Norse Myth In English Poetry (1919)

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"

NORSE MYTH IN

ENGLISH POETRY

BY

HERFORD,

H.

C.

M.A., Litt.D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER

Reprinted from Vol.

5,

"

The Bulletin

Nos.

and

2,

August,

John Rylands Library igiS-March,

19 19

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY New York, Chicago, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras

Manchester

LoNLTON,

I

of the

:

1919

NORSE MYTH IN

ENGLISH POETRY

PUBLISHED FOR THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY AT

THE UNIVERSITY 12

PRESS

(H. M.

McKechnie, Secretary)

Lime Grove, Oxford Road, Manchester

LONGMANS, GREEN AND

CO.

London 39 Paternoster Row i^EW York 443-449 Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street Bombay: 8 Hornby Road Calcutta: 6 Old Court House Street Madras: 167 Mount Road :

:

9

"

NORSE MYTH IN

ENGLISH POETRY

BY

PROFESSOR

01

Reprinted from Vol.

HERFORD,

H.

C.

5,

M.A., Litt.D.

ENGLIS« LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTKK

"

Nos.

The Bulletin of I

and

2,

the

August,

fohn Rylands IJhrarv igi^-March, 191

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONGMANS, GRKRN & COMPANY

Manchester:

London, Nr:w

Y(;kk, Chicago,

iQig

Bomhay, Cai.cui

ia,

Madkas

UNIVERSry OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBAfiA COLLEGE LIBRARY A'

7

/7

NORSE MYTH By

C

ENGLISH POETRY.*

IN

HERFORD,

H.

M.A.. Litt.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. I.

who

and snow and show smile things great and small

Tale

teller,

Had

heart to turn about

With

faint half

That

twixt

fire

in thy fearful land did

Thou and

fall,

thy brethren sure did gain

for which I long in vain. whereby the mist of fear melted, and your ears might hear

That thing

The

spell,

Was

Elarth's Yoices as they are indeed.

W. Morris,

SO

Prefixed to his Translation of the Ryrbyggja Saga.

wrote William Morris,

one of the

may

the preface to his English version of

in

sagas of the " fearful land ".

finest

For no other English poet has

theme.

Norse myth heroism,

its

;

none has done so much

earth-shaking humour, and

pathos, to a place in our memories, I

say to restore

which

we

for

;

sort the recovery of a stories

call

*

so keenly the

to restore its

his

words

and a home be

its

;

and the

in truth

in great part

tale

lecture

power

in

a

gift,

or

thirteen

but in some

The

common

of the Volsungs,

Beowulf}

and

our hearts.

new

a

of

terrible beauty, its

heights of tragic passion

vanished and forgotten possession.

English epic of

Based upon a 1918.

will not

felt

had been sung twelve

told the other day,

before in the old

it

Norse were

the Germanic peoples

13 March.

And

serve as a clue to guide us to the heart of our present

mythic

heritage of

which Morris

hundred years

But between the day

delivered in the John

Rylands Library on

THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

6 whrn c\c

were

ihrst* lalt^s

and

the Conquest,

of

again by

chanted

last

English antiquaries,

which they weie

infancy to meet again,

We

as perfect strangers,

and even

literary

Denmark

northern lands sweeping from in

one dreamed

and a

Europe, had grown up

A

period, find

its

way

into

permanent culture

of

our

beyond the broad

No

towards the end of the effect that

Den-

and import

in the

and with such

literature,

points of dazzling brilliance

But the triumphant

the world.'

story stands absolutely alone

glorious

waif of Scandinavia

came

;

to

and even us with

its

intrusion of the solitary

this

though

Scandinavian char-

not obliterated, by alien romance elements which

if

certainly helped to

the Norse sea-giant

who

of

the lonely fastness of the gi^eat Atlantic

in

Hamlet

acter overlaid,

faces

prose, unsurpassed in their kind in

single northern legend did, indeed,

mark and Elsinore became

Our

and the vast arc

;

every sense beyond our horizon.

spaces of estranging sea, lay

island.

for almost

centuries,

Iceland,

to

The

advanced age.

in

France, to Italy

to

that a poetry

during most of

purposes, beyond our ken.

cultural

were turned the other way,

deciphered

first

are like kindred parted in

whole Scandinavian world passed, during those all

perhaps on the

feasts,

centuries

six

fully

lie

unknown.

utterly

English

at

on which they were

that

commend it Amloth to

to

European

taste.

It is

a far cry from

the mediaeval emulator of Livy's Brutus

spoke to the Elizabethans through the ambitious Latinity of Saxo,

or the polished French of Belleforest.

But before the beginning cultural estrangement, there

of these centuries of

was

at least

The

intimate.

ture of

Vikings

Northumbria

in

a

who swept away

of

between

disastrously

and devout

the lettered

and

cul-

the ninth century were not persuasive heralds

of the richer

and stronger but

But from the time of Alfred onwards,

settlement of a

was

it

the North. ent

literary

lively intercourse

Some

Northern and the English stems.

the

complete

still

large tract

of

unshaped cosmos

of the

poetry of

vrith the

perman-

England by Scandinavians, more

humane

relations

that the

Norsemen could make a song

The Old

diversify their encounters.

as well as fight,

formidable galleys of theirs were sometimes launched,

English found

and

that those

like

the bark of

the aged Ulysses, for voyages of exploration not of plunder.

We have

made analogous the

discoveries in our

Norwegian enthusiasms

than

at

own

time

;

and

it is

easier to parallel

of the later nineteenth century in the tenth

any intervening date.

Just a thousand years before

Nansen

NORSE MYTH came

Norway's ambassador

as

to the English court, another

and kindled the

explorer, Ohthere, visited Alfred,

White

region of the

7

Norwegian

king's quick imagina-

voyage round the North Cape into the Mur-

tion with the story of his

man

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

And

Sea.'

one

most romantic of

of the

Viking adventurers, Egil Skallagrimsson, equally renowned as warrior

and

became the

as singer,

trusted

henchman and warm

After doing him yeoman's service

stane.

Athel-

friend of

and counsel, and

in field

ceiving royal rewards, Egil improvised a Norse panegyric {drdpa)

Athelstane gave him two gold rings as poet's

praise at the palace board.*

but there

fee,

no

is

Icelander's staves thought of emulating in his

—

that

is

who listened to the own tongue their brief,

any English scop

hint that

A

weighty rhythm and bold imagery. English court

Norse song chanted

to the

the nearest recorded approach to a literary

contact between Scandinavia and England before the Conquest

even contact so casual and seemingly

as

fruitless

after

it.

so profoundly akin despite their deadly encounter,

England, herself

after a centuiy of tragic

bound

web

in the

emulating strains of island colony

once of

its

and impotent

of continental culture,

drew

definitely apart.

awoke

silence,

and rudely or

to find

childishly

While Norway and her

alien song.

great

had been working out undisturbed the splendid promise

of their chaotic at

and

;

becomes more

this,

The new Northmen completed the England from the old. The two Germanic civilizations,

and more inconceivable estrangement of

re-

in his

and unbridled youth, and creating the great monument

their heroic traditions

and

Eddas

of their national art, in the

Iceland has kept even her language almost unchanged

and the Sagas.

to the present day."'

