Stories and Ballads of the Far Past Part 10

And Blind said that he dreamed he saw many hawks perched on a house--"And there I espied your falcon, Sire. He was all bare and stripped of his feathers."

The King said: "A wind will come from the clouds and shake our castle."

Blind related a third dream as follows.

"I saw a herd of swine running from the south towards the King's hall and rooting up the earth with their snouts."

The King said: "That signifies the flood-tide, wet weather, and gra.s.s springing from moisture, when the sun s.h.i.+nes on the heath."

Blind related a fourth dream:

"I thought I saw a terrible giant come hither from the east; he gave you a great wound with his teeth."

The King said: "Messengers from some King will come into my hall. They will provoke enmity and I shall be angered thereby."

"Here is a fifth dream," said Blind; "I dreamed that a terrible serpent lay coiled round Sweden."

"A splendid wars.h.i.+p will land here, loaded with jewels," said the King.

"I had a sixth dream," said Blind; "I dreamed that dark clouds came over the land with claws and wings, and flew away with thee, O King; and I dreamed moreover that there was a serpent in the house of Hagal the peasant. He attacked people in a terrible manner. He devoured both you and me and all the men belonging to the court. Now what can that signify?"

The King said: "I have heard that there is a bear lurking not far from Hagal's dwelling. I will go and attack the bear, and it will be in a great rage."

"Next I dreamed that a dragon's form had been drawn round the King's hall, and Hromund's belt was hanging from it."

The King said: "You know that Hromund lost his sword and belt in the lake; and are you afraid of Hromund after that?"

Blind dreamed yet more dreams which he told to the King; and the King interpreted them all to his liking, and none of them according to their real significance.

But now Blind related one more dream--this time one which concerned himself.

"I dreamed that an iron ring was fixed round my neck."

The King said: "The meaning of this dream is that you are going to be hanged; and that will be the end of both of us."

X. After that King Olaf gathered together an army and went to Sweden.

Hromund accompanied him, and they took the hall of King Hadding by surprise. He was in bed in an outer chamber, and was not aware of their presence till they smashed in the door of his room. Hadding shouted to his men and asked who was disturbing the peace of the night. Hromund told him who they were.

The King said: "You are anxious to avenge your brothers."

Hromund said that he had not come to waste words about the death of his brothers, adding--"Now you will have to pay for it and perish on the spot."

Then one of King Hadding's champions, as big as a giant, leapt up; but Hromund slew him. King Hadding covered himself up in bed and got no wound, because every time Hromund cut down at him, the sword turned and came down flat on him. Then Hromund took a club and beat King Hadding to death.

Then said Hromund: "Here I have laid low King Hadding, the most famous man I have ever seen."

The man Blind, who was also called Bavis, was bound and then hanged; and so his dream was fulfilled.

They got a quant.i.ty of gold and other booty there, and then went home. King Olaf married Svanhvit to Hromund. They were devoted to one another, and had a family of sons and daughters; they were people of great distinction in every respect. Kings and great champions sprang from their stock.

Here ends the Saga of Hromund Greipsson.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SAGA OF HERVoR AND HEITHREK

The _Saga of Hervor and Heithrek_ is found in two vellums, the _Hauksbok_ (A.M. 544), dating from c. 1325, which for convenience is usually called _H_; and MS. 2845[1] in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, dating from the fifteenth century, and generally called _R_. Besides these there are a number of paper MSS. (h) dating from the seventeenth century. According to Bugge[2], these have no independent value and can contribute nothing to our knowledge of the text up to the point at which the vellums break off. They are useful however as continuing the Saga beyond this point. _H_ comes to an end with Gestumblindi's second riddle, while _R_ breaks off just before the close of ch. 12. Beyond this point we are entirely dependent on the paper MSS. One of these (A.M. 345 written in 1694) was adopted by Rafn[3] as the text for his edition of the Saga, though he gives _H_ in full as an Appendix.

The MSS. differ considerably among themselves. For instance _R_ omits the first chapter of the Saga, but contains _Hjalmar's Death Song_.

Here, too, many of the riddles are wanting, and the order of the rest is quite different from that of _h_. Finnur Jonsson[4] is of the opinion that _R_ is the best text throughout; but Heusler[5], like Valdimar asmundarson, keeps the order of the riddles as in _h_.

Petersen[6] regards _H_ as the best text and follows it so far as it goes; but when it breaks off he follows _R_ mainly, although he considers the latter MS. to be defective in many places, "at the beginning, middle and end." He has supplied the lacunae in it from Arn. Magn. 192, the paper MS. which comes nearest to it, and also from others but with greater reservation. Valdimar asmundarson, like Petersen, and no doubt influenced by him, has followed _H_ very closely in his edition of the Saga[7] till it breaks off, and after that the paper MSS. (_h_) most closely related to it. He does not appear to have used _R_, and therefore omits the details of the fight on Sams and _Hjalmar's Death Song_. asmundarson's version has been followed closely in the translation given below, but one or two interesting pa.s.sages omitted by _H_ have been translated separately (see Appendix on pp. 144-150) from the text printed from _R_ in Wimmer's _Oldnordisk Laesebog_[8] and from some short excerpts from _h_ printed at the close of Petersen's edition of the Saga.

For a full bibliography of the texts, translations, and literature dealing with this saga the reader is referred to _Islandica_, Vol. V, pp. 22-26.

