the Finnish 
King Gusi, we see that she was regarded as at least 
a half-troll by nature; and in later times this side 
of Th6rgerth*s character is made more prominent. In 
the versified list of names inserted in Snorri's Edda we 

* In N/dlssagat chap. 113, we find: f»6rger^r ddttir Hdieygs {jm one 
MS. Helga) konungs af Hdlogalandi ; but this is, as Storm has pointed out 
in Arkiv, I r, 128, a corruption oi Hervqr ddltir pdrgef^ar Eylaugs ddttnr 
konungs (in other MSS. hersis 6r Sogni) in Landndmabdky I, 10. 



THORCERTH HQLGABRUTH 



361 



With Thorgerth is associated a sister Irpa, who in 
the battle of the Jomsvfkings is said to have been seen 
on Hiikon's ships along with Thorgerth, and to have 
acted exactly like her. Irpa is not mentioned in Saxo 
in the story of Helgi and Thora, and indeed she would p. 3»» 
seem useless in a stor>- of Helgi's wooing. Snorri says 
in SkdldskaparmM that both Holgi and Th6rgerth 
received divine worship ; but he does not mention Irpa. 
She can scarcely be explained by the SvAfa-story, and 
does not seem to have been very prominent in the 
oldest form of the account of Th6rgerth Holgabri'ith. 

This introduction of the sister, who also helps HAkon 
in battle, seems to me to be due to Irish influence. 
Among the Irish two war-goddesses are several times 
mentioned together. Thus in a poem in the Book of 
Leinster, Badb and Nemain appear, and in another 
place in the same MS., Fca and Nemain. In Irish 
genealogies these goddesses are said to have been 
sisters. Moreover, Badb, Macha, and Morrigan (or 
Ana), who are all battle-goddesses or battle- furies, are 
also said to have been sisters.' 

Irpa means 'the brown one,' from the adjective/uT^r, 
'brown.' This name may have been given the sister 
because she was thought of as a female troll.- Bjorn 
Haldorsen states that irpa can signify a she-wolf. In 
an Irish story about Cuchulinn, the war-fury Morrigan 
transforms herself into a she-wolf.'^ 

The surname Holgabrijth, and the relation of the 

' S« Rrv. CllU, I, 35 and 36 f. 

' lata is the designaliou of a fem«le tioll, and of a slie-wolf; cf. Imltilr, 
' tlu'k,' of the wolf. 
' Stokes and Winditeb, /riiihe TeJtlt, 11, 2, p. 253 f. 





^^^f of King Hglgi in 

■ was due to Irish i 

sister Irpa, it is pi 

influence that at 

no longer represe 

father,- 

p. 330. That Thdrgerth 

connection with 1 

when the Holgi or 

name came to be r 

land, or the ancesi 

race of earls to whi 

in Halogaland, an 

<^rr, ' the race of ti 

^k is ascribed to H 

^A Holgi.'^ 

^H Moreover, we ha' 

^r ' Sn. Edda, 1, 400. 
■ ' According lo Irish g* 
^^ hi and Nemon were da 
^1 Hoyne). It may be that a 
^L ^ponding (0 an Irish «a: 




T H C) R G E R T H H Q L G A B R U T H 



363 



Hakon was in reality a zealous worshipper of Thor;' 
and since the story represented Thorgerth Holgabruth 
as a goddess closely connected with Thor, it was natural 
for Earl HAkon also to be represented as one of her 
zealous worshippers. 

Just as Thorgerth Holgabnith was attached to a 
single chieftain, so the Irish believed that the battle- 
goddess Badbwas attached to certain families.^ 

In the story of the battle of the Jiimsvikings in Odd r- 3 
the Monk's saga of OlAf Tryggvason,' we read: 'Thdr- 
gcrth Holgabruth came with Earl Hakon to the battle, 
and then fell many of the vikings, while others fled'; 
and in the saga of the Jomsvikings it is said that a 
second-sighted man saw Thorgerth Holgabruth and 
Irpa on Hakon's ship in the battle. In like manner the 
Irish battle-goddesses go into battle with their favour- 
ites. In the story of the first battle of Mag Tuircd we 
read : ' We will go with you,' said the daughters, viz. 
Badb, Macha, Morrigan.and Danann {or Anann), ' to the 
chieftains who helped Tuatha-de-Danann." According 
to the Book of Leinster, Cuchulinn, before his last 
battle, reminds his Tiorse of the time when Badb accom- 
panied them on their warlike expeditions.'' 

When the Irish battle-goddesses appear in battle, 

' The skolil Kormak composed a poem in hanoiir of Hakon's father, 
Siganh, in which he speaks of ihc sacrificial banquets inainlained by 
Si|;uith. Tile (cfrains in the poem are taken from the mythical stories 
known M that liiite. At this point it nms : silr pSrr I reiSii, ' Thor sits 
m his carriage.' The weights of the icalei which H^on gave the skald 
Einai were engrxved, according to the oldest form of the saga of the 
Jiimsvikings, with pictures of Thor and Odin. Cf. Slonn, Ariiv, II, 
I3J-I3S- 

- A'eii. CtlL, I, 34. ' Munch's edition, p, 15. 

* Rev. Ctll., 1, 40, • Stv. Cell., T, 50. 



THORGERTH HQLGABRUTH 



365 



I as one who called forth a hailstorm : ' I have heard that 
H9lgabruth then made the evil shower fall,' Of the 
other references to Thorgerth, the oldest are the follow- 
ing : — (i) The sentence, 'A great woman died, when 
Holgatroll died," in the Icelandic Grammatical Treatise 
of ca. 1 140 ; ' (2) the name Holgabriith in the versified 
list of names attached to Snorri's Edda ; and (3) Saxo's 
story {from ca. 1200) of Thora and Helgi, The Jdms- 
vlkingasaga, in which she appears, is, according to 
Gustav Storm, in its oldest form certainly older than 
ca. I230. It is clear, therefore, that the story of Thor- 
gerth Holgabriith and of her relations to Earl Hakon, 
was current as early as the first part of the twelfth 
century. 

On the other hand, Th6rgerth is not mentioned in 
Th6rth Kolbeinsson's Eirlksdrdpa, which was composed, 
at the earliest, in 1014, and which mentions the battle 
of the Jomsvfkings. Nor is she mentioned in the 
extant verses by Earl Hakon's contemporaries, Tind 
Hallkelsson, Einar Skalaglamm, and Eyvind Skalda- 
spillir. Her name does not occur either among the 
mythical names in the drdpa which Kormak composed 
about Sigurth, the father of Earl Hakon. Tind Hall- 
kelsson took part in the battle of theJ6msvikings(which 
is put at 986). He composed a poem about it, of which 
there are seven whole and six half strophes preserved.* 
In these verses the poet describes the battle minutely, p. 3 
though without mentioning many characteristic features, 

' Deit fiprjit eg den anden graiiim. afk. i Snorris Edda, ed. DahlcTUp 
mill F. Jiiisson, pp. 15, 48, Sof: k^di. /si ei holgalrell dil. m iiyj>t HI 
hgiida, jvl t! pirr bar hutrtun. The sentence was fomied lo show the 
iliflVicnce between i/and double d (])). 

' Edited, with commenlacy, by F. Jonsson in Aarbi^gir, lSS6. 



TH6rGERTH HQLGABRIJtH 367 

In the saga of St. 6ldf in Heimskringla^ we read that 
there was an enclosed place in the land of the Bjarms, 
by the side of the river Dwina, containing a mound in 
which gold and silver and earth were thrown together, 
and on that spot stood a richly adorned image of 
Jumala. Similarly, it is said in Qrvaroddssaga that 
there was in the land of the Bjarms, by the Dwina, a p zza- 
mound in which earth and silver were thrown together; 
to that hill must be borne a handful of earth and a 
handful of silver in memory of every person who should 
die; and the same must be done for every new-born 
child. 