" Undisturbed "

:

that

at

is

would appreciate the energy story

upon the imagination

disturbed, Christ,

above

all,

bottom the clue

And

equality of literary fortune.

of

it

the impact,

of civilized

until the

by the powerful solvent

to

when

very close of the of the Christian

first

faith."'

up by the Viking marauders

affect the truth of this contention.

hypothesis, only enriched the

or lessening

treat of

its

paganism

power in the

millennium after

The

fascinating

of

of

in Christian lands,

Christianity, even

pagan myth world without

of resistance.

West

Un-

Norse myths are transformations

certain

in-

we

if

came, of Norse

it

Christian legends, caught

it,

startling

and Romanized Europe.

theory of Bugge, that

does not

this

has to be borne in mind

disintegrating

Scandinavia was the

Europe, and behind

on that

its

last

re-

successive

— 8

JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

Till-.

harrirrs of sea

and mountain and sea again, the

and Walhalla held

tide of Christianity.

Tlir further \vc go north and west, the more freely tions arc

unfolded and elaborated

world and

l>eg)nning of the

death

their

of the feats of

heroes and

of feasting in

Odin's

Sweden and Denmark paganism was soonest submerged, and Norway, in its deepset the fewest and the faintest traces.

In

halls.

has

doom,

crowned by an immortality

in battle,

primeval tradi-

its

stones of gods and men, of the

its

its final

Thor and Odin

faith of

ground against the onsurging

its

left

guarded a

fiords,

Norse

of old

island of fire

as of

literature,

and snow

in

its

and

its last

almost completely blotted

it

real capital

was

the great

loneliest outpost.

And

missionaries

won

their difficult

even after the conversion,

myth

sagacity or patriotism saved the

England

republican statecraft,

Norway, the Christian

triumph only after A.D. 1000.

But the

sagas.

wastes of the North Atlantic, which

in the far

might seem destined to be

Here, and

and

rich treasure of lays

their

from the fate which

literature

out elsewhere, and has reduced

us in

our primitive paganism by a few empty names

to attest

Wednesday and Thursday, Wednesbury and Thoresby, and the legend of Wayland the Smith, and the pre-Christian core of Beowulf. The result was, in the first place, the great collection of lays known Older Edda, written partly

as the

then

the thirteenth,

and

first

of

occasions.

thirty-five

In

distinct pieces,

of the gods,

and

edited at the end of the eighteenth.

critically

Secondly, a great mass of songs, historic

its

still

mystic in colouring but arising out

extant form the

falling into

stories of

Loki

(

world

to procure

hild, its

his

of

his

f.)

or

some

—

stories

few cognate lays are pre-

these stories have counted as

These are (1) Odin, treacherously slain by

(2) the story of Odin's descent to the under-

reform i^Baldrs drauniai^

Volsungs,-

Medea

;

consists of

English poetry.

Balder, the beloved son of

Voluspd, 32,

story of the

A

the heroes.

creative or even stimulating forces for

the story of

Edda

two nearly equal groups

Three only

sented in certain sagas.

Norway in the ninth century, They were collected in

in

and eleventh.

Iceland in the tenth

in

;

(3) the great heroic

of Sigurd the Achilles of the

North, and Bryn-

Lady Macbeth, and Gudrun and

her vengeance for

death {Grippisspd,

etc.).

But several others have powerfully

contributed to mould our impressions of the scope and reach of this

northern poetry (

:

notably, in the

Voluspd), a sublime

hymn

first

group, (4) the Sibyl's prophecy

of the beginning

and the end

of the world,

NORSE MYTH of

which the story of Balder

and the

giant Skirnir, a

ENGLISH POETRY

IN is

only an incident

huge piece

(5) the story of

;

of Aristophanic

Thrymskvitha)

9

Thor

humour, man mak-

and (6) the great Waking of Angentyr, where Hervor the warrior maid goes to her father's burial

ing sport of his gods (

mound

burning island to

in the

knows, will be ruin to her race

;

demand from him

{Hervar saga).

two must be mentioned

historical class,

:

the sword which, he

Further, from the partly

(7) the death-song of

Lodbrok, a chieftain of the twelfth century, thrown into a

{Krakumdl\ and

Ragnar

pit of serpents

(8) the song of the Norns after the battle of Clontarf

{Darratkarljoth).

From

introductory

this

fortunes of these piimeval

when

let

the youngest of

us

now

turn

to

watch the

strangers from the North, with

and witching beauty,

their mysterious

England,

summary

and rugged

in enlightened

and prosperous

them was already almost

half a mil-

lenium old. II.

For the

report of

first

which ushered

and the philosophy Sir

W.

a text of

common

sense.

scholars in Holland,

and read

in a northern chronicle

Here was

and heroic among these barbaric peoples

something, he

and he made "on Heroic Virtue," 1690 much as Sidney, had confessed how his heart stirred as with a trumpet

his Essay,

a century before,

with William,

chief agent in the negotiations

death-song of Ragnar Lodbrok.

thought, fine it

of

Temple, the

met Scandinavian in Latin the

them concurs with the famous Revolution

Dutch William and Whig government, John Locke

in

;

;

at the rude lay of Chevy-chase.'^

But erudition

new

curiosities.

too, at

The

Oxford

old

in particular,

had

felt

the sting of the

Germanic world, overlaid and almost ob-

was beginning to be tracked out and pieced together. friend of Milton, was the first thoroughly to master Old

literated,

the

and

his fount of

types,

bequeathed to the Oxford

press,

Junius,

English,

were used

to

by George Hickes. But Hickes was Thesaurus of the Northern Languages, 689, to print and translate a Norse poem in English. And fortunately it was one of the grandest of all— the Waking of AngentyrJ'' Hervor s Incantation, as it is also called, was widely admired, and in 763 was included with Ragnar Lodbrok (No. 7) and three print the

also the

first

first,

\

I

Icelandic grammar,

in his great

—

!

—

;

THE JOHN KYLANDS LIBRARY

10

otheni by Bishop Pcicy. the editor of the A\//
But one better quaHfied than Percy had already

of Runii Poetry.

been touching these things to

made

his

noble paraphrases,

About 760 Thomas Gray The Descent of Odin and The Fatal finer issues.

1

Norse poetic influence which the whole

Sisters, the best result of

Gray knew something

eighteenth century* can show.

pregnant

style,

Norse poetry he found

had

all his

been

who

Sisters,

fulfilled

feeling after,

In the "

note in English poetry.

