Epic and Romance Part 5

The series is broken by a gap in which the poems dealing with some of the most important parts of the story have been lost. The matter of their contents is known from the prose paraphrase called _Volsunga Saga_. Before the Volsung series comes a number of poems chiefly mythological: the _Sibyl's Prophecy_, (Volospa); _the Wooing of Frey_, or the _Errand of Skirnir_; the _Flyting of Thor and Woden_ (Harbarzlio); _Thor's Fis.h.i.+ng for the Midgarth Serpent_ (Hymiskvia); the _Railing of Loki_ (Lokasenna); the _Winning of Thor's Hammer_ (rymskvia); the _Lay of Weland_. There are also some didactic poems, chief among them being the gnomic miscellany under the t.i.tle _Havamal_; while besides this there are others, like _Vafrunismal_, treating of mythical subjects in a more or less didactic and mechanical way. There are a number of prose pa.s.sages introducing or linking the poems. The confusion in some parts of the book is great.

_Codex Regius_ is not the only source; other mythic and heroic poems are found in other ma.n.u.scripts. The famous poem of the _Doom of Balder_ (Gray's "Descent of Odin"); the poem of the _Rescue of Menglad_, the enchanted princess; the verses preserved in the _Heireks Saga_, belonging to the story of Angantyr; besides the poem of the _Magic Mill_ (Grottasongr) and the _Song of the Dart_ (Gray's "Fatal Sisters"). There are many fragmentary verses, among them some from the _Biarkamal_, a poem with some curious points of likeness to the English _Lay of Finnesburh_. A Swedish inscription has preserved four verses of an old poem on Theodoric.

Thus there is some variety in the original doc.u.ments now extant out of the host of poems that have been lost. One conclusion at least is irresistible--that, in guessing at the amount of epic poetry of this order which has been lost, one is justified in making a liberal estimate. Fragments are all that we possess. The extant poems have escaped the deadliest risks; the fire at Copenhagen in 1728, the bombardment in 1807, the fire in the Cotton Library in 1731, in which _Beowulf_ was scorched but not burned. The ma.n.u.scripts of _Finnesburh_ and _Maldon_ have been mislaid; but for the transcripts taken in time by Hickes and Hearne they would have been as little known as the songs that the Sirens sang. The poor remnants of _Waldere_ were found by Stephens in two sc.r.a.ps of bookbinders' parchment.

When it is seen what hazards have been escaped by those bits of wreckage, and at the same time how distinct in character the several poems are, it is plain that one may use some freedom in thinking of the amount of this old poetry that has perished.

The loss is partly made good in different ways: in the Latin of the historians, Jordanes, Paulus Diaconus, and most of all in the paraphrases, prose and verse, by Saxo Grammaticus; in Ekkehard's Latin poem of _Waltharius_ (_c._ A.D. 930); in the _Volsunga Saga_, which has kept the matter of the lost poems of _Codex Regius_ and something of their spirit; in the _Thidreks Saga_, a prose story made up by a Norwegian in the thirteenth century from current North German ballads of the Niblungs; in the German poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which, in a later form of the language and in rhyming verse, have preserved at any rate some matters of tradition, some plots of stories, if little of the peculiar manner and imagination of the older poetry.

The casual references to Teutonic heroic subjects in a vast number of authors have been brought together in a monumental work, _die deutsche Heldensage_, by Wilhelm Grimm (1829).

THE WESTERN GROUP

_Hildebrand_, _Finnesburh_, _Waldere_, _Beowulf_, _Byrhtnoth_

The Western group of poems includes all those that are not Scandinavian; there is only one among them which is not English, the poem of _Hildebrand_. They do not afford any very copious material for inferences as to the whole course and progress of poetry in the regions to which they belong. A comparison of the fragmentary _Hildebrand_ with the fragments of _Waldere_ shows a remarkable difference in compa.s.s and fulness; but, at the same time, the vocabulary and phrases of _Hildebrand_ declare that poem unmistakably to belong to the same family as the more elaborate _Waldere_.

