Read Ebook: The Edda Volume 2 The Heroic Mythology of the North Popular Studies in Mythology Romance and Folklore No. 13 by Faraday L Winifred

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He is unwilling: "The man is foolish who comes here alone in the dark shade of night: fire is flickering, howes are opening, field and fen are aflame," and flees into the woods, but Herv?r is dauntless and goes on alone. She reaches the howes, and calls on the sons of Arngrim:

"Awake, Angantyr! Herv?r calls thee, only daughter to thee and Tofa. Give me from the howe the keen sword which the dwarfs forged for Svafrlami, Hervard, Hj?rvard, Hrani, Angantyr! I call you all from below the tree-roots, with helm and corselet, with sharp sword, shield and harness, and reddened spear."

Angantyr denies that the sword is in his howe: "Neither father, son, nor other kinsmen buried me; my slayers had Tyrfing;" but Herv?r does not believe him. "Tell me but truth.... Thou art slow to give thine only child her heritage." He tries to frighten her back to the ships by describing the sights she will see, but she only cries again, "Give me Hjalmar's slayer from the howe, Angantyr!"

A. "Hjalmar's slayer lies under my shoulders; it is all wrapped in fire; I know no maid on earth who dare take that sword in her hands."

H. "I will take the sharp sword in my hands, if I can get it: I fear no burning fire, the flame sinks as I look on it."

A. "Foolish art thou, Herv?r the fearless, to rush into the fire open-eyed. I will rather give thee the sword from the howe, young maid; I cannot refuse thee."

H. "Thou dost well, son of vikings, to give me the sword from the howe. I think its possession better than to win all Norway."

Her father warns her of the curse, and the doom that the sword will bring, and she leaves the howes followed by his vain wish: "Would that I could give thee the lives of us twelve, the strength and energy that we sons of Arngrim left behind us!"

It is unnecessary here to continue the story as the saga does, working out the doom over later generations; over Herv?r's son Heidrek, who forfeited his head to Odin in a riddle-contest, and over his children, another Angantyr, Hlod, and a second Herv?r. The verse sources for this latter part are very corrupt.

The motives of heroic tales are limited in number and more or less common to different races. Heroic cycles differ as a rule merely in their choice or combination of incidents, not in the nature of their material. The origin of these heroic motives may generally be found in primitive custom or conditions of life, seized by an imaginative people and woven into legend; sometimes linked to the name of some dead tribal hero, just as the poets of a later date wound the same traditions in still-varying combinations round the names of Gretti Asmundarson and Gold-Thori; though often the hero is, like the Gods, born of the myth. In the latter case, the story is pure myth; in the former it is legend, or a mixture of history and legend, as in the Ermanric and Dietrich tales, which have less interest for the mythologist.

Marriage with alien wives, which in the case of the Mastermaid story has been postulated as means of transmission and as the one possible explanation of its nearly universal diffusion, may perhaps with more simplicity be assumed as the common basis in custom for independently arising myths of this type. The attempts of the bride's kindred to prevent the marriage, and of the bridegroom's to undo it, would be natural incidents in such a story, and the magic powers employed by and against the bride would be the mythical representatives of the mutually unfamiliar customs of alien tribes. This theory at least offers a credible explanation of the hero's temporary oblivion of or unfaithfulness to his protectress, after their successful escape together.

In the Valkyrie-brides, Brynhild and Sigrun, with their double attributes of fighting and wisdom, there is an evident connexion with the Germanic type of woman preserved in the allusions of Caesar and Tacitus, which reaches its highest development in the heroines of the Edda. Any mythical or ideal conception of womanhood combines the two primitive instincts, love and fighting, even though the woman may be only the innocent cause of strife, or its passive prize. The peculiarity of the Germanic representation is that the woman is never passive, but is herself the incarnation of both instincts. Even if she is not a Valkyrie, nor taking part herself in the fight, she is ready, like the wives of the Cimbri, to drive the men back to the battle from which they have escaped. Hild and Herv?r are at one extreme: war is their spiritual life. Love is in Hild nothing more than instinct; in Herv?r it is not even that: she would desire nothing from marriage beyond a son to inherit the sword. At the other extreme is Sigrun, who has the warlike instinct, but is spiritually a lover as completely and essentially as Isolde or Juliet. The interest in Signy lies in the way in which she sacrifices what are usually considered the strongest feminine instincts, without, however, by any means abandoning them, to her uncompromising revenge and pride of race. Her pride in her son seems to include something of both trains of feeling; and she dies with the husband she detests, simply because he is her husband. Brynhild, lastly, is a highly modern type, as independent in love as in war. It is impossible to imagine Sigrun, or Wagner's Sieglinde, taking her revenge on a faithless lover; from no lack of spirit, but simply because revenge would have given no comfort to either. To Brynhild it is not only a distinct relief, but the only endurable end; she can forgive when she is avenged.