Tlu Fatal

to the brief,

the sharp " unmuffled " phrasing of the original.

this

life

and

of Icelandic,

verse comes as near as eighteenth century English could

his

we hear

In

an ideal of poetic writing which he

and

it

enabled him to

Spear Song," the

new

strike a

Gray's

original of

the Valkyries, the divine maidens of

Odin

gather up the slain after battle, sing their weird Fate song before

where a Norse

the battle of Clontarf,

The

Irish king.

chief

of

about to

is

human

old image for the making of

which the Norse notion

ing of a woof, is

F/:r Pieces

fight

fate, as

v^th an a

weav-

Fate shares with the Greek,

here applied with an intense abrupt imaginative power which recalls Book of Job. " Weave we, weave we, the web of spears " is !

the

And

the recurring refrain. of

in

one grim powerful stanza the symbolism

where the

the loom of battle,

fates of

upon us with remorseless vividness and This

web we

And

the

are wi'ought,

precision of stroke

human

are weaving of

warp

men

is

thrust

:

entrails.

weighted with heads of men Blood-besprinkled spears be the shafts, Iron-bound the stays, and arrows the shuttles With swords we'll thrust close this web of victory. is

;

Such poetry sharply traversed the conventions century further

Abstract phrase and " glossy

style. off.

But Gray contrived

verse than his fulfilled,

of

a

This

to

or

how he

English eighteenth

diction

convey more of

it

could not be

into his English

antecedents would have seemed to warrant

clearly, the half-unconscious

subhme is

own

of

'*

bent of his

own

mysterious matter conveyed with turns

See

it

:

the grisly texture

('Tis of

human

grow made)

entrails

And

the weights that play below Each a gasping Warrior's head

taste,

Gi'eek

!

It

the ideal precision.

1

NORSE MYTH

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

1

Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore,

^oct

the trembling cords along.

Sword that once a Monarch Keep the tissue close and

**

still

new

ring,

ing poetry of the North.

know

did not his

own

were

built

like

" Shafts

caught hrom the short emphatic

alliterat-

though Gray

In such phrases, too,

Old

upon the same

verse

and phrasing

plan.^

Descent of Odin, takes us Norse mythology. It has more of the

other piece rendered by Gray, the

poignancy of Hei"vor than of the battle

Odin, the

the northern gods,

of

gi'eatest

among them, has heard

doomed

He resolves

be

to

slain.

to go

the spear song,

spirit of

and the most moving and

fascinating personality

that his son, Balder,

down to

Here, as

should follow.

makes the

child that

Hervor,

in

situation dramatic

veyed, with the reticence of great swift thrust

is

and what

the father's anxiety for his

and

though

intense,

it is

con-

solely through the action,

art,

the

parry between the urgent god and the reluctant pro-

and

All kinds of

without a hint of exclamation or sentiment.

As

obstacles beset him.

he rides down towards Niflheim, the hound

Hell, the Cerberus of the North,

of

it

is

the nether world and

force the buried Sibyl to disclose the secret of his son's fate

phetess,

possibly

of the oldest poetry or

Old Norse

English and

yet further into the heart of tragic

But a phrase

he was recovering the manner

it,

country, for

The

" Shoot the trembling cords

in the vein of this rhetoric.

" has a for shuttles

strong.

the poetic rhetoric of his day.

Gray could not indeed wholly escape Sword that once a Monarch bore," or

along," are

bore,

come

out,

blood, and bays at the greatest of the gods.

jaws dabbled

its

But Odin

in

rides on, the

earth trembling at his tread, to the eastern gate of Hell's mansion,

where the dead

Sibyl's

mound

dead, until reluctant she it

of mortals to

me

Snow

?

long been dead.

now thee

I

will

till

I

and her dead body speaks

mead

is

speak no more."

know

dew was

He tells her that he is He sees the preparations

she answers, " the

all

:

the spells that :

wake "

the

Who

is

that has laid this grievous conslramt on

"

"are these golden

asks,

He utters

lay on me, rain beat on me,

(like Ulysses).

he

rises,

me unknown,

lay.

seats

ready.

I

one Way-wise,

"Here

Unwillingly have on,

O

would know

Sibyl :

!

Who

me ia

I

:

had

wanderer

" For v>'hom,"

for a feast.

prepared?"

"Speak

this further

shed on

for

Balder,"

spoken

I

1

:

and

will question

will

become the

—

!

JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

rili:

12

BalJei, and

slayer of

take the

Answers. " will hold the

he shot I

at

spoken

:

no\s will

question thee

till

Odin's son

of

all

O

further

his

;

now

1

hands he

wash

will

speak no more.

will

'

maidens

art not

I

for

no man agam

from

his

sire.

.

.

1

trowed,

will

"

" ?

old will his hair,

have told him Sibyl

on,

know

I

I

all,

will

1

!

Who are the

:

'

snoods to heaven

?

she burst out, "but thou art

Ride home, Odin, and gloiy

.

me

hold discourse with

shall

to

"Speak

:

Way-wise, as

Odin, the ancient

Who

Unwillingly have

She seems

till know all this further would who weep for him, casting up their

question thee

:

comb

not, nor

Balder.

but the most wonderful touch remains.

"Thou

would know

who when one day

yet to be born

is

he bear to the pyre the slayer of :

1

!

Balder, and lay his slayer on the funeral pyre

of

replies that " a child

spoken

branch which

Odin's son. Unwillingly have " Speak on, Sibyl I will

of

lile

this

:

" Hoder," she

"

?

of fate (the mistletoe

speak no more."

i

know

I

avenge Odin's son till

Iwugh

tall

Balder) and take the

avenge the death

She

life

till

in

thyself

;

Loki breaks loose

bonds, what time the Destroyers come, at the

End

of

the

World." Gray's version of

this,

literal

lines in

which the

of

English poetic

have done, he has

version must

bounds

poetry, enlarged the

ihe intruder

the Spear-song,

as of

Without surrendering anything

of

yet, in

is

a noble poem.

instinct, as

new

contact with this

English poetic expression.

Sibyl, roused unwillingly

a quite

Take

the

from her death-sleep, meets

:

What call unknown, what charms presume To break the quiet of the tomb ? Who thus afflicts my troubled sprite. And drags me from the realms of night ? Long on

The The

these

mould'nng bones have beat

winter's snow, the

summer

me

Let me,

let

Who

he, with voice unblest,

That

is

calls

sleep again.

me from

the

bed

of rest?

But Gray's Norse studies told also upon his

heat,

drenching dews, the driving rain

two famous Odes,

his original poetry.

Both

The Progress of Poesy and The BaJ'd,

written about 1755, betray the growing

dominance

in his

mind

of the

poetry of the primeval peoples,

which was now from many sources

emerging above the horizon of

his

generation.

That

illustrates

the

— NORSE MYTH

—

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

13

complexity of the literary forces which went to emancipate our poetry

from the pseudo-classicism

and

the Augustans,

of

to

poetic renascence of the early nineteenth century.

Odes were

form the

in

and

ginative speech

Gray was, discoverer

new and

and

new

to the old, so that it is

severely

blamed

was

it

seemed

to

grow out

of

His contempor-

it.

these were criticisms natural to a

what the language

of poetry

had begun

aware

to be

is.