It was, therefore, under the influence of the concep- 
tion of Helgi as the divine tribal hero of Hdlogaland, 
who was worshipped with Finnish rites, that Thorgerth, 
being associated with him, came to be thought of as a 
goddess, possessing the magic powers attributed to 
Finnish divinities. 

Yet Th6rgerth Hglgabruth was neither a family- 
divinity^ nor a (real or invented) ancestress of Earl 
Hdkon, whom the latter worshipped in the body.* On 
the contrary, she was fabricated long after the days of 
Earl Hdkon, after the model of Svdfa in the Lay of 
Helgi HJ9r., by a man who knew the Hrfmgerth-lay. 
Now, this lay was composed, ca. 1025-1035, in Britain, 
by a poet born in the west of Norway who had 
sojourned with Irish poets at the royal court of Dublin, 
and who had there become familiar with Irish stories. 
Th6rgerth Holgabruth and the story about her were 

* As Munch thought, Norske Folks Hist.y I, 332. 

' As was thought by Vigfusson (C. P, B., i, 402) and Storm {Arkh\ 

n, 133)- 



TH6rGERTH HQLGABRtTTH 369 

the story shows itself to be more original in other 
respects than the Danish.^ Better's theory does not 
explain the change of the name Thora to Thorgerth in 
the Icelandic sources. Nor does it explain the repeated 
suits of the king of Hdlogaland to Thora, or the 
feature in Saxo that, by reason of an impediment in his 
speech, he would not speak with others. Finally, this 
theory does not explain why Th6rgerth came to be 
regarded as a troll-wife or goddess, possessing power 
over the elements. 

Yet I also suppose that the Danish story of Hr61fs 
father influenced Saxo's story of the king of Hdloga- 
land in that he calls the latter's bride Thora, not 
Th6rgerth ; and I agree with Better in explaining the 
association of the bridegroom of Thora or Th6rgerth, 
viz. Helgi or HQlgi, with HAlogaland, as due to popular 
etymology. 

Better proposes further an ingenious theory, not 
mentioned in what precedes, as to the origin of Irpa, 
which he thinks also explains why in the Icelandic 
story Hglgi is made Th6rgerth's father, instead of her p. 336. 
bridegroom as he was in the beginning. Better thinks 
that the name Irpa^ ' the brown one,' designates her as 
a slave- woman, or as a maid of low origin (cf. Er/>r in 
the j9rmunrekk-story, Hgsvir^ Krdka^ etc.), and that 
originally she was identical with Yrsa, who, like Krdka, 
was set to herd cattle, and whose name was that of a 
dog. The making of H9lgi into Th6rgerth*s father 
rests, according to Better, on a confusion of the mother 
Thora, or Olov, and the daughter Yrsa, who are both 
called Helgi's bride ; Helgi was Yrsa*s father and 

' Cf. Olrik, Sakses Oldhist.y n, 144 ff. 



'> A 



i I 



Helgi's daughter, who lalet 
s called Thora. 

f Better's combination, 
woman with the name 
: at once Helgi's bridE i 
:annot think this com- 
irolf Kraki's mother is ' 
both in Danish and in I 
with the exceptioo of i 
n. with the mother, she is 



370 H i. OF THE EDDIC POEMS 

lover. 1 :onrusion of mother and daughter occurs 
in the CAi End, or, more correctly, the Hj' Annah} \ 
where the uanish ki 
bears him Hr61f Kraki 

It might be arg 
that it shows the e 
Thora who could be 
and Helgi's daughter, 
bination probable ; for, sii 
everywhere called Yrsa (L. 
Norwegian-Icelandic soun 
Chroii. Erici, where, by confu; 
called Thora), wc have no right to suppose that she 
was also called Irpa, and that Thorgerth's sister Irpa 
was originally the same personage. 

Even if Detter were right, which 1 do not believe, in 
the combination of Irpa and Yrsa, we might suppose 
that Irish accounts had something to do with th-; 
making of Irpa into a goddess or troll-wife who, like 
iier sister, had power over the elements, and helped her 
favourite in a sea-fight. Only in the later form of the 
story docs Irpa appear ; and Thorgerth and her sister 
were not at first associated with Earl Hakon. There 
is, then, no foundation whatever for the statements th:it 
Earl Hakon sacrificed his son to Thorgerth Holgabruih 
in the battle of the Hjurung Bay, and that he had a 
temple in which were images of Thorgerth and Irjia 
The author of Fagrskinna shows his sound common 
sense in not saying a word of Thorgerth. Snorri doc- 
not mention her name in Ih'imskrins^la ; but, after 



TH6rGERTH HQLGABRtlTH 371 

telling of the Battle of the J6msvfkings, he says : p. 337. 
• There is a story current among the people that Earl 
Hdkon sacrificed his son Erling in this battle to obtain 
victory, whereupon there arose a great storm, and the 
J6msvfkings began to fall.' Evidently Snorri did not 
believe in the story of the sacrifice. 

On the contrary, in both Snorri and Fagrskinna, the 
fearful hail-storm which raged during the battle is 
regarded as an undoubted fact ; and all modern 
historians accept it as such.^ 

Previously it was thought that this hail-storm was 
also mentioned in a poem by Tind Hallkelsson ; but 
Finnur J6nsson has shown * that it is a question there 
of the hail of arrows. The skald's words seem to 
mean : * In Odin's storm it hailed with the hail of the 
bow.' ^ 

It is not going far to suppose that the whole 
story of the hail-storm in the battle arose from a 
misunderstanding of Tind's verse. In the same way 

1 Sec, e.g,, P. A. Munch, Norske Folks Hist.y I, 2, p. 118; Storm in 
{l^orsk) Hist, TidskHft, iv, 426 f. 

* Aarb4>gerf, nor J, Oldk.^ 1886, pp. 327-329, 357, 360. 
' F. Jonsson reads : 

Dreif at vif^rgs vdiSre 
. . . grininio . . . 



. . . fjorncs hagle. 

He has substituted ;^i>r/i^x (which is graphically rather remote) for the 
meaningless timis of the MS. I conjectured first tvlvi^-hagli from /z//z'/Y5r, 
* bow * ; cf. hagi tvivifkirf Merl., Ii, 65. Yet the combined form, instead 
of the genitive (to which t{mis points) seems to me suspicious. Is, there- 
fore, the right form tvhis hagit} and was the Irish ttlag^ * bow,' made 
over into *lfvir^ *tviviry which form was later changed into tvivifSr (gen. 
tv/viVar), i.e. a tree composed of two pieces? Or does *tv/vir, from 
*tv/it>ir, designate the bow as that which consists of two bits of yew-tree ? 



HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 373 



XXVI 

Conclusion. 

There are several important questions concerning 
the Helgi-lays which I have only touched upon, with- 
out being able to treat them fully in this present 
investigation, and on which I have not been able to 
set forth my individual opinion, because the solution 
of these questions requires first the careful treatment 
of many other old stories recorded in Iceland, not only p. 339- 
in the Edda, but also to some extent in other docu- 
ments. Here, however, in conclusion, I would state 
more clearly, in few words, some of these questions, 
and express a little more definitely my opinion in 
regard to them. 

We have seen that the stories of Helgi, Sigriin's 
husband, and of Helgi Hjorvarthsson, are much 
influenced by, and in many ways connected with, the 
stories of the V9lsungs and Niflungs. German scholars, 
above all Miillenhoff, long ago exploded a theory, 
which earlier had been pretty generally accepted in 
Scandinavia, that the story of Sigurth Fdfnisbani and 
the Niflungs belonged in the beginning to the Scan- 
dinavians as well as to the Germans. It is certain that 
the story of Sigurth, Sigmund's son, and of the Niflungs 
was originally a West-Germanic story, foreign to the 
Scandinavians. 