_Finnesburh_, the fragmentary poem of the lost Lambeth MS., seems almost as far removed as _Hildebrand_ from the more expansive and leisurely method of _Waldere_; while _Waldere_, _Beowulf_, and the poem of _Maldon_ resemble one another in their greater ease and fluency, as compared with the brevity and abruptness of _Hildebrand_ or _Finnesburh_. The doc.u.ments, as far as they go, bear out the view that in the Western German tongues, or at any rate in England, there was a development of heroic poetry tending to a greater amplitude of narration. This progress falls a long way short of the fulness of Homer, not to speak of the extreme diffuseness of some of the French _Chansons de Geste_. It is such, however, as to distinguish the English poems, _Waldere_, _Beowulf_, and _Byrhtnoth_, very obviously from the poem of _Hildebrand_. While, at the same time, the brevity of _Hildebrand_ is not like the brevity of the Northern poems.

_Hildebrand_ is a poem capable of expansion. It is easy enough to see in what manner its outlines might be filled up and brought into the proportions of _Waldere_ or _Beowulf_. In the Northern poems, on the other hand, there is a lyrical conciseness, and a broken emphatic manner of exposition, which from first to last prevented any such increase of volume as seems to have taken place in the old English poetry; though there are some poems, the _Atlamal_ particularly, which indicate that some of the Northern poets wished to go to work on a larger scale than was generally allowed them by their traditions.

In the Northern group there is a great variety in respect of the amount of incident that goes to a single poem; some poems deal with a single adventure, while others give an abstract of a whole heroic history. In the Western poems this variety is not to be found. There is a difference in this respect between _Hildebrand_ and _Waldere_, and still more, at least on the surface, between _Hildebrand_ and _Beowulf_; but nothing like the difference between the _Lay of the Hammer_ (rymskvia), which is an episode of Thor, and the _Lay of Weland_ or the _Lay of Brynhild_, which give in a summary way a whole history from beginning to end.

_Hildebrand_ tells of the encounter of father and son, Hildebrand and Hadubrand, with a few references to the past of Hildebrand and his relations to Odoacer and Theodoric. It is one adventure, a tragedy in one scene.

_Finnesburh_, being incomplete at the beginning and end, is not good evidence. What remains of it presents a single adventure, the fight in the hall between Danes and Frisians. There is another version of the story of _Finnesburh_, which, as reported in _Beowulf_ (ll. 1068-1154) gives a good deal more of the story than is given in the separate _Finnesburh Lay_. This episode in _Beowulf_, where a poem of _Finnesburh_ is chanted by the Danish minstrel, is not to be taken as contributing another independent poem to the scanty stock; the minstrel's story is reported, not quoted at full length. It has been reduced by the poet of _Beowulf_, so as not to take up too large a place of its own in the composition. Such as it is, it may very well count as direct evidence of the way in which epic poems were produced and set before an audience; and it may prove that it was possible for an old English epic to deal with almost the whole of a tragic history in one sitting. In this case the tragedy is far less complex than the tale of the Niblungs, whatever interpretation may be given to the obscure allusions in which it is preserved.

Finn, son of Folcwalda, king of the Frisians, entertained Hnaef the Dane, along with the Danish warriors, in the castle of Finnesburh.

There, for reasons of his own, he attacked the Danes; who kept the hall against him, losing their own leader Hnaef, but making a great slaughter of the Frisians.

The _Beowulf_ episode takes up the story at this point.

Hnaef was slain in the place of blood. His sister Hildeburg, Finn's wife, had to mourn for brother and son.

Hengest succeeded Hnaef in command of the Danes and still kept the hall against the Frisians. Finn was compelled to make terms with the Danes.

Hengest and his men were to live among the Frisians with a place of their own, and share alike with Finn's household in all the gifts of the king. Finn bound himself by an oath that Hengest and his men should be free of blame and reproach, and that he would hold any Frisian guilty who should cast it up against the Danes that they had followed their lord's slayer.[19] Then, after the oaths, was held the funeral of the Danish and the Frisian prince, brother and son of Hildeburg the queen.