But

thus trying to bring the boldness of

Greek

art into

the treasures of poetry lurking

of

other ancient peoples, less familiar to us, but nearer both geo-

graphically, in the

to attach the

and other departures from prose order.

his inversions,

easily recognize that

moment when Gray was

English, he

exquisitely deli-

how

and splendour, together with the ordered symmetry,

among

Ode.

not merely because his

;

because he understood perfectly

generation which had forgotten at the very

lyric

complained that the Odes were obscure, and Johnson

true,

Yet we can

rank

of the highest

rare sources of poetic effect

cate

aries,

Greek

a certain constitutional timidity and reticence, a

and a pioneer

sure, but

For these very

to recover the bold ima-

effort

closely ordered structure of the

in spite of

instinct for

an

result of

shape the great

first

and

Ode,

in race

the

:

Welsh and

his allusion to the

power

Hence,

the Scandinavian. of poetry

beyond the solar road shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam.

In climes

Where But

in

the second

Ode, The Bard^

there

is

far

more unequivocal It

has worked

which a

story, tragic

witness to the stimulus given by his Norse studies. creatively.

The

and

is

intense,

great

Norse manner

of song, in

not told, but conveyed through the talk of the persons

engaged, has helped to fashion

this

Ode,

in

which almost

the impassioned prophetic lips of the Bard.

very motive of a prophecy delivered has

both in

Hervor and

Fatal Sisters invoked

in the

in

It is

analogues, as

The Descent of Odin, while

we

told

have seen,

the idea of

(the Valkyries) weaving the fates of battle,

the warp, and

here the slain Bards

who

and the Bard

weave

by

that, the

is

The

expressly

grim refrain which runs through the Bard's prophecy

Weave

their country,

its

all is

But more than

:

the woof.

are to rise from the dead and avenge

sees

them

arise

:

IHl::

14

JOHN KVLANDS LIBRARY

No more weep, On yonder cliffs, I

see them

I

sit,

lliey do not sleep.

band

a grisly

hnger

lliey

yet.

Avengers of tlieir native land With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue :

Norse notion

the grim

just

bv the tenible battle-maids, the daughters

Grays "

runic

Norse vogue. growing

1770

"

poems appeared

Solid help

and

'

1

woven

slaughter

of

Odin.

of

768, and

nearly at the

same

by the

imitators,

time, to the

translation in

Mr.

has shown that a flood of forgotten translations

and adaptations poured from the press during the next

fifty

years.

rang the changes on, especially, the lay of Hervor and Lodbrok

W.

was

feasts in

Valhalla once

skulls of enemies,

of

letters,

it

is

Landor

marmoreal to

verse.

the heathen

so thrilling,

felt

found

true,

Norse

sublimity of

where drink was quaffed

in the

Several distinguished

jest.^^

men

good, incidentally, in Norse myth.

their

Harald Harfager

cast

The

toppling over into the ridiculous, and those

of

became a standing

Scott puts a song of

Pirate.

A

Twilight of the Gods.

fashion ran to seed.

danger

in

It

less

;

ELdda was translated, with solid merit, by the Hon.

The

Herbert.'"

heroics

The

Balder, and

Odin, Thor,

often on

great part of the

the

fairly started

History of Deiwmrk.

lyitroductioL to the

Harvard,

Farley, of

in

was provided,

host of dilettante admirers

of Mallet's

woof "

the " red

of

of thy line,

in the

mouth

Halcro

of

an episode from the Gunnlangs

Saga

in

The

into his

\V. L. Bowles, a Tory clergyman, indicted a hymn Southey hoped to write a " Runic song "

Wodan

;

;

and George Borrow, doughtiest

of

translators,

rendered passably the

kindred Danish ballads (1826).

III.

But

to

create

new and

noble poetry out of the Norse stories

was

reserved for the second half of the nineteenth century, and for three

men,

utterly unlike in genius, temper,

and

line of

approach

Arnold, Robert Buchanan, and William Morris. little

the

but their material to Norse myth.

Grande Chartreuse

is

" thinking of

" beside the northern strand," and his

poem,

is

noble

in

first

like

his

Arnold, his

— Matthew

The

two owed Greek,

in

ov/n gods" as he stands

Balder Dead, though

the Homeric, not the Eddie way.

And

if

a noble

Arnold

NORSE MYTH is

Buchanan

antique,

(1877)

is

who

a fervid Scot suffering

is

and

and

story

sacrificed Christ,

and

and

we know,

William Morris, on the other

a devoted, even a fanatical, lover of northern

And

own

his

made him more

simplicity of nature

home

ostentatiously disclaimed indebted-

Edda.

the northern land.

of

wine, the heady vintage of

turned the story of Odin's son into an epic of the

ness to the vulgar myths of the

hand, was, as

new

with

filled

15

His Balder the Beautiful

modern.

defiantly

an old wine-skin

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

elemental grandeur

and

instinctively

easily at

there than either the fastidious Hellenist or the neo-theologian

could ever have become.

Moreover, Morris devoted

which was

field to the story

the most rich and various in its

tragic intensity, of

And

world.

at

most sustained poetic labour

his

once the most neglected among

and

scope and movement, the grandest

its

in

the stories of the North, perhaps even of the

all

Sigtird the Volsung

his

in this

us,

when

is,

reserves have been

all

made, a great and splendid poem, the one adequate presentment to-day which Wagner has

in English of the story

so magnificently clothed for

On

the world in the universal language of music.

by

it is

most

far the

Norse myths, and remainder of

The

it

will

be not

all

unfitting that

it

should occupy us for the

this discourse.

and Brynhild

story of Sigurd

is,

strictly,

only the kernel or

Edda and

nucleus of the story of the Volsungs, as told in the

prose Volsung saga based upon

two

It is

it.

story groups of distinct character

we may

call

the antecedent story

—

Heroism

is

the ground tone of

them and

figures,

who, a son child,

less

fearful

another ;

one

youth and early

the other

—

— which

feats

the sequel story

and

—

the

less of

man.

story

dragon ;

at

will.

daemonic too

giants,

Sigmund is

his

and you

more

is

sister

Signy,

the Volsung race should die out, takes the shape of

lest

seeks out her brother, and, unrecognized, bears

daemonic, no

who

But the antecedent

There are dwarfs and

human, than Sigurd

woman,

all three.

with more of elemental and subhuman

can change into a beast, or a daemonic,

lesser value, the

for his death.

moves among primeval forces in

and

in the

preceded and followed by

telling his

the career of his father Sigmund,

vengeance

these grounds

our poetry of the influence of

result in

significant

at ten

sung stock on both

less,

this

does fabulous sides.

son,

him

Sinfjotli,— a marvellous, uncanny

feats, as

becomes one who

is

of

Vol-

1

THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

16

In the stHjucI storv',

we

on

tlio

Gudrun

vsife's brothers,

tury

When

all

his

cen-

fifth

their retinue

which Gudrun takes her own

great battle in his hall, after

a

p^eiish in

Hun

by

slain

king of the

and they and

to his court,

and

recedes,

Sigurd has been

marries Attila, the

them

Attila invites

;

myth

other hand, primeval

are on the Ixirders of history.

life.

