iilifcirtMlstedfiLiW' This compilation © Phoenix E-Books UK d^rtmnt 3Ltbratj> No. II THE HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS The Home of The Eddie Poems WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE HELGI-LAYS BY ^4) q^y Sophus Bugge PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHRISTIANIA REVISED EDITION WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION CONCERNING Old Norse Mythology BY THE AUTHOR TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN BY William Henry Schofield INSTRUCTOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY London : Published by David Nutt in the Strand^ 1899 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 OF THE VALUE OF EARLY SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM AND AFFECTION BY THE AUTHOR AND THE TRANSLATOR TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE It was during the winter of 1896- 1897, which I had the pleasure of spending in Christiania, that Professor Bugge suggested my preparing an English edition of his Helge-Digtene i den y^ldre Edda, Deres Hjem og Forbindelser, which had appeared but a few months be- fore. I accepted his suggestion readily; and, Mr. Alfred Nutt having expressed his willingness to publish the book because of his personal interest in the subject, I began to work on the translation at once, that I might have the benefit of the author's counsel in matters about which I was myself uncertain, or with regard to which changes might seem advisable. Such counsel was always freely given, and the translation advanced rapidly ; so that before I left for Copen- hagen in the spring a first draft of the book was finished, and had been examined by the author. Since then, this draft has been carefully revised ; and, while the book has been in the press, three persons have each read the proof two or three times. It is hoped, therefore, that the number of misprints which may be discovered in the text will be inconsiderable. viii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS A word of explanation is necessary regarding the metliod 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 }> 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 {-I, -n) of the nominative case has been dropped, except in words ending in -ir, 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 Skjgldungasaga. The quantity of 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- ' TRANSLATOR'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 motiv, 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, FebrtMry 1899. CONTENTS PAGE Translator's Preface, . vii Introduction, ...... xiii CHAPTER I. Introductory . Remarks, . i II. The Helgi-Lays in their Relation to Later Old Norse Skaldic Poems, ... 5 III. The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani in its Relation 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 Ria, . 28 VI. The First Helgi-Lay and the Irish Tale of THE Destruction of Troy, . -5° 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 XI. Helgi Hundingsbani a Danish King, . ia6 XII. Helgi Hundingsbani in Saxo and in the Eddic Poems, ....... 144 XIII. The Account of Helgi Hundingsbani in its Relation to Anglo-Saxon Epics, . • iSS xii HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS CHAPTER PAGE XIV. Helgi Hundingsbani in his Relation to the WOLFINGS, HUNDING, THE VQLSUNGS, AND SIGRiJn, I73 XV. Concluding Remarks on the First Helgi-Lay, . 196 XVI. The Helgi- Lays and the Story of Eric the Eloquent, ...... 209 XVII. The Poem on the Death of Helgi Hundings- bani and Sigrt5n, ..... 214 XVIII. The Story of King Hjqrvarth and his Son Helgi, ....... 234 XIX. The Meeting of the Mermaid HrImgerth with Atli and Helgi Hjqrvarthsson, . 236 XX. HjpRVARTH AND SiGRLINN, . .271 XXI. Atli's Two Encounters with a Supernatural Bird, ....... 290 XXII. The Helgi-Poems and the Ballads of Ribold and of Hjelmer, ..... 308 XXIII, Concluding Remarks on the Lay of Helgi HjgRVARTHSSON, ..... 324 XXIV. Saxo's Account of Regner and Swanwhite, . 348 XXV. SvAfA and TH(5rGERTH HQLGABRtJTH, . 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, ..... 385 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., Hel, the abode of the dead, Ut^r (A.S. Wyrd), who controls the fate of mortals, dlfar (elves), risar (giants), jgtnar (giants), dvergar (dwarfs), vcettir (wights), etc., etc. ' German translation by Professor Oscar Brenner, Munich, 1889. xiii xiv HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS Many of the gods worshipped among the Scandi- navians were known and worshipped likewise among the West-Germanic peoples—particularly the chief gods, like Odin, Frigg, Thor, Tyr, but still others as well. The different Germanic peoples ascribed to these several gods, to some extent, the same activity and attributes ; they placed some of them in the same relations to one another, and associated not a few closely related stories with their names. But in the First Series of my Studies I have strongly emphasised the fact that we find in the two Edda-collections whole series of names of gods and giants unknown to German and English races ; and that in these collections there is a very large number of stories and conceptions which cannot have arisen under primitive Germanic conditions of culture. The history of the world, for instance, is narrated in mythological language in a way entirely unknown to the early Germanic races.