Most German investigators of popular tales think 
that the form of the story of the VQlsungs and Niflungs 
which is known in Scandinavia, especially from the 



374 



HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



Eddie poems and from the VglsuMgasagOy went from i 
Germany northward ; but they express themselves in I 
general very vaguely, and give no definite information 
as to the way in which they suppose tlie story to have 
travelled.^ 

On the contrary, I have, I think, shown in what pre- 
cedes that the Scandinavians adopted the story of the 
Volsungs (which influenced the Helgi-stories) in the 
West, especially in the British Isles, and particularly by 
association with Englishmen. They became familiar * 
with these stones partly thiOugh poems which were 1 
composed in the A nglo-Saxon language ; but they also 
1, 3JO. heard stories, originally Prankish, of other saga-heroes, 
e.g. Merovingian kings. 

At another time I hope to be able to show that 
other Volsung-stories in the poetic Edda and in the 
Volsungasaga were in like manner first composed by 
Scandinavians in the West, partly with Anglo-Saxon 
poems as models. I shall endeavour to prove that the 
oldest Norse poem which mentions the story of the 
Vplsungs, viz. the Lay of VVayland, gives evidence that 
it arose in England.^ 

' The usual idea is cx[iie£seJ thus by Ihe Dulcli scliolar bijmons (in 
I'aur* Gi-uiuiriis, n, 2J) : ' Diu notiiischc [Korm] ilct ;illeien K.ldi- 
litiltr, ilJL- .1US ihrer fr-inkisclicii lU-im^t vmimlhlich clnnh sach^ische 
Vi'imilLhiiii; n.ich Sciiiiihnavii.'ii kaiii.' Mugk lias ri'Ci'iiLly (in i-'ets.liuiigtM 
://.■ ./, Phi!., F,ils>thi fur HuMf Uildehraiul, 1S94. [t 1), expitsxd 
him~c1f Ihu-s : ' UnL-rscliiilli^ilich r<.->L Mdil vuc alkiii ila^ dr^- : die Ildmat 
.Ilt )i<.rclisch-Jciilscln.-n I ltliluns,ige ist Utulselilaiid : v.,n hior isl f.if n.ich 
.km Xoriluii gckoiiimen." Mogk ihinks, as \ btlieve incorrccll)-, Ihal liw 
slory of llie Viilsungs and Kiflinigs was brought lo Gaulland shortly after 
Ihe yoar 512 by thi; Enilians, who had heard Ihe story from thi: East 
Goth-, whii in their liirn L-.imfil il friiin [hi- Franks. 



I 



CONCLUSION 375 

is probable that Danish poets in the West had to 

e extent treated the West-Germanic heroic stories 

re the Norwegian poets began to work them up, 

that the Norwegians learned the foreign stories 

ly from Danes. 

urther, I hope to be able to prove the falseness 6( 
5tion which many cling to — ^viz. that the Edda 
prises poems from the most different quarters of 
North i some, perhaps, from the northern part of 
way ; several, it may be, from the south-western 

of NojTway ; others from the Scottish Isles, or 
inlan^dr Iceland. Many imagine that these poems 
ted exclusively in oral tradition, and were not 
ight into connection with one another before they 
t finally writtoQ down, all at the same time, by some 
in Iceland, who ifi so doing relied either on his 

memory or on communications made to him by 
:rs. 

believe, on the contrary, that it is susceptible of 
)f that the majority of these poems have belonged 
ither from the time of their origin, so that the 
nger presuppose the older. The majority of them 
esent different sides of one and the same tendency, 

were composed under practically the same con- 
>ns and external impulses. When it has been 
^ed of certain Eddie poems that they were com- 
jd in the West by Norwegian poets who travelled 
ng the English and Irish, we may believe the same p. 34 »• 

., xxxin, 469 and 476. He thinks that knowledge of the story of 
Iflungs first came to Danish and Norwegian Vikings in France ; that 
tory spread among the Vikings in the west and came over Ireland to 
id. Yet Goltherdoes not mention Englishmen or English poems as 
nediaries. 



CONCLUSION 



377 



peoples have developed, to realise how much they have 
been influenced by the culture of the West. 

The district about the Breithifjord on the western 
coast of Iceland, pre-eminently the home of saga-com- 
position, Vigfusson has called Iceland's Attica. 

I would name the Scandinavian settlements in the 
British Isles the Scandinavian JEoUa, 

Iceland was the Ionia of the North : there the 
Northern Herodotus was born. 

An Attica the ancient Northern era never had. 

Why did Norway not become the Northern Attica ? 

Was it because the North never had a Persian War ? 



APPENDIX I 379 

definite imitation of sts. 53 and 54 in the First Lay of Helgi 
Hundingsbani.^ 

In still other strophes of the Hdttalykill there are expres- p. 6. 
sions which show the influence partly of the First, partly of 
the Second Helgi-Iays.* The First Helgi-lay was, therefore, 
known in the Orkneys about 1145. The same statement is 
probably true of the Second Helgi-lay, even though it is only 
in St. 25 that we can trace its influence on the HditalykilL 

VIn Hdtial.j 19 (composed in the metre Balkarldg) we read : 

HapSi Helgi 
{ hjgrva gn} 
g^steinglc^n . . . 
Var rgptd rc^ift, 
ri6u skif>ikingar , . . 
dtu emir 
^fjsft^rs ddlguf/ti 
hreyffSusk hrafnar 
yfir hrakesti. 

This is an imitation of II. II., i, 53-54 : 

Svipr einn var }yai, 
er saman kvdmu 
fglvir addar ... 
sd haffSi hilmir 
hart mdfkikarn . . . 
d( hdlu skar 
afhugiits barri, 

F. Jonsson {Litt. Uist,^ 1 1, 37) supix)ses that it is Helgi, son of Frothi's 
brother, who is referred to in HditaLj 19. 

^ In Hdttai,y st. 5, which treats of II. Ilund. (and which is lacking in 
EgiIsson*s edition) wc find : 

geriSisl' geira harfUr \ gttj'r. 

In this I see an imitation of H. H., i, 54: dx geira gnvr. Compare 
HdiiaLi 20, grdsidfii gri6ar (MS. griHa), and HdttaL^ d^flagikt grdstd^^ 
with H. H., II, 25, grdnsfdti grifkir; Hdtlal,^ 15, aldrklifs akarttf with 
H. H., I, 53, fftdfSakam; benlogi, Hdttal^ Ti, 34, with H. H., I, 51. 
Some of these comparisons have already been made by F. Jonsson in his 
Lin, Hist., I, 53. 



APPENDIX I 381 

he Icelander Bglverk Arn6rsson, brother of the more 

ous skald Thj6th61f, composed, shortly after 1048, d^drdpa 

Harald Harthrathi, in which he appears to have been 

lenced by the First Helgi-lay.^ 

1 a strophe which is supposed to have been composed by 

6th61f Amdrsson in 1043, Thj6th61f seems to show 

iliarity with the Second Helgi-lay.^ 

1 a poem on Magniis the Good {Magnusflokkr)^ which p. 8 

6th61f Arn6rsson composed in 1045 or a little later, occurs 

expression which seems to betray the influence of the 

mgerth-lay.^ 

'hj6th61f seems also to show familiarity with the First 

gi-lay in his lay Sexstefja, which he composed on Harald 

thrdthi in 1065 ; for the expression barr ara^ * the eagle's 

n/ used to signify 'carcasses/* appears to be a direct or 

rect imitation of hugins barr, *the raven's grain,' in 

H., I, 54. 

hortly after 1064, Arndr Jarlaskald wrote a drdj>a in 

nory of Thorfinn, Earl of the Orkneys. Certain expres- 

3are H. H., I, 46: 

fyS dugir stklingutn 
satt at mala. 

The words skri^u beit {Heimskr. , liar, s, AarfSr. , chap. 2 ; C, P. Bx,u, 
, seem lo be an imitation ofdei/ sv^rf {MS. has A^vt) skrifiu in H. H. , 1, 23. 
emendation svgrt is supported perhaps by the fact that B^lverk in the 
; strophe has svartan snekkju brand. Cf. g/difrstdHumt B^lverk in 
. s. har^r.y chap. 31 (C. P. B.^ II, 216) vi'wh gjdlfrdj'rf H. H., i, 30. 
It is probable that the word gar {Heimskr., Afagn. s. g., 31 to end ; 
* B., 11, 203, 6) = / gier is used under the influence of H. 11., 11, 12 ; 
oth strophes are said to have been composed the day after a predatory 
ent has been made on the coast of Denmark. 