The

kernel story

ism but tragedy

is

of finer stuff than these.

It

has not only hero-

not only colossal daring or ruthless revenge, but love

;

and

and hate

in

situations

and moments.

conflict

league.

in

There

It

will suffice to recall the crucial

(1) Sigurd's discovery of the Val-

is

kyne Brunhild, on the wild mountain top, Hyndfell, where she has been

laid asleep

by Odin, within a wall

They

would win her must break through. and

part.

obliterates the

Gudrun.

memory

of

exchange

rings,

given him by their crafty mother which

visit

Gunnar, the eldest

Gunnar's horse

likeness, enters her

of

The

(4)

to Biynhild,

oblivious of the

the kings, to win her for his wife.

face the flames,

will not

still

sister

Sigurd assumes his

bower, and receives from her, as Gunnar, the

own, which she may not refuse

wall.

plight troth,

Brynhild, and his marriage with their

(3) Sigurd's second

past, to help

his

who

which the man

(2) Sigurd's reception at the court of the Niblung kings on

the Rhine, the magic potion

When

of flames

man who

to the

penetrates her

marriage of Gunnar and Brynhild, and their

of sinister presage, side

by

side with Sigurd

ring,

and Gudrun,

in

fire-

life,

full

Gunnar's

The

quarrel of the two queens by the river side when Gudrun with being the wife of Gunnar's serving-man, and Gudrun retorts that it was this semng-man, not Gunnar, who had palace.

(5)

;

Brynhild taunts

crossed the flame-wall,

and won her hand,

ceived her ring, and she shows her the ring. for her betrayal

by her

her, Sigurd tries all

b heard,

life.

He

In

possible solutions

nor her hate appeased.^" take his

lover.

first

is

Then

slain in

one :

Gunnar's name, and re-

(6) last

Brynhild's vengeance

consummate scene with

her love

vvill

not be tempted

she compels the unwilling

Gunnar

to

Gudrun's arms, and when Gudrun's shriek

a wild laugh rings out in the court,

has triumphed but whose heart her breast, and her

in

body and

is

broken

;

— the laugh

of a

woman who

she plunges the dagger into

Sigurd's, united at

last,

are burnt on the

same pyre. Such,

man

m

bald summary,

legend blended, by steps

was

we

the complex Volsung story

can only

in part decipher,

:

a Ger-

with Norse

— NORSE MYTH And

myth.

was German,

as the kernel

from the Eddie

lays, its

Germany

so to

most splendid embodiments

century Nibelunge^died, the

Ring der Nibelunge

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

Nibelungen

belong, apart

in art

trilogy of

17

the twelfth

:

Hebbel, and the

Wagner. Of these I must say no more here the Nibelungenlied softens and humanizes the of

than that the poet of

mythic and savage elements

ignores in particular the

;

meeting of

first

Sigurd and Brynhild, thus completely changing the character of their relations

and

;

of the feudal

myth

glor5ang in fearlessly

invests the

whole with the manners and the atmosphere

and chivalrous age

which he

in

While Wagner,

Grimm had

Jakob

as the century of

lived.

draws gods and demons, dwarfs and dragons

And

sphere of his music drama.

this, too,

was

the

learnt to

way

of

do,

magic

into the

William

Morris.^^

^

IV.

work was then still comparatively recent. Iceland was His first poems, of 1858, are steeped in French and the gracious charm of French Froissart and Malory

Morris's close concern with the North did not begin with his

upon Sigurd, but not his

first

love.

Celtic romance, in

cathedrals

tured the are told,

it

;

and chateaux, and artist in

of tapestry

him, and they never

and metal work, had cap-

lost their hold.

Northern

Earthly Paradise, eleven years later and these included stoiy of Gudruns Lovers from the Laxdaela saga, where ;

situation of Sigurd

loves him,

stories

alongside Greek or eastern ones, by the mariners of the

and Biynhild

by the hand

of her

—

the lover slain by the

unloved husband

—

the great the very

woman who

reappears, translated

into terms of the feuds of Icelandic farmers in the thirteenth century.

But here,

too, Iceland,

phere of delicate

artistry

decisive experience.

like

Greece, shimmers through an atmos-

and gracious romance.

In 1871,

two years

after the

Then came a great, Earthly Paradise,

three years before Sigurd, he visited Iceland for the

him

His

made on

it

:

"

I

country

have seen many marvels, he ;

slept in the

daela story]

you

time.

first

notes of this journey vividly reflect the deep impression

was

writes,

and some

terrible pieces of

home field where Bolli [the Gunnar of the Lax... I was there yesterday, and from its door

killed.

see a great sea of terrible, inky mountains tossing about

;

there has.

— THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

18

born a most wonderful sunset though.

And sons

this

evening that turned them golden

"^

"

hi>\v

transformed his conception of the events and per-

it

-

:

" Such a dreadful place," he says of Grettir's

new

quite a

my mind

turn in

to the story,

an awful and monstrous being,

Two

like

one

can understand, then, that

into

and the land impressed

again,

him with a sense of " almost sacramental solemnity

We

gave

it

and transfigured Grettir

of the early giants of the world."

went

years later, in 1873, he

" that

lair,

".

new and which already in 870

experience threw a

this

transforming light upon the Volsung story also,

1

he had proclaimed to be one of the great stones of the world, destined to

be to our race what the tale of Troy " was to the Greeks, and to

who came

those

Troy

tale of

is

when our

after,

race has vanished, no

than the

less

".

to us

But these impressions, powerful as they were, did not and could not sweep in

many

away

He

fields.

new and put to

tarily

was

in the

and the old

well as receptive,

the

and

Morris's long

full

were not

coming

birds at the

and

artist

maturity of a genius tenacious as

familiar joys

obliterated because

They were

broke across them.

fiercer joys flight, like

rich experience as a poet

of

only

momen-

storm, to return

full

of

song again when it is over. The Morris who has seen " the fearful " " land," and that great sea of terrible inky mountains tossing about the time

and we never

him

But

is

there

is

Morris the lover of old France, and Morris the weaver of tapestry

all

and experimenter orator,

by and by,

and builder

bower

is

of

sister's

close

is full

summer Gudrun dwell,

to the

ring of

many

for long.

there even, in germ,

London

house

is

there, too,

Morris the

socialist

street-corners, the great-hearted

Utopia.

herald

Brynhild's wild, flame-girt, mountain fire

and snow

in the dale,

Touraine or Kent, embowered

about the roofs

a

;

of the fearful land of

A The

at

new

of a

scended to her house

dye

in

forget

;

but

when

her dwelling

in its

is

she has de-

some manor-

gardens and orchards

:

builded burg arising amid the leafy trees. of

;

fruit,

and

breeze. is

the garden of roses and

in the soaring

turrets the

The Niblung

a mediaeval

lilies

;

doves

flutter

casements stand open

burg, again,

where Gunnar and

town such as Iceland never knew, wdth

towers standing up " stark and sharp and cold " above

—

!

NORSE iMYTH

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

19

a grim old girdling wall " dark red and worn, and ancient," and the

smoke

many

of

dwellers rising over

it.