In this saga we have what appears to be the history of a certain family for more than four generations. From the point of view of construction, the story can hardly be regarded as a success. Yet it contains scenes at least equal to any others which can be found among sagas of this kind. It also embodies a considerable amount of poetry which is not found elsewhere. Some of this is of high merit, and one piece, dealing with the battle between the Huns and the Goths, is evidently of great antiquity.

The Saga opens in a purely mythical milieu--with Guthmund in Glasisvellir, to whom we have already had reference in the story of Nornagest. Next we have a typical story of the Viking Age--the adventures of the sons of Arngrim and their fight on Sams. This story is known to us from other sources, the earliest being the poem _Hyndluljoth_ (str. 24), which according to Finnur Jonsson[9] cannot be later in date than the latter part of the tenth century, though Mogk[10] is inclined to doubt this. Other references occur in the _Saga of orvar-Odd_, Saxo's _Danish History_, the later ballads translated below, etc.

We then pa.s.s on to the account of Hervor, the daughter of Angantyr (which is only found here and in the ballads), and the striking poem in which she is represented as visiting her father's grave-mound to obtain his sword.

The next and longest section contains the life of Hervor's son Heithrek, which is peculiar to this saga and which in its earlier part likewise seems to be a story of the Viking Age. Towards the end, however, it gradually dawns upon us that there has been an unconscious change of scene, and that Heithrek instead of being a Viking prince of the Northern coasts, is now represented as a King of the Goths, somewhere in the East of Europe--apparently in the neighbourhood of the Dnieper. In the last section of the story, dealing with the adventures of Angantyr and Hloth, the sons of Heithrek, there is no longer any reminiscence of the Viking Age or the North of Europe. Here we are away back among the Goths and Huns in the fifth or the latter part of the fourth century.

Throughout this strange concatenation of scenes a connecting link is afforded by the magic flaming sword, which is handed on from generation to generation, and which can never be sheathed without having dealt a death wound.

It is abundantly clear that the latter part of the story is of a totally different origin from the first part, and in reality many centuries earlier. The prose here is for the most part little more than a paraphrase of the poem, which probably has its roots in poetry of the Gothic period. But how this story came to be joined on to a narrative of the Viking Age is far from clear.

It is also interesting to note that some of the characters in the saga are repet.i.tions of one another. At all events what is said about Hervor the daughter of Heithrek in the latter part of the story bears a strong resemblance to the description of the more prominent Hervor, the daughter of Angantyr, in the first part.

Three poems of considerable length are preserved in the story. The Riddles of Gestumblindi, though somewhat tedious as a whole, afford a better specimen of this type of composition than is to be found elsewhere in early Norse literature. They cannot fail to be of considerable interest to anyone who studies the Anglo-Saxon Riddles, though unlike the latter they are wholly Teutonic in spirit and form.

Direct Latin influence appears to be entirely absent.

Gestumblindi's Riddles, while they belong essentially to popular literature, yet contain many arresting phrases which show a minute observation of nature. They ill.u.s.trate the condensed, proverbial type of wisdom that prevails in a primitive state of society, as well as its keen interest and delight in the little things of life. They can hardly be called literature as we understand the term; they are rather the stuff of which literature is made. But though it is a far cry from these little nature verses to the more beautiful and more ambitious nature poems of Burns and Tennyson, yet Gestumblindi's loving interest in "every creature of earth" surprised even King Heithrek into comment. The keen and whimsical observation that noted that even a spider is a "marvel" and that it "carries its knees higher than its body" is the same spirit that inspired a poem to the

Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie.

The poet who noticed that water falling as hail on rock looks _white_ by contrast, yet forms little _black_ circles when it falls into the sand as rain, had much in common with one who noticed that rock and sand yield opposite sounds when struck by the same object--

Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoed away.

But though these things are pleasing in themselves, they are, of course, slight. Gestumblindi cannot rise to the heights of true poetry reached by Burns or Tennyson.

Besides the Riddles, this saga has preserved for us two far finer poems--in fact two of the finest Norse poems that we possess--the dialogue between Hervor and Angantyr at the Barrows of Sams, and the narrative of the great battle between the Goths and the Huns, the _Chevy Chase_ of the North. The ruthlessness and barbaric splendour of the Hunnish leaders, the cruelty and the poetry of warfare a thousand years ago, are here vividly depicted in Norse verse at its simplest and best.

We may notice too the little vignettes that appear from time to time both in the poetry itself and in the prose narrative, some of which is evidently derived from lost verses.--Hervor standing at sunrise on the summit of the tower and looking southward towards the forest; Angantyr marshalling his men for battle and remarking drily that there used to be more of them when mead drinking was in question; great clouds of dust rolling over the plain, through which glittered white corslet and golden helmet, as the Hunnish host came riding on.

The dialogue between Hervor and Angantyr, despite a certain melodramatic element in the setting, is treated with great delicacy and poetic feeling, and an atmosphere of terror and mystery pervades the whole poem. The midnight scene in the eerie and deserted burial-ground, the lurid flickering of the grave fires along the lonely beach, the tombs opening one by one as the corpses start to life--all these work on the imagination and create an atmosphere of dread. The poet understood the technique of presenting the supernatural, and he is deliberately vague and suggestive. Much more is implied than is stated, and much is left to the imagination.