Cf. { fagran framstafn {Heimskr., Magtt. s. g., chap. 31 ; C. P. B.y 
!Oi) with { fggrum , . . beits stafni (H. IIj., 14). Fagr (fair) is 
;o natural an epithet to apply to the stem of a ship that the agreement 
be regarded as accidental. 
Sn. Edda, li, 486; C. P, B., 11, 208. 



382 




ME OF THE EDDIC POE 



;em to me to make it probable (though not M L 

the skald was familiar with the Helgi-lays at ihe 

e composed his own poem.' 

death of Magnus the Good in 1047. Am6r 

hich he uses the expression 

he wolves,' i,e. of corpses. 

6arri, ' of the com of the 



sions in II 
prove) tha 
time when 
After ihi 
composed a 
of tilfa barri^^ ' ui 
This is an imitation i/> <-j 
raven,' in H. H,, 1, 54." 
S- After the death of Rognvali 
at the close of the year 1045, 
him also. In this* we find tl.. 
which occurs elsewhere only in 
form altiiafrS- 
' Cf. .ihrfimlmi v.iii . . . nlni (C. /'. Ji 



sasoD, Earl of the Orkneys, 
ir composed a drdpa about 
'ord tf/lsta/r, 'descendant,' i 
H., I, 55, there in the oldefl 



'■/' 



ar hroddi. 11. H., 
e Ihc plitasi' is a]^ 



//.,'^ 



VI, OS; C. r. H., 11, 1 

.rase j/«-/i/* l-'iiiiS'l, 
en.. (/■V«i., VI, 51 ; C 
111 nu iklliiile conduiii 
;■// inllsllv-irlh'sAV/i; 



uryV'W-, vr. I 



APPENfilX I 383 

The kenning valdggg, * slaughter-dew/ for ' blood,' occurs 
in the old poetry only in H. H., 11, 44, and in a verse 
in Landndmabbk {/sL ss,y i, 164; C P, B,^ 11, 56; Gislason, 
Udvalgy pp. 10, 73). This verse is supposed to have been 
composed in Iceland by Hastein Hr6mundarson in the tenth 
century (probably the latter half). This agreement as regards 
valdggg cannot, however, be used with confidence as a 
contribution to the history of the Helgi-poems ; for, although 
I consider it as probable that valdggg in Hastein's verse is 
borrowed from the Helgi-lay, it might be argued, on the other 
hand, that the word merely belonged to the poetic vocabulary 
which was common to many poems. Moreover, as regards 
verses such as those ascribed to Hdstein and his father 
Hr6mund, we have no certainty that they were composed at 
the time stated in the saga. 

The same thing may be said of the expression vega l>OT^i^ 
which occurs both in H. H., 11, 4, and in the so-called 
MdhiifSingavisur^ which are supposed to have been written 
after a fight by Th6rarin Th6r61fsson at Mdvahlfth by the 
Breithiljord, according to Vigfusson in the year 981 {Eyrb., 
p. 24, chap. 18 ; C P. B,^ 11, 58). 

In a strophe which Vfga-Gldm is said to have composed 
{Giumay chap. 21 ; C. P. B,^ 11, 75) about 990, occurs the 
phrase grdra geira^ * of the grey spears,' which seems to have 
been borrowed from H. H., i, 12. But it cannot be definitely p. 10, n. 
settled when the strophe ascribed to Gliim was composed. 
From the likeness of vtgnesia, H. Hj., 8, to vignest^ used by 
Goththorm Sindri (in Heimskr,^ Hdk, s, g,, ed. Unger, p. 146, 

poems. Vigfusson seems to have been wrong in writing brintdyrom in 
Th6rth Kolbeinsson*s EirlksdrApa (C. P, B.jli, 104) instead oibladyrom ; 
see Fms.y xi, 196. 

The phrase hrimdyr d/dsv^r^H. II., I, 50) was also doubtless the model 
for byrvarga bidsvarta in Thorarin Stuttfeld (c. II20), Sig. s. Jors.y 
chao. 6. 



HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 385 



APPENDIX II. (See Chap. III.) 

The First Helgi-Lay in its Relation to 

Older Norse Poems. 

. Imitations of the Second Helgi-Lay by the First Helgi-Lay, 

Some of the phrases from the two Helgi-lays which I shall p. 12. n, 
te in what follows, are also to be found elsewhere ; as a rule, 
3wever, I do not give these other instances of their use. 
bMlunga in alliteration with beztan^ i, 2 ; bufSlungr in 
literation with beztr^ 11, 30, bufSlu?igf^^b6tir, i, 1 2 ; bu'6lungr 
bbt^ II, 44. We find also in both poems dgglingr^ hildingr^ 
Umir^ lof^ungr^ and several expressions for related ideas. 

Ylfinga nifS^angri, i, 5 ; Ylfinga ni^r-^angr-, 11, 47, ni^r 
Ylfinga, II, 8. 

hvessir augu^ i, 6, hvgss eru augu^ 11, 2 ; both expressions 
used with reference to Helgi. 

burr Sigmundar^ i, 6, Sigmundar bur^ i, 11, and 11, 12. 

brd Ijbma^ i, 1 5, Ijbma bre^i^ 11, 36. 

und hjdlmum^ i* 15 ; H) ?• 

brynjur vdru }>eira blc^i stoknar^ i> 1 5 ; hvi er brynja yin 
bl&6i stokkin^ 11, 7. 

suSranary i, 16 (as Vkv., i), su^rce/i, 11, 45 ; in both 
places of battle-maidens. 

uggi eigi J>ii, i, 20; cf. hir^ eigi pii, 11, 18. p. 13, ». 

dgglingar dagsbnin sj'd, i, 26; dggglitir dagsbrun sjd^ 11, 43. 

vikingary i, 27, and 11, 4; 11, 19. 

I, 32, and I, 35 ; cf. 11, 19-20. 

svinum gefr, i, 34 ; gefa svtnum soti, 11, 39. 

gmu sadda, i, 35 ; cett ara . . . saddak, 11, 8. 

d hvernuMy i, 35 ; 11, 2. 

vargljiPSum vanr d zn'tSum lUi, i, 41 ; vargr d vitSum ti/i, 

"> 33- 

2 B 




fiiuui' i/uugar, l, 50 j 
sign ok landa, 1, 56 ; 
I have found no sure in 
the Second Helgi-lay whic 
the First Lay, and vhict 
conjectured (by Fr, Zarn< 
No. 43. Nevertheless I 
ment regarding the comf 
and stanzas 5-13 of tlw £ 
imitation of / Srd&m^, i, 

B. 7%eFlrttL 

■■ SinQetli says to Guthmu 

' We two had together niiu 

was their father.' Guthmi 

FMirva 

glhimtBi 



APPENDIX II 387 

' In the east sat the old woman in Ironwood, and gave birth 
there to Fenrir*s brood.' 

. In the Helgi-lay the original meaning of Fenrisulfr^ * the . 
wolf of hell,' is modified. 
H. H., I, 36 : 

fdit maniUj fylkir ! 
fornra spjalla 

preserves a reminiscence of Vpa., i : 

fom spjgll fira^ 
pau erfremsl urn man, 

where the phrase is more suitable, since in Vpa. the sibyl 
gives information of remote ages (cf. Sijmons in Paul-Braune, 
Beitrdge^ iv, 174). ]>ursa tneyjar is found in H. H., i, 40, and 
Vpd., 8. In vglva, 37, and valkyrja^ 38, H. H., i, we have 
also references to the mythical world treated in Vpa. The 
word valkyrjur occurs in Vpd., 34. 

C. Vice versa, reminiscences of the Helgi-lay seem to have 
exerted an influence on certain names in the later redactions 
of the Vpa. Vpa., 44, which prophesies of the last days of 
the world, begins as follows : — 

Geyr Gartnr vtj^k 
fyr Gnipahelli. 