Morris the art-worker, too, finds or makes

looked

but

like,

how

Morris,

;

His

the door.

silver nails in

he

him

finds

Wrath

Sigurd ")

of

he

;

The

Blue

of rare

and

costly materials,

is

of

his royal staff

sword (" The

We

the zest of the metal-worker.^^

of

full

and

forging of Sigurd's

us in his letters that he often Ma-ote wdth blue

tells

hands, and some of the blue seems, in poetry.

is

Morris was experimenting with blue dye while engaged

too, that

on the poem

is

simply that the

the young Sigurd goes to his uncle's

the hall sea-green,

floor of

tipped with a crystal knob.

know,

tells

a chair of walrus-tusk, and his robe

sitting in

mountain gold, and the

saga

not content, adds that there were

furniture

When

and cunningly wrought. hall,

The

they were made.

had a golden roof

halls

He

opportunities.

his

not merely, like your mere literary poet, what things

likes to tell us

is

the colour of every

fact, to

ones

When Gudrun

warriors are blue-clad.

have come

best clothes.

them from a throne covered with dark-blue

Even

on

to the

The Niblung

goes with her maids to

Brynhild, they put on their dark-blue gear, and Biynhild

sleep on dark-blue bolsters.

off

And

cloth.

visit

meet

rises to

at night they

the Valkyrie Brynhild's awesome,

bower, built by Odin on Hyndfell, has been provided by a

fire-girt

thoughtful upholsterer with a bed and bolster of blue.'^ If

was, in

Moms the art-worker found

his opportunities,

Morris the

socialist

not made, certainly nourished and stimulated by what he saw

if

The

Iceland.

where the

republican society of which he read in the sagas,

be met

greatest chief might

had already attracted and problems

his interest,

in his hay-field

and begun

to the fore in his mind.

the land of the Volsungs

is

Thus

tedding his hay,

thrust social questions

to

the curse that

lies

upon

conceived not as a pestilence, or an un-

appeasable blood feud, but simply as the present state of society, the

economic system founded on labour and

So

when

that

Men's

the curse

is

under which

we

live.

removed. and they cry, the sun shines now and they shall reap that sow

hearts are fulfilled of joyance

With never

capital,

a curse to hide

it,

;

(p. 53).

And when Niblungs,

Sigurd goes forth

—

his

victory

the lowly

will

man

to battle

with

bring in the reign

exalted,

and

his

new

kinsfolk

of social equality

the mighty brought alow

:

the :

;

JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

TH1-:

20

summer shall come aback lo the land. on the fields of the tiller that fears no heavy hand Tlie sheaf shall be for the plougher, and the loaf for him that sowed, Through every furrowed acre where the son of Sigmund rode.

And whrn

thr sun of

shall hlunc

It

;

V.

.

But

was

it

worked

Iceland, or

above

and

the great

all

its

not as yet the society which chiefly attracted him in creatively

Volsung

on

his imagination.

It

was, of course,

heroic

and

tragic intensity,

story

itself, its

But it was also the scenery, the savage and daemonic horror. and it was, not less, those " tenible inky mountains"

wild tossing of

;

the grave, melancholy wisdom,

doom

sense of

the of

in earthly things,

humanity

lips of this tragic

or in

ciisis,

the

last

Where Whose

is

midst of

this stern nature, at

hours

Let us see

what

when

his

eye

is

really

on

first

it.

over a wall of mountains is a mighty water hurled, hidden head none knoweth, nor where it meeteth the sea

behind the green arch

The

hush of the desert

of the waterfall as

it

leaps sheer from the

cliff,

amid the water's roar, the bleak sun lighteth the wave-vault, and tells of the fruitless the showers that nourish nothing, and the summer come in vain.

That

is

is felt

the haunt of the dwarf Andvari,

And

treasure of the Niblungs. is

in the

an emanation, from

rises like

" a desert of dread in the uttermost part of the w^orld,'*

And

And And

which

encounter with death.

Morris's Iceland looks like

There

penetrated writh foreboding and the

riding

towards

is

who

man and

guards the fateful Sigurd

Brynhild's Hyndfell.

For days he rides through

it.

vain for the dwellings of length,

here

this desert,

human

the joyance of

plain.

longing in

speech.

At

one dawn,

From out of the tangled crag-walls, amidst the cloudland grey Comes up a mighty mountain, and it is as though there burns

A He

torch amidst of

rides on,

and

at

day wears, the winds

cloud-wreath.

its

noon rise

it

is

Then, as the

covered with clouds.

and disperse the

clouds.

And,

lifted a measureless mass o'er the desert cragwalls high. Cloudless the mountaun riseth against the sunset sky .

And And And

the light that afar the mountain

there

is

the

is

was

a torch

black above

head

it,

.

.

grown a river of fire. and below it is dark and dim,

is

of Hindfell, as

an island

in the sun.

(p. 155).

NORSE MYTH But even

in the

and awe

desolation

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

southern type of scenery hints of

moments

at

Icelandic

this

Thus hard by

intrude.

21

the Niblung

" a black pool huge and awful, unfathomable, and lined with
burg

is

And when

men and women who

the

their thoughts

uttered

about

amid these scenes

lived

and death,

life

was

it

in

a

sense which

appealed powerfully to Morris, so that he would gladly have made his

— a kind

own,

of brave

men, unconscious of

"

a glorious outcome of the worship of courage these stories are

What

he once wrote

.

.

.

and Evil break

also the gods

times it

we

not be

must

"It

:

loose

.

.

And

and

.

the kings and heroes

like

that imperfect earth.

we must live again enough that we helped to make ;

temper

this is the

yet

in the

wisdom

of the

He

.

.

.

Some-

.

not,

would

me

pretty

much

the re-

that Morris has put into the

in the great troth-plighting scene

did not find

corresponding saga scene

women, and drunsen

is

it

in

the magnificent contempt of

genuine stanza

doom

:

—

just before,

I

will not

burial

life

As so, in

long as

company with

my

Moms

ease.

And

is to

is

and courage are

my

their

love will

the

mean

fate,

love thee only

but against

in the

all

the moralists,

many days

he

bliss instead

of

spirit of

choice of Sigurd's

has framed the wisdom of

lines, for instance,

Sigurd's reply in

inspires

life shall last.

Achilles,

it

and

;

chooses a brief existence of supreme

common-place

him avoid the

bids

of provoking feuds,

warning that

though death be to blench

fly,

Born I was not All I would have

with " wis-

and represents

of later origin

She

Her

ideas quite out of keeping with

:

which

to her

his source.

beware

brawlers,

dead have decent

see that the

that

.

unnameable glory and

this

on the whole a sound prudential morality.

And

.

were

that

if

This seems to

Valkyria Biynhild,

Sigurd on Hyndfell.

their

then,

the world shall worsen

that

think that

of his

v/iles of

And

" !

the Northmen."

ligion of

dom "

may be

who made

die,

lived not altogether heedless ?

mouth

untouched by Christian hopes.