[Footnote 19: Compare _Cynewulf and Cyneheard_ in the Chronicle (A.D.

755); also the outbreak of enmity, through recollection of old wrongs, in the stories of Alboin, and of the vengeance for Froda (_supra_, pp.

68-70).]

Then they went home to Friesland, where Hengest stayed with Finn through the winter. With the spring he set out, meaning vengeance; but he dissembled and rendered homage, and accepted the sword the lord gives his liegeman. Death came upon Finn in his house; for the Danes came back and slew him, and the hall was made red with the Frisian blood. The Danes took Hildeburg and the treasure of Finn and carried the queen and the treasure to Denmark.

The whole story, with the exception of the original grievance or grudge of the Frisian king, which is not explained, and the first battle, which is taken as understood, is given in _Beowulf_ as the contents of one poem, delivered in one evening by a harper. It is more complicated than the story of _Hildebrand_, more even than _Waldere_; and more than either of the two chief sections of _Beowulf_ taken singly--"Beowulf in Denmark" and the "Fight with the Dragon." It is far less than the plot of the long _Lay of Brynhild_, in which the whole Niblung history is contained. In its distribution of the action, it corresponds very closely to the story of the death of the Niblungs as given by the _Atlakvia_ and the _Atlamal_. The discrepancies between these latter poems need not be taken into account here. In each of them and in the _Finnesburh_ story there is a double climax; first the wrong, then the vengeance. _Finnesburh_ might also be compared, as far as the arrangement goes, with the _Song of Roland_; the first part gives the treacherous attack and the death of the hero; then comes a pause between the two centres of interest, followed in the second part by expiation of the wrong.

The story of _Finnesburh_ is obscure in many respects; the tradition of it has failed to preserve the motive for Finn's attack on his wife's brother, without which the story loses half its value.

Something remains, nevertheless, and it is possible to recognise in this episode a greater regard for unity and symmetry of narrative than is to be found in _Beowulf_ taken as a whole.

The Lambeth poem of _Finnesburh_ most probably confined itself to the battle in the hall. There is no absolute proof of this, apart from the intensity of its tone, in the extant fragment, which would agree best with a short story limited, like _Hildebrand_, to one adventure. It has all the appearance of a short lay, a single episode. Such a poem might end with the truce of Finn and Hengest, and an antic.i.p.ation of the Danes' vengeance:

It is marvel an the red blood run not, as the rain does in the street.

Yet the stress of this adventure is not greater than that of Roland, which does not end at Roncesvalles; it may be that the _Finnesburh_ poem went on to some of the later events, as told in the _Finnesburh_ abridgment in _Beowulf_.

The story of Walter of Aquitaine as represented by the two fragments of old English verse is not greatly inconsistent with the same story in its Latin form of _Waltharius_. The Latin verses of _Waltharius_ tell the story of the flight of Walter and Hildegund from the house of Attila, and of the treacherous attack on Walter by Gunther, king of the Franks, against the advice, but with the unwilling consent, of Hagen, his liegeman and Walter's friend. Hagen, Hildegund, and Walter were hostages with Attila from the Franks, Burgundians, and Aquitanians. They grew up together at the Court of Attila till Gunther, son of Gib.i.+.c.ho, became king of the Franks and refused tribute to the Huns. Then Hagen escaped and went home. Walter and Hildegund were lovers, and they, too, thought of flight, and escaped into the forests, westward, with a great load of treasure, and some fowling and fis.h.i.+ng gear for the journey.