'Garm barks much (fiercely) before Gnipi-Cave.' But in 
the prose rendering of this passage the Uppsala-Edda has 
Gnipalufidi instead of Gnipahellu This change is due to the p. 15, ;/. 
influence of the expression fyr Gnipalundi, H. H., i, 40 and 
50. From the Helgi-lay, Gnipalundr passed into Jwrsteins 
saga bcsjarmagns, where it is the name of a fabulous place. 
In Vpd., 14, we read of the dwarfs : 

• 

)>eir er sSttu 
frd solar sleini. 

In the Mss. of Snorri's Edda, instead of saiar steini, we find 



siorm, IS certainly borr 
phrase can be more eas 
wade through the wate: 
Valhgll is likewise calle 

In H. H., I, 38, Sinfj 
Valkyrie in Odin's hall ' 
einherjar were ready tc 
Grfmn., 36, where Odin 
b^;ins: ' I will that Hii 
me/ and ends : < Randg 
them bear ale to the tinki 
Alffir is mentioned as < 

Of Helgi, who has ki 
H. H., I, 14 : 

fori 

* he had destroyed the \ 
enemy is thus indicated t 
In my opinion, this ke 
name given to the hei 
*Spear-NJ9rth.' We se 
it developed in oppositi 



APPENDIX II 389 

were thus designated as gods, it was natural that Helgi's 
enemies (who were regarded as despicable) should be 
described by an expression which really is suitable for one of 
the giants, the opposite of the gods. 

The designation geirmimir presupposes, therefore, on the 
other side, Grfmn., 50, where Odin says : 

SviSurr ok SviSn'r 

er ek hit at S^kmimis 

ok dulfUik }>ann enn aldna j^tun^ 

}>d er ek MffSv^nis vark 

ens mora burar 

oriSinn einn bant. 

*Svithur and Svithrir I called myself at S</>kkm(mir*s, and 
fooled the old giant, when I alone became the slayer of 
Mithvithnir his famous son.' Here, then, it is said of Odin 
that he slew the son of a giant S</>kkm{mir. It is in imitation 
of this statement that Hunding, whose sons Helgi has slain, is 
called in H. H., i, 14, * Spear-Mfmir.* ^ 

The author of the First Helgi-lay probably knew the Rigs- p. 17 
}>ula. Proof of this may be seen in the use of the word 
tgtrughypjay * the ragged woman,' which occurs in i, 43, and, 
to describe a bondwoman, in Rig., 13. 

In H. H., I, 17, dlmar signifies *bows.* The transition 

* Cf. also hJQrg e^ brimt II. H., i, 28, and bjorg ok brim^ Grfmn., 38. 
It seems to me most probable that the author of the Ilelgi-lay knew also 
the Lokasenna, In H. H., i, 37, Sinfjotli says to Guthmund : 

/// vart t*oha 
i Varinseyju^ 

where v^h*a really means a witch. The retort in the word -combat ap|)ears 
to have arisen under the influence of Lok. , 24, where Loki reminds Odin 
how he exercised witchcraft sem V£lur, and that on an island : Sdmseyju /. 
In H. H., I, 39, Sinfjotli accuses Guthmund of having borne children like a 
woman, declaring, moreover, that these children were wolves ; and on 
account of xhis ftnristi If ar is inserted in i, 40. In Lok., 23, Loki is 
accused of having borne children like a woman. Loki's son Fenrir is 
named in Lok., 38, 39. 



390 




HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 



from the meaning ' elm ' to that of ' bow ' has its explanatfl 
in Rig., 28 ; dim of bindi, i.e. 'he bent an elm (elm brane)^ 
in order, of course, to make a boiv ; cf. Rfg., 35, dim at hejQ 
' to bend an e!m ' (for a bow). The Helgi-lay doubtless p 
supposes here the pc ~ ' ;. Cf. also hjortim al 6r^ 

H, H.| I, 46, i.e. 'to SI.. ds,' with hj^rvi brd. Rig., 3 

'swung the sword.' Rfg-i d formerly the line hjgmwi 

brt^, which is wanting in 



There are a few striking 
and the First Hetgi-lay ; bu. 
I hem to determine the re'i 



rxtant manuscript. 
eemcnts between //ynJIulf 
dare not for the present a 
^e ages of the two poea 



Special investigations of both ] ems must first he made.* 

The author of the Helgi-lay was influenced hv the Lay 
\\s.y\3.nd{Voli4n.tarki-i!Sa). 'I 
H, H., I. 16. disir SK-Snviiar;- 
synonymo\is dresir siiHranar 
obvious why the maidens arc 
t I am of the opinion that 
(•(irruption <ii .rlhitc {el/,U\ 's' 
was the model of the Norse h 
carried over into the pncm 



ho battle-maidens are called 
southern women.' following l! 



IS,' in an Enylisb poem whir 

Imi in such a way thai ah'il 

Norse form, wa^ reijardt 



I In [l. H., 1, 9 «e re:ia ...f tlio youii<; llclgi : /««« g.,i/ o(- o'/^-' 

a'; jiiflK.' Ill Hi-nill., 2 wc n^ad of 0<lin : kimi gfldr ot ^tfr ^^,.'.•' -.it 
UH^i. Mai. ht,-^ -.■inli,-iim. In IE. M.. 1. 43. "ccuts /™\it- f„.n. /-■. 
i)ic name '.f a ni.inles';. In llyn.ll.. 37 fivhicli str..pl.e Ldfuj^s i" 1 
(i|iinioii of some, to a ililTeioiil |inciii, 'llie -liiitl \\.ki-|i.i '). l)ie mr 
/iWi'fintirecoirfClly /"'■■>) is given 10 iiiK' of ihe gianl-maiJeni w!i-3 
Heimdall's mntho*, ll is piobalile thai the nnmi.' from ilie out- 
lielongetl 10 that spccinl myth, ami that its use In signify a Riamt'=f 
Rcneral is Inter. It isals.isaiil in llyndl. thai I.oki has wolve* f-^r soi 
ami has liorne children like a woman. Nii-aner {Z/s<'i. f. ,1. a: 
S\>LVi, 292) puts llynrfl. in ih^- list of llio L.iiiic poem^ of ahicli : 
amhoi of the First Hel;;i-l,iy mnile most iisiv 
■■^ This phrase shouM noi, thctefotc. In my npiiiinn. he altcu'il 1.1 .. 



APPENDIX II 391 

as al'Vitr^ and brought into connection with w'/r, 'wights, 
supernatural female beings.'^ I find imitations of this ex- 
pression in Vkv. in many designations of victory-maidens : in 
alvitr^ sing., in H. H., 11, 26, which was taken to mean * a 
woman who is out and out a (supernatural) wight ' ; ^ likewise 
in hjdhnvitr^ * helmet-decked wights/ H. H., i, 54; sdrvitr, 
sing., * wound-wight,' in the same ^hiC^ \ fdlkvitr, ace. sing., 
*battle-{battalion)-wight,' Fafn., 43.^ 

The First Helgi-lay presupposes familiarity on the part of . 
its author with the verses which are united under the name 
Fdfnismdi,^ 

^ This suggestion I had made in my lectures before I read Wadstein's 
article in Uppsalasttulier^ where he explains (p. 175) Alvitr in Vkv. as 
alfitr^ 'swans,' but without supposing influence from Anglo-Saxon. Sievers 
(Paul-Braune, Beit,^ Xll, 488) thinks alvitr in Vkv. corresponds to A.S. 
ahttihte^ 'beings from elsewhere (from another world).' 

* Cf. the name of the dwarf Alfy'dfr, 

' In alvitr ar^ in the prose passage before Vkv., it was wVr, * wise,' which 
the writer had in mind. 