Christianity,

after re-reading Njala, the greatest of them.

to another correspondent

it

and untaught philosophy, the philosophy

of intuitive

his

this

own

Brynhild.

of

In these

he has nobly expressed the great thought that heroism vital

to the

life

of

the universe

— that

they are the

JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

nil.

Zl sustaining its tall

po\vn>

tluit

h-cp (he (ahric of the world from tottering to

:

Know thoii. most niij^htv of men, thai llic Noins shall order all, And vrt without thme helping shall no whit of their will befall And the night of the Norns, and tiieir slumber, and the tide when ;

the world

runs back. the way of the sun is tangled, it is wrought of the dastard's lack But the day when the fair earth blossoms, and the sun is bright abore, Of the daring deeds is it fashioned and the eager hearts of love.

And

;

163).

(p.

Nor does

she

warn him,

She

him

act

bids

nor exult

in

it,

keep out

in the spirit of Polonius, to

where need

but a/)idc

it

calls,

and then

and then he

;

of quaiTels.

neither repent his action

will

be enthroned above

all

the chances of time,

And

look on to-day

And how did

How is

and to-morrow as those

Morris handle these deeds and sufferings themselves

them as an

did he shape and present

no doubt, Iceland had her

story tellers

no

that never die.

less

way

wath him

?

artist ?

Here, too, there

he

the spell of her

;

felt

And

than of her makers of story.

it

was

strong

make him defy very deep-rooted and authoritative canons of enough art. The great tradition of epic poetry would have bidden him conto

upon the supreme central phase

centrate

the ///(Ki^

is

not the siege of Troy, but an episode in

action of the

Orfyssey covers

the waking in

poraries Leconte

moment

the waking of

six

the subject of

;

its last

years

the

;

weeks, that of Paradise Lost, from

Hell to the expulsion from Eden, need not be more

than a few days.

poignant

of the story

Fastidious poetic

de

Lisle

the flawless marble or

French contemsingle

Sigurd and Brynhild's terrible laugh,

of

or the slaymg of

onyx

his

and Sully Prudhomme, had taken a

— the death

Angentyr

artists, like

of their verse.

Hjartan, and carved

it

in

But Morris, Hke the German

poet Hebbel, whose Nibelungeyi trilogy had appeared thirteen years before

(

1

862),

felt,

with the old saga writer, the grandeur of the whole

lays, the story

cycle of

not of Sigurd only but of the

Volsungs —his forbears and into his as

Moms may

clared,

—

poem.

It

his

progeny

moves before

— and

of the

he put the whole cycle

us like a vast piece of tapestry such

have been weaving as he made

it,

was worth anything who could not make an

where everything

House

that belongs to the story

is

for

no

poet,

he de-

epic while he

wove

naively put into

it,

—

—

NORSE MYTH men and

gods, trees

power and

23

human and subhuman,

the tragic

beasts, the

and he accepts and renders

value,

hearted and equable serenity.

it

for

him

own

its

and awestruck

This did not always tend

propitiate

to

allusion the incestuous birth

Arthur, was

of

disconcerted to read at the very outset the primeval loves of

and Signy

told

length

at

;

and

from "Topsy".

friend

his

dragon as "

Fafnir's transformation into a retort

kind

with the same large-

Victorian England, for which Tennyson had veiled in

his readers.

distant

ENGLISH POETRY

Every moment and incident has

and grotesque. of

and

IN

—

Even

in

Wagner

Sigmund

Rossetti angrily silly,"

derided

provoking a drastic

the dragon has tried the

patience of the unelect.

VI. Nevertheless,

the

enduring interest

Wagner's Niebelungen Ring, must lyric

power

of the great central

rest

scenes.

of

Moms's Sigurd,

Gunnar's

When

hall, as his bride, sees

seated beside them, and

mainly upon the tragic and

is

courtly

words

answer

in

Brynhild, for instance, coming into

one

far surpassing the

Niblung brother,

it is

Sigurd, once her betrothed,

full of

restrained passion under the

told that

she addresses him v/ith a greeting

of

Here, again and again, the

equable flow of Morris's verse becomes close knit and weighty to the grip of the situation.

as

:

All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew, But gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall he answer thereto

And

he

.

.

replies,

.

with anguish no

She heard and turned But

to

Then

Gudrun

to

Gunnar

less resolutely

kept

down

:

as a queen that seeketh her place,

she gave no greeting, nor beheld the Niblung' s face.

the discovery scene, in the river, where Brynhild suddenly

wading deeper

in,

Gudrun

cries

:

Why wadest thou so deeps and upper waters, and wilt leave me here bciow ? Tlien e'en as one transfigured loud Brynhild cried and said So oft shall it be between us at hall and board and bed E'en so shall the gold cloths lap me, when we sit m Odin's hall, While thou shiverest, Httle hidden, by thy lord the Helper's thrall, By the serving man of Gunnar, who all his bidding doth, In the

;

;

.

.

.

—

;

AnJ

waits by the cJihh

my

But

O

well,

is

Thro

troth- breakers

ye

of

my

stretched forth her

White waxed

And And

there

!

1

hand

till

the

troth.

Fire,

his heart's desire.

was found

she

lie

man

a

to ride

by Brynhild

waded up

s

side.

the stream

Brynhild, and thereon

to

Wavering

was

a golden gleam

the face of Brynhild as she looked on the glittering thing " " By all thou lovest, whence haddest thou the ring ?

she spake

:

:

she turns on the mocking

And Gudrun "

who rode

Flickering Fire to

Then no word answered Gudrun

And

win

to

master pHghteth the

his

wliile

lH>\vor.

the

luddy death

at the

waves

the

of

the Kinjj of the Kinsfolk

in.Ate is

And m^Kked it

JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

THh:

24

;

tells

Gudrun "

O

Brynhild, on the night had the ring the semblance of Gunnar left thee

Thus he wooed

who

clutches a knife ".

the deadly secret.

When

For he cloaked him

as one

in

Gunnar's semblance and

the bride for

morn, golden hall forlorn."

that followed the in thy

Gunnar, and

his

shape

in

Gunnar rode

for

Gunnar's hid

the

:

fire.

And he held thy hand for Gunnar, and lay by thy dead desire. Brynhild, and great is thy renown have known thee for long, In this shalt thou joy henceforward, and nought in thy nodding crown.

O

We

;

Now

is Brynhild wan as the dead, and she openeth her mouth to speak, But no word cometh outward. .

.

Then ing gloom,

.

follows the long, bitter brooding of Brynhild in ever deepen-

and the great scene where Sigurd seeks her

(or her love despite the

and begs

out,

bonds which bind them both elsewhere.

Like

the sun-god he shines upon her despair, radiant with the temper that looks eagerly to the future

Awake, With But

O

Brynhild

the light of the sun

all

And she And my

hope

fled

is

cried

is

!

will not for the

succumb

house

is

awakened, and the hope

to the past

:

smitten thro' of

deeds

to do.

from her.