After they had crossed the Rhine, they were discovered by Hagen; and Gunther, with twelve of the Franks, went after them to take the Hunnish treasure: Hagen followed reluctantly. The pursuers came up with Walter as he was asleep in a hold among the hills, a narrow green place with overhanging cliffs all round, and a narrow path leading up to it. Hildegund awakened Walter, and he went and looked down at his adversaries. Walter offered terms, through the mediation of Hagen, but Gunther would have none of them, and the fight began. The Latin poem describes with great spirit how one after another the Franks went up against Walter: Camelo (ll. 664-685), Scaramundus (686-724), Werinhardus the bowman (725-755), Ekevrid the Saxon (756-780), who went out jeering at Walter; Hadavartus (781-845), Patavrid (846-913), Hagen's sister's son, whose story is embellished with a diatribe on avarice; Gerwicus (914-940), fighting to avenge his companions and restore their honour--

Is furit ut caesos mundet vindicta sodales;

but he, too, fell--

Exitiumque dolens, pulsabat calcibus arvum.

Then there was a breathing-s.p.a.ce, before Randolf, the eighth of them, made trial of Walter's defence (962-981). After him came Eleuther, whose other name was Helmnod, with a harpoon and a line, and the line was held by Trogus, Tanastus, and the king; Hagen still keeping aloof, though he had seen his nephew killed. The harpoon failed; three Frankish warriors were added to the slain; the king and Hagen were left (l. 1060).

Gunther tried to draw Hagen into the fight. Hagen refused at first, but gave way at last, on account of the slaying of his nephew. He advised a retreat for the night, and an attack on Walter when he should have left the fastness. And so the day ended.

Walter and Hildegund took turns to watch, Hildegund singing to awaken Walter when his turn came. They left their hold in the morning; but they had not gone a mile when Hildegund, looking behind, saw two men coming down a hill after them. These were Gunther and Hagen, and they had come for Walter's life. Walter sent Hildegund with the horse and its burden into the wood for safety, while he took his stand on rising ground. Gunther jeered at him as he came up; Walter made no answer to him, but reproached Hagen, his old friend. Hagen defended himself by reason of the vengeance due for his nephew; and so they fought, with more words of scorn. Hagen lost his eye, and Gunther his leg, and Walter's right hand was cut off by Hagen; and "this was their sharing of the rings of Attila!"--

Sic, sic, armillas part.i.ti sunt Avarenses (l. 1404).

Walter and Hildegund were king and queen of Aquitaine, but of his later wars and victories the tale has no more to tell.

Of the two old English fragments of this story the first contains part of a speech of Hildegund[20] encouraging Walter.

[Footnote 20: Hildegyth, her English name, is unfortunately not preserved in either of the fragmentary leaves. It is found (Hildigi) in the _Liber Vitae_ (Sweet, _Oldest English Texts_, p. 155).]

Its place appears to be in the pause of the fight, when the Frankish champions have been killed, and Gunther and Hagen are alone. The speech is rhetorical: "Thou hast the sword Mimming, the work of Weland, that fails not them that wield it. Be of good courage, captain of Attila; never didst thou draw back to thy hold for all the strokes of the foeman; nay, my heart was afraid because of thy rashness. Thou shalt break the boast of Gunther; he came on without a cause, he refused the offered gifts; he shall return home empty-handed, if he return at all." That is the purport of it.

The second fragment is a debate between Gunther and Walter. It begins with the close of a speech of Gunther (Guhere) in which there are allusions to other parts of the heroic cycle, such as are common in _Beowulf_.

The allusion here is to one of the adventures of Widia, Weland's son; how he delivered Theodoric from captivity, and of Theodoric's grat.i.tude. The connexion is obscure, but the reference is of great value as proving the resemblance of narrative method in _Waldere_ and _Beowulf_, not to speak of the likeness to the Homeric way of quoting old stories. Waldere answers, and this is the substance of his argument: "Lo, now, Lord of the Burgundians, it was thy thought that Hagena's hand should end my fighting. Come then and win my corselet, my father's heirloom, from the shoulders weary of war."[21]

[Footnote 21: The resemblance to Hildebrand, l. 58, is pointed out by Sophus Bugge: "Doh maht du nu aodlihho, ibu dir din ellen taoc, In sus heremo man hrusti giwinnan." (Hildebrand speaks): "Easily now mayest thou win the spoils of so old a man, if thy strength avail thee." It is remarkable as evidence of the strong conventional character of the Teutonic poetry, and of the community of the different nations in the poetical convention, that two short pa.s.sages like _Hildebrand_ and _Waldere_ should present so many points of likeness to other poems, in details of style. Thus the two lines quoted from _Hildebrand_ as a parallel to _Waldere_ contain also the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon phrase, _onne his ellen deah_, a familiar part of the Teutonic _Gradus_.]