* We read of the young Helgi in H. H., i, 9 : p. 18, n. 

fni nam at vaxa 
fyr vifta brjSsti, 

With this cf. Fifhir's words to Sigurth in Fafn., 7 : 

ef }m vaxa nOfSir 
fyr pinna vina brj6sti, 

where the original reading certainly was : fyr vina brjdsti. 
H. H., I, 21, runs as follows : — 

^gnSgan 
dgnar IjSma 
brggnum djtf6a. 

Here ^P'^'' lj6mi certainly means 'gold.' This kenning is evidently 

borrowed from F^fn., 42, where we read of the hall in which Sigrdrffa is 

sleeping : 

}>ann hafa horskir 

halir um g2rvan 

6r 6dtf>kkum 

dgnar Ijdma. 



i' 



39^ 



h ME OF THE EDDIC ?0E 



J. 1 am d atful what to think of the relations of the First 
Helgi-Jay i, Rfginsmdl. The strophes of that poem, which 
are writien in the metre IjSSahAttr. appear at all events 
to be older than the First Helgi-lay. Vet in Reg., 14 i» 
strophe written in fornvr^islitir\ Si^rlh is called Vngiii konr, 



' Vngvi's relative,' an 
of the Helgi-lays ; fui 
of old Danish saga, bui m-i 
might, indeed, be a direct 
•Yngvi's descendant,' which 
H. H, I, ss. 
In the same strophe, Reg, 1 

'The bonds of fate are stretched out over 

expression would seem to have bucn influem 

the First Helgi-lay which describes how the N. 

under the heavens the bands which decide Hdgis fate. 

this passage occur the words '/"■/;'^/'<fV/«, ' iho threads of fa; 

and,i,W//'/ simi/, '(he golden bands.'' 

The author of the First Helgi-lay seems to have kn 
Lay of bigurth, of which only the ending is preserved 



lubttess due to the inQuence 
ly applied to Helgi, a hero 
^rih, a Frankish hero. It 
tation of lUlslafr Vngtfa, 
ied to designate Helgi in 

: read of Sigurth : I 

all lands.' This 
ly the part of 



the 



..f li 



ininfi, ll.t^ 



■\.fn, I 



[iylil, then <.\w aiilhot of ][. il., I, lui-uiulLTsinod ,\-iijr .'.■.■'■;j 

;, iliinkiiiH ih.il il mtsnt '[he gttam of llie w.iter,' i./. ' eoM,' 

[he mimes of riiMf> in Sii. K,hl:i, I, 576 we ImJ («lia; i- 

f .. which Ie,J has j»,s-». Uiit ini:i;:!i 

1^5^-1, i.e. .>/.,, .\v.m in EneUiHi. 

' Cf. als.. i/,; ";n» i-.r^ir nhjl,- „ml s,-:'i,. Keg. 14, with j-a>i; IMu/ylh 

/r..--.!<!-i !;-rSa p'.- /■:i\-ii'i-,< h t.n, PyHy.T, \l. II., 1, j. Niednei in 

ZlSih. f. il. A!t., X\XVi. 2nj, re;;niil> Ilie rclalions a; juil the oppoiile. 

' Cf. I,r<,f,. li-ab „: l„-.lf,u. >Jf ..■ Lh„ mcf',, II. II.. 1. 5, wilh ^J> 



jieilu]:* il 



II. II., 






, I*,i. 



; ;/•.// 



APPENDIX II 393 

When King Hgthbrodd sees his messengers who have p. 20. 
come to announce the arrival of the enemy, he asks (H. H., 
I, 48) : Htfi er hertn'6ar lUr \ d Hniflungum ? * Why do 
the chieftains look so sorrowful?' He thus designates the 
men here as Hnifiungar. Niflungar (originally with initial «, 
not hn ^), is properly used in the Eddie poems to describe 
the race to which Gunnar and Hggni belonged. But here in 
the Helgi-lay it is applied, with less original meaning, to 
chieftains who are at feud with the Volsungs (among whom 
Helgi is here included). 

I conjecture that the poet knew the name Niflungar from 
Atlakv^^ as well as from other poems, and the form with 
initial Hn from Gt^Hinarhvgt^ st. 12, where Guthrun tells 
how she has killed the sons which she had borne Atli. She 
says : * before I cut off the heads of the Niflungs/ The ms. 
has : apr ec hnbf hofv]> af niflungom ; but the metre shows 
that the poet must have said : 

<fCr hndfk hoftdS 
af HniJiuHgttnu 



Jtd felt hefir inn flugartraufia jqfur . . . heill skaltu^ bufilungr! /miSi 
njMa . . . sigrs ok landa^ II. II., i, 55 f, with Vel skult^ nj6ta vdpna 
ok landa . . . Lengi (MS. vel) skuluH nj6ta landa ok f^gna^ er Jn'r 
fraknan gram falla UtuH^ Brot, 8 and 10 (Niedncr in Ztsch,f. d. Alt.^ 
369 p. 293). In both cases the words are put into the mouth of a woman. 
Cf. Igndum ok f>egnum, II. H., I, 10, with landa ok f^egfta^ Brot, 10 
(but land ok pegnar are also found united in prose). 

Whether H. 11., i presupposes the Oddrtlnargrdtr^ I dare not decide 
definitely; but I think it probable. Cf. Sendi dru allvaldr^ H. H., i, 21, 
with Sendi Atli dm, Oddr. 25 ; diSOS . . . dthta verSa, H. II., I, 22, 
with d(A ek ambdttir dthtar vefiSa, Oddr. 20 (H. II j., 36 is nearer still) ; 
hringbrotar, H. H., I, 45, with hringbrota, Oddr. 22 (here the relations 
can scarcely be the opposite); }>d er borgir brant, II. H., i, 3, with 
J>d var . . . borg brot in, Oddr. 18. 

* Golther {Studien zur germ, SagengescL, p. 86) and Bj^rn 6lsen 
{Hvar eru Eddukva^in til oriSin? p. 119 f) are wrong, I believe, in 
doubting this ; but I cannot discuss the question here. 




394 f lEOFTHEEDDICPOEMS 



I. In Ati W, 88, Hniflunp- (written in the ms. with i*) 
the name Hogni's son who helps Guthniii to slay AtH. 
Here als he form with hn is perhaps taken from the 
GuSrinat ■/, ' 

There a -^'^"^ --^ 
Helgi-lay vhicti 



GuSrunarJivf/. 

The relations e 
it prohable that .... a, 
Ham^ismdL, although that c 
•. 1 conjecture also that t 
imitation of/rJ eggkrimu i: 
never occurs in prose. The 
lifipiihr iiietrc older than H. H., 
hoih poems the expressions mean 
mund figures ; hoih tell of thi 
I ,itcr skalds use hrima 



,,c»j by the author of the First 
ecture that he knew the 



the last two poems make 
he former also knew the 
trictty be proved.* 
ir/OTw, H. H., I, 7, is as 
ismdL The word l>rimt 
ksrriJf is the only poem in 
, in which it is found. In 
L 'from the battle'; in both Sig- 

fc of the eiiihfrjar in Valholl. 

the meaning of ' thunder. 



tumult,' like /.WW,;: cf. Vellekla, 

Did jirima in ri;^/,/ima really have the meaning ' vibrating 
motion ' (cf I.ith. /r/m/i= ' quiver, tremble,' and e^i;/eiir), 
which was not understood by later skalds? 

Is there any historical connection between 7-iiri eruin rimu, 
11. il., [, 25, and er viUi ri'inu vani in the Hrafnunal on 
Harald !\iirhair? In both poems it is lold directly after that 

' I-ioni iliu fnn tint HiiifliKigi ncciits m.t only in tlie Gieenljr,.i 
Altanuii, bill aUo in 1 [. II., 1, and in ihe Cu^runarhiwl, Finniir Jun^sor 
concludes (cetlnin I y wrniigly) that ihc la-;l two pnenis were compovJ in 

= The wor.l hj.'ry.;s occurs in H. 11., I, 50 an.l Gii!(r. liv.. 6. Cl, 
be^YfT vilmr at laiia mSii, Cu3r. hv., 10, with /■««<- /■iiinm at tjKi 
erM, 11. 11., I. jf*- In ■")' T™"" i^<^ .ilmvc, p. 188), c«Vw.'i.' 
OriginaUd under the inlliKnce o! g/iiriJi<rSr, Ghr. S. 