The other motives of these stories may be briefly enumerated. The burning of Brynhild and Signy, and Sigrun's entrance into the howe, are mythical reminiscences of widow-burial. The "sister's son" is preserved in the Sigmund and Sinfj?tli tale, which also has a trace of animism in the werwolf episode. The common swanmaid motive occurs in two, the V?lund story and the legend of Helgi and Kara; while the first Helgi tale suggests the Levirate in the proposed marriage of Svava to her husband's brother. The waverlowe of the Volsung myth may be traced back to the midsummer fires; the wooing of Brynhild by Sigurd's crossing the fire would thus, like the similar bridal of Menglad and Svipdag and the winning of Gerd for Frey, be based on the marriages which formed a part of agricultural rites.

Bibliographical Notes

To avoid confusion, and in view of the customary loose usage of the word "saga," it may be as well to state that it is here used only in its technical sense of a prose history.

Dr. Rydberg formulates a theory identifying V?lund with Thiazi, the giant who carried off Idunn. It is based chiefly on arguments from names and other philological considerations, and gives perhaps undue weight to the authority of Saxo. It is difficult to see any fundamental likenesses in the stories.

As divided in most editions the poems connected with the Volsung cycle, including the two on Ermanric, are fifteen in number:

Editions by Bartsch and Zarncke ; translation into modern German by Simrock.

In a recently published pamphlet by Mr. W.W. Lawrence and Dr. W.H. Schofield it is suggested that the so-called First Riddle in the Exeter Book is in reality an Anglo-Saxon translation of a Norse "Complaint" spoken by the Volsung Signy. Evidence from metre and form is all in favour of this view, and the poem bears the interpretation without any straining of the meaning. Dr. Schofield's second contention, that the poem thus interpreted is evidence for the theory of a British origin for the Eddie poems, is not equally convincing. The existence in Anglo-Saxon of a translation from the Norse is no proof that any of the Eddie poems, or even the original Norse "Signy's Lament" postulated by Dr. Schofield, were composed in the West.

It seems unnecessary to suppose, with Dr. Schofield, an influence of British legend on the Volsung story. The points in which the story of Sigmund resembles that of Arthur and differs from that of Theseus prove nothing in the face of equally strong points of correspondence between Arthur and Theseus which are absent from the Volsung story.

Munch ingeniously identified the old man with Odin, come in person to conduct Sinfj?tli to Valhalla, since he would otherwise have gone to Hel, not having fallen in battle; a stratagem quite in harmony with Odin's traditional character.

The Helgi Lays stand before the Volsung set in the MS.; I treat them later for the sake of greater clearness.

It is possible that the werwolf story is a totem survival. If so, the Hunding feud might easily belong to it: dogs are the natural enemies of wolves. It is curious that the Irish werwolf Cormac has a feud with MacCon , which means the same as Hunding. This story, which has not been printed, will be found in the Bodleian MS. Laud, 610.

Told in Saxo, Book ii. Snorri has a bare allusion to it.

The Helgi story, in all its variants, is as familiar in Danish as in Border ballads. The distribution of the material in Iceland, Denmark, England and Scotland is strongly in favour of the presumption that Scandinavian legend influenced England and Scotland, and against the presumption that the poems in question passed from the British Isles to Iceland. The evidence of the Danish ballads should be conclusive on this point. There is an English translation of the latter by R.C.A. Prior .

Angantyr's death is related by Saxo, Book v., with entire exclusion of all mythical interest.

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