The fragment closes with a pious utterance of submission to heaven, by which the poem is shown to be of the same order as _Beowulf_ in this respect also, as well as others, that it is affected by a turn for edification, and cannot stand as anything like a pure example of the older kind of heroic poetry. The phrasing here is that of the Anglo-Saxon secondary poems; the common religious phrasing that came into vogue and supplemented the old heathen poetical catch-words.

The style of _Waldere_ makes it probable that the action of the story was not hurried unduly. If the author kept the same proportion throughout, his poem may have been almost as long as _Waltharius_. It is probable that the fight among the rocks was described in detail; the _Maldon_ poem may show how such a subject could be managed in old English verse, and how the matter of _Waltharius_ may have been expressed in _Waldere_. Roughly speaking, there is about as much fighting in the three hundred and twenty-five lines of _Maldon_ as in double the number of hexameters in _Waltharius_; but the _Maldon_ poem is more concise than the extant fragments of _Waldere_. _Waldere_ may easily have taken up more than a thousand lines.

The Latin and the English poems are not in absolute agreement. The English poet knew that Guhere, Guntharius, was Burgundian, not Frank; and an expression in the speech of Hildegyth suggests that the fight in the narrow pa.s.s was not so exact a succession of single combats as in _Waltharius_.

The poem of _Maldon_ is more nearly related in its style to _Waldere_ and _Beowulf_ than to the _Finnesburh_ fragment. The story of the battle has considerable likeness to the story of the fight at Finnesburh. The details, however, are given in a fuller and more capable way, at greater length.

_Beowulf_ has been commonly regarded as exceptional, on account of its length and complexity, among the remains of the old Teutonic poetry.

This view is hardly consistent with a right reading of _Waldere_, or of _Maldon_ either, for that matter. It is not easy to make any great distinction between _Beowulf_ and _Waldere_ in respect of the proportions of the story. The main action of _Beowulf_ is comparable in extent with the action of _Waltharius_. The later adventure of _Beowulf_ has the character of a sequel, which extends the poem, to the detriment of its proportions, but without adding any new element of complexity to the epic form. Almost all the points in which the manner of _Beowulf_ differs from that of _Finnesburh_ may be found in _Waldere_ also, and are common to _Waldere_ and _Beowulf_ in distinction from _Hildebrand_ and _Finnesburh_. The two poems, the poem of _Beowulf_ and the fragments of _Waldere_, seem to be alike in the proportion they allow to dramatic argument, and in their manner of alluding to heroic matters outside of their own proper stories, not to speak of their affinities of ethical tone and sentiment.

The time of the whole action of _Beowulf_ is long. The poem, however, falls naturally into two main divisions--_Beowulf in Denmark_, and the _Death of Beowulf_. If it is permissible to consider these for the present as two separate stories, then it may be affirmed that in none of the stories preserved in the old poetic form of England and the German Continent is there any great length or complexity.

_Hildebrand_, a combat; _Finnesburh_, a defence of a house; _Waldere_, a champion beset by his enemies; _Beowulf in Denmark_, the hero as a deliverer from pests; _Beowulf's Death_ in one action; _Maldon_ the last battle of an English captain; these are the themes, and they are all simple. There is more complexity in the story of _Finnesburh_, as reported in _Beowulf_, than in all the rest; but even that story appears to have observed as much as possible the unity of action. The epic singer at the court of the Dane appears to have begun, not with the narrative of the first contest, but immediately after that, a.s.suming that part of the story as known, in order to concentrate attention on the vengeance, on the penalty exacted from Finn the Frisian for his treachery to his guests.