■' Cf. Nflxf in" hii-iim slJia, II. H,, I, i, with /farnSir inn hupin- 
iliii, UamC. &■, i-.liSl'OviH'^U. U..1, \:, v.\i\\gJti!-c-r„i,; HamP. 16. 



HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS 395 



APPENDIX III. (See Chap. X.) 

The Second Helgi-Lay in its Relation to 

OTHER Norse Poems. 

I. Influence of the Vglundarkvi^ on H, Hund,^ IL 

Cf. the designations of a battle-maiden in H. H., 11 : alvitr p. "i ar 
(26), su'^roen (45). Note also the uncommon adjective " 
dmunr^ 11, 11, and Vkv. 17; cf. ^augvan% n, ^S, gullvari^y 
II, 45, sjid fagrvan'iS, Vkv. 39. 

II. There is particular similarity in expressions between 
H. H., II, and the Second Guthrdn-lay. Which of the two is 
the older is still doubtful. 

In H. H., II, 38, the dead Helgi is lauded by his wife, who 
compares him to a stag ; in GuSr., 11, 2, the dead Sigurth is 
lauded by his wife and compared to a stag. Note also una 
lifi^ H. H., II, 36, GutSr., ir, 27 ; fyr vestan wr, H. H., 11, 8; 
fyr handan very Gu5r., it, 7. 

III. In H. H., II, 34 : 

CEr ertu^ systir ! 
ok <f>rvt/a, 
er /// br(tfSr Jyhtum 
hi^r forskapa 

we have a similarity, which presupposes imitation on one side 
or the other, with Vois,-saga^ chap. 5 : (Er ertu ok ^nnta^ er 
t»H bi^r braf^rum Jyinum meira bgls. These words doubtless 
read in verse : 

(Er erttit Signf ! 
ok 4>rvita, 

er }ni braHrtim bifSr 
boh nm meira. 

Was the poem on Siggeir and Sign^ the older? 

. IV. Many similarities between the Second Helgi-lay and 



APPENDIX III 



397 



and grmmu^gan, Atm., 59 ; skava% H. H., 11, 4, and 
Atm., 98. (Does Snavarr ok So/arr, Atm., 30, prc- 
« So//jei/y Snafj^ll, H. H., i, 8?) 
. The verses in the Hervararsaga seem to show the 
ice of both First and Second Lays. Cf. Hrafn . . . af 
tet^iy Herv., p. 310, with Ara/n kva^ at hrafni^ sat d 
'tetfiiy H. H., I, 5; / Munarvdgif Herv., pp. 212, 215, 
Unavdgum^ H. H., i, 31 ; gjdlfrviara^ Herv., p. 221, 
jdlfrdfr^ H. H., i, 30 ; eggja spor^ Herv., p. 308, with 
>r, H. H., II, 42 ; ccr ertu . , , ok <l>rvttaf Herv., p. 216, 
I. H., II, 34; drekka ok dcema d;frar veigar^ Herv., 
, with drekka djrar veigar^ H. H., 11, 46. 
I. The author of the Gripisspd also doubtless knew the p. i^a* 
poems. 



I NDICES^ 



I.— Index of Words and Names. 



SurU (Faroe), 235. 

M/r, 312. 

tf/wr, 17, 28-30. 

a/viir, 18, 33. 

Anarr, Onarr^ 98. 

««^» 83, 85. 

Arasfeinn, 70, 124. 

Are-, Art- (Frankish), 273 f. 

irr, 3a 

difrtkr^ 214. 

AtH^ 240 f. 

^ii9r, m. , 97. 

4aiU>', 316 f. 

barr kugins, 8, 54. 

-^j^r^ shifts with -borgy 127. 

bldmarr, 61. 

bld^rmr^ 298. 

blMrekinHf 31. 

•^ii&//r^«i(A.S.), 31. 

BrngaluMdr, 13. 

Brdlundr, 13. 

Brondey^ 124. 

Brdvgllr^ 124. 

^lyVw/ (^v riV/a brj6sti)^ 18, 28. 

^lyWa ^^^ (^^'X'V), 81 f. 



Bruttavdgar^ 124. 
bi^lungr^ 81, 301 f. 
h^Sviy 46. 

CarprCf Cairbre (Irish), 46 f. 
Chapalu (Old French), 47. 
^^/i/f«^/( Irish), 43 f. 

dagsbrtifty 214. 

-^<ftfj (Frankish), 273 f. 

<//j, 118 r. 

ddlgspar^ 120. 

^'W/, 107 f, 155. 
eisandit 70. 
-ff/j<f (M.H.G.), 231. 
iffj^^^^/y (Danish), 143. 

/a/a, 229. 

FenrisiUfry 13 f, 16. 
^i?^r, 249. 

fjgrsungr, 108 f, 155, 187. 
Fjgturlundr^ 212. 
y^V», 6, 300 f. 
fdlkvitr, 18. 
Frdnmarr^ 275. 



1 The numbers refer to the pages in the Norwegian edition— i.r. to the pagination in 
le margin of this edition. Appendix I. contains what in the original occupied pp. 



the margin 



vio; Appendix II., pp. la-at ; Appendix III., pp. laiMa^.^ When these pages, there* 
fore, are nere referred to, the Appendices shouia be examined. All words which are 



not spedally marked as belonging to some other language are Old Norse. 



399 



isiig{A.S.), 27. 
■narr, 26-28. 
n'mar, 135 f, 189. 
S.),27. 
iiimr, 302. 

rf{Iri!b).4S- 
83- 
.65- 
tfr, 65. 
Janish), 13s f. 

(Mod. Noiw. name of an 
I). 97. 

/iTarvi, Ntri, 'Nqrr (dat. 

0, 96-99- 
83- 

97- 



43- 

34- 

Danish), 1S9, 316 f. 

ir, J16 f- 

"'■.3'2.3'Sf- 
M, 4> f. 
3 f. 343- 

'fW, R^ulU'dlir, 290. 302, 

:M.H.G.), 73. 167- 



Saedeliuba (Fraokish), 264. 
Siguna, 69 f. 
salgofnir, 109-111. 
sirvitr, 18. 
iii//i> lofftjn, 154. 
-^"isrfr-* (Irish), 51. 
i'M/oii(A.S.),.73, 167 f. 
Stfa/Jill, 124 f. 30*- 
JctiV/, 166 f. 
slbianga (Irish), 44. 
i(Vd/(A.S.), 128. 
SWntt(M.H.G-), 251. 
fig;"i'-, in- 
Sigiirsvtilir, 26, 189, 3II. 
3'^inw(M.H.G.), 176. 
Sifrfij^, 300 /. 
SigrHnn, 253, 255. 
JijrriB, 176. 
sigrPjX, III f. 
sikHngr, 128 f. 
siitilgJitV, ivitulff'grH, 1 28. 
Mmu/, 248. 
SiHr/dC, 251, 300. 
jww/aii (GaeUc), Z48. 
liegg/ar, 51. 
.?*«, 237. 
skjgldttngr, 1 28. 
Snafjgtl, 104, 126. 
i'flira (Irish), 51. 

iiifif, 61 f. 

jrf/^V''. 104, '26. 

Mheimar, 64 f, 70. 

.J'r^r/aiil^W (Irish), 51. 

Sparinsheifir, 63 f, 133 f. 

Stafmnti, 124. 

SlariiOr, Slgri^ir, 157-I59- 

Slyrkliifar, 24. 

Sudiam (Irish), 50. 

siigga, 51. 

iW/fl, 266 f. 

Svif aland, 259, 263, 266. 



INDEX 



1 1 1.— Literary. 



AtlakvifSa^ xiii., 27. 
Atiamdiy xxx., 122. 
Fdffnstndiy \\\. and xlii., 18; xxx. 

320. 
Grimnismdly xxix., xxxvi., 1., 15 f. 
GutiruftarAvgt, xii., 20 ; xviii., xix., 

205 f. 
GiSriinarkvifkiy il., xvi., 129. 
Helgakvifki HJgrvariissottar — 

i., 254, 281 f., 305. 

i.-v., 250-265, 268-283. 

ii.y 281. 

iv., 282. 

v., 282. 

vi., 3i5-3»7. 
vii., 303. 

ix., 299 f, 317, 319 f. 

xii. -xxx., 220-250. 

xviii., 245. 

xix., 233-238. 

XXV., 229, 243, 324. 

xxviii., 246 f. 

xxix., 226. 

xxxi., 311, 317. 

xxxii., 6, 309. 

XXXV., 6. 

xxxvi.-xliii., 267 f. 

xxxviii., 286. 

xl., 284 f. 

xli., 285. 

xlii , 285, 302. 

xliii., 316 f. 

ffelgakvifSa Hundingsbana, i. — 

i., 14, 21, 80 f, 103 f. 

ii., 81, 95 f- 

iii., 20, 81 f. 

iv., 82,96-99, 191, 317. 

v., 19, 82-84. 

vi., 81-85, 87 f. 



rii., 21, 23-26, 82, 88 f, I 
aii., 24, 31 f, 60 f, 8 

125-127, 195, 298. 
ix., 17, 28-31, 90 f, 298. 
X., 8, 90 f, 172. 
xiL, 9 f. 

xiii., 86, 92, 124, 195. 
xiv., 15 f, 21, 70, 124. 

«v., 31 f, 179 f. 
cvi.. Q. 17. 86. 



XV., j« ., */»^ I, 

xvi., 9, 17, 86. 
xvii., 9. 
xviii., 46-48. 
XX., 143 f. 
xxi 
xxii. , 



[., 143 f. 

ti., 18-20, 40, 44 f, 52, « 
xxii., 20, 59 f, 130 f, 182. 
xxiii., 7, 45 f, 68, 137. 
xxiv., 43, 45f, 61, 131. 



f. 



xxiv., 43, 45 

XXV., 60 f. 

xxvi., 43, 61, 132, 134 f. 

xxvii., 41, 61 f, 68, 195. 

xxviiL, 16, 41. 

xxix., 41. 

XXX., 7, 41 f. 

xxxi., 61, 133 f, 193. 

xxxii., 21, 44. 

xxxiv., 133. 

xxxvi., 14, 21. 

xxxvii., 16, 132. 

xxxviii., 14 f, 54 f, 180. 

xxxix., 13 f, 16, 69 f. 

xl., 13-16, 70. 

xli., 196. 

xlii., 248. . 

xliii., 17. 




INDEX 



405 



, pp. 80 sqq,, I39-I45» 

149^, 152, 172 f. 
, pp. llSsq.y 321-336. 
, p. 122 y 310. 
, p. ISly 310. 
, pp. 200 sqq.f 196-200. 
, pp. 232, 2S7t 45, 60. 
, p. 2S8, 182 f. 
, p. 406> 157-159. 

the * Urver in the Grave ' 

landen i Graven), 206-211. 

Gralver, 73. 

fferr Hjelmer, 295-297. 

Hugaball, fj. 

f Raadengaard and the 

268-2S0. 

Ribold and Guldborg, 293- 

A.S. poem), 151 -163. 
Birth (Irish story), 74-94. 
rygi^^ 57, 68, 163. 
'etensis, 183. 
261 f. 

f Tours, 260 f, 275-278, 280. 
95, 102, 210, 275. 
toriae Francorum, 262. 
mnorum, 244. 
phi Vaticani, 209, 21 1, 

Uic,, II., 167, 240 f. 
otic, 11., 169, 234, 244, 

duchesse, 73 ff. 
Rig (Irish story of the 

^t), 37-55. 

ih story on * The Destruc- 

Troy '), 56-68, 183. 

A.S. poem), 73, 163, 171. 

ich (German poem on W. ), 

227-233, 238 f. 



Anglo-Saxon Epic Poems and Stories 
now lost, 25, 32, 74, 77.92, 151- 
158, 166-168, 171 f, 176, 227- 
233, 250-283, 295, 306 f, 339 f. 

Ballads, 215. 

Battle-maiden, 18, 33. 

Danish Epic Poems cmd Stories now 
lost, 94, 146-144, 150, 153-156, 
159, 182 f, 187, 189, 213-216, 268- 
280, 288-290, 295-297, 3x3-317. 

Eddie Poems known among Scandi- 
navian Settlers in England^ 22 f , 
286-290, 294, 296 f. 

End-rhyme, 195. 

Helgi-lays known in Iceland, 7-10. 

Helgi-lays known in the Orkneys, 

5-7, 10. 
Irish Influence on 0,N. Poetic Ex- 
pressions, 29, 35 f, 40-48, 54, 59, 
67, 109-111, 194 f, 246 f. 
Kennings and Poetic Expressions^ 
194 f— 
For Battle, 6, 9, 21. 

BcUtle-maiden, 18, 33. 

Billow, 41, 61. 

Blood, 9. 

Bow, 17, 337. 

Corpse, 8, 35 f, 54, 86. 

Earth, 28. 

Gold, 18 f. 

Heart, 5 f , 1 1. 

Heavens and Air, 31 f, 112. 

King, 8, 33, 36 f, 81, 128. 

Man, hero, 7, 1 5 f, 28-30, 
316 f. 

Shield, 337. 

Ship, 7, 9. 

Sword, 298, 337 f. 

Wolf, 6, 86. 
Poems with Prose and Verse com- 
bifud, 216 f, 298. 



INDEX 



407 



153 f, 157-159. 
2-304- 
f» 319. 

(the Prankish)^, 70-73, 

, 304-306. 

(the East Gothic), 71-73, 
238 f, 304-306. 
1-326. 

See Odysseus. 
, Battle-maidens ^ Victory- 



maidens, 5, 10, 14 f, 18, 33, 54, 
66 f, 80 f, 92, 174-184, 186, 
200-206, 214, 218 f, 240, 245- 
247, 206 f, 214, 218 f, 240, 245- 
247, 266 f, 284, 302 f. 

Walter and Hildegund, 290-295. 

Wolfdietrichy 70-94, 176, 227-233, 
238-240, 252, 265. 

pSrgeriSr Hglgabnmr, 321-338. 



ITORIES, AND THE MOTIVES IN THEM AND 

IN THE Poems. 



^tell a herd's fate, 88. 

^alhgll, 109-111, 208. 

ic stories, 97 f. 

S8-278. 

'rembles under riders, 

132-135. 138 f, 141-144, 
3, 157159, 263, 315, 321. 

5. 333 f- 
:endants of), 109. 

stories, 70-94, 1 66- 1 68, 
H-206, 227-233, 250-283, 

ace oO> 92. 

', 116 f. 

led cows, 282. 



Love stimulated before the Icved-one 
! is seen, 178, 182 f. 
j Obscure speeches and plays on words, 
I 198-200. 
Place-natnes (fantastic and poetic), 

31 f, 103 f, 107, 123-126, 281 f, 

290, 302. 
Radiance gleaming from armed 

knights, 179. 
Rebirth, 305 f. 
Roe-deer, 11 3- 115. 
Serpent-swords, 298-300. 
Swineherds, 117 f. 
Tears (bloody), 119, 207 f. 
Thralls in Valhgll, 169 f. 
Three Nines, 246 f. 
Thunder attd storm at a herds birth, 
rs under good kings, 88 f, ' 80. 

Transfortnation of trolls into stone, 

222, 235 f. 
Tree (hero compared to a), 28 f, 

316 f. 
Troll-mist, 320 f. 
Valhgll, 169 f, 203, 207-209, 212. 
Vglsung-stories (in connection with 

Helgi Hundingsboni), 173 f, 204- 



XN, poetry, 112- 1 15. 
;, 1 16 f. 

wr (story of the), 145, 
181-183, 204, 307-310, 

Youth (Earthly Paradise), 



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