"1 may

:

heart

Then once

A

arise,

and

live

no longer,

for the

the forge of sorrow, and

my

gods have forgotten the

life is

earth.

a wasting dearth."

again spoke Sigurd, once only and no more

:

golden he stood on the sunlit floor eyes were the eyes of Odin, and his face was the hope of the world,

pillar of light all

And

his

And

he cried

:

"

1

am

Sigurd the Volsung, and belike the tales shall be true,

That no hand on the earth may hinder what

my hand would

fashion

and do

:

— NORSE MYTH O

ENGLISH POETRY

IN

25

and thee on the earth will 1 wed. and all those shall be as the dead." (But his breast so swelled within him that the breastplate over it burst,) And he saw the eyes of Brynhild, and turned from the word she spake " / will not wed thee, Sigiird, nor any man alive" Brynhild beloved

live, live,

And

away Gudrun

put

!

the Nibling,

—

:

A great she

line, terrible in its

own

Sigurd, Brynhild's victim,

is

now

to

herself, like the

more

naked

simplicity, preluding the ruin

about to bring upon them both.

is

wan

is

Then,

Her vengeance

end.

be her bridegroom and she

dying Cleopatra,

"

pray thee a prayer, the

I

That ye bear me

And

my

She arrays

her royal robes, and her face no

in

side

'

word

last

:

world

in the

and the hand

forth to Sigurd,

lay his sword,

Betwixt

her

Sigurd,

;

his bride.

then thrusts the blade into her breast, and delivers her

;

charge to Gunnar helplessly standing by

last

over

is

which

death of

after the

speak,

1

my hand would

seek.

the blade that frighted death,'

and Sigurd's as

lay that while agone,

it

When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone How then when the flames flare upward may be left behind ? :

I

How How Clash

to

With **

may

then

the road he

wendeth be hard

then in the gates of Valhall

on the heels of Sigurd, as

that magnificent

Husband,

come

I

cry

"

I

!

for

of

I

triumph

in

death,

facile

among

world,

it

is

style of

plainly not wdth the subtle

style.

art of

poetry (

1

?

)

who up

It

to

expository, tell

then, has

we

If

are to

and compressed manner, or the

Nor, save

Homer.

for its

The

we

Norse myth and

things

simplicity of

influence

its

must place

spontaneous flow, does

Homer

a flawless clarity of outline and a limpid speech which

Two

bom

Sigurd with that of any of the great epics of the

easy, spontaneous flow.

What,

poems

admit, save at rare

high-v^ought harmonies of Vergil or Milton, that

recall the simpler

the supreme

troubadour eloquence of the

romancer was too deeply engrained in him to moments, the rigour and the economy of great

compare the

Cleopatra's

like

close.

The

English literature.

feet to find ?

the door of the gleaming ring " follow on my king ?

Morris's Sigui'd can hardly be counted of

my

may

fits

meant

its it

goes with

the meaning. for

English

:—

brought to the cognizance of our eighteenth century poets, 1

760, with

and

a story, a

all their brilliant

satiric verse,

new and noble

knew

accomplishment

neither

how

in oratorical,

to sing a song nor to

poetry of which song and story were the

THt JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

26

Percy's Rt'/ujucs were

breath and blcxxd.

vital

Burns was but

Bums'

born

just

can match the

s<.ings

Eddie

finest

long before William Morris, to sing

are great in

scale,

still

when

The Norse

deductions have been made, has

all

made

our

if

in

in verse,

larger

us the

left

our time.

own

has learned to see

prosaic, the tonic spectacle of a

some indefinable way, age

is

rich with the intellectual spoils it

in

were dared and

colossal things

And

stoy

Tennyson, Byron,

but cannot shape a

idylls,

good-humouredly

humanity which was

far off.

mastery of

its

influence brought into a soaety fastidiously refined,

or sordidly gross, or

where

but

;

episodes,

nearest approach to great epic

(2)

nineteenth century had learnt,

and uncertain.

faltering

single scenes,

Morris,

whole.

was

come, anJ

lays in power, or in exemption

The

from the vicious diction of the age.

on a grand

to

still

only the greatest of the old ballads and of

:

suffered,

great,

simple,

heroic,

and the gods were never

more complex, more experienced, more

and the

only the more

world,

spiritual treasures of the

clearly

and comprehensively,

this

elemental poetry, where Life, and Death, and Love, the eternal themes of

poetry, are thought of in so great

all

and simple a way, and where

beauty,

the beauty begotten of a " fearful land," and only possible

there,

so superbly

is

wiung from

fear.

NOTES. ^

(p.

that the

It is unimportant for the present purpose 5) Beoii'ulf, 885 f. scene of the recital of the Volsung song, is laid in a Scandinavian

The his own by an Anglian poet. have Scandinavian analogues but the evidence does not justify us in reckoning it the first (and one of the greatest) exzimples of Scandinavicin literary influence by assigning it to a Scandinavian

land

the story

;

Beowulf

story of

was

in

any case made

itself is

well

known

to

;

source.

The Volsung story as told in Beowulf differs from other versions in making Sigmund, not Sigurd his son, slay the dragon, and win deathless glory thereby.

Miillenhoff peremptorily dismisses this as a perversion of the original

But

story.

it

has to be remembered that

any other version. (p. 6) This

is

Thus Nashe

Saxo.

story of the

two

^

;

in

friends

— a mixture

(p. 7)

emerges centuries

earlier than

consistent with the occasional quotation of a story

Piers Petinilesse

Asmundus and

buried in the other's grave, and

corpse

it

of

is

tells

from

this

Asuitus, one of

from

source the gruesome

whom

insists

on being

found, some days after, mutilated by the

romance and horror quite

in the

Elizabethan vein.

Inserted by Alfred into his translation of Orosius's History

the World, reproduced in Sweet's

Anglo-Saxon Reader

III,

of and elsewhere..

:

NORSE MYTH

IN

ENGLISH POETRY

* (p. 7) Egils saga Skallagrimssoner, poetry was, of course, composed on English

Norse, not

for

English,

eleventh centuries

all

had

The

ears.

c.

soil

Skallagrimsson's

own

other Norse was intended for of the tenth and

it

Scandinavian kings

Thus Thjodolf Amorsson sang the of his master, King Harald,

there.

but

some of them invaded commemorated then and

fighting singers in their train

Elngland, and had their battles, or their death, thus

and the death

Much

55. ;

27

;

Stamford Bridge (1066), it himself. Egil most famous poem, Hofudlaus7i [Corp. Poet, Bar., f„ battle of

after fighting in

in a York prison, as the price of his life. It is needless here to notice the contention of Vigfusson that a great part of the Norse poetic

266),

was composed

literature

was

actually

composed

in these islands.

He

stood practically alone

in this view. (p. 7) Egil Skallagrimsson, who praised Athelstane, could have understood without great difficulty the praise of Shakespeare written two years ago, in the same measure, by the veteran Icelandic poet Matthias Jochumsson, '•'

for the Book of Shakespeare Homage. It arrived too late to appear there and was separately published ( Ultima Thtde Sendeth Greetings : Univ. of Oxford Press, 1916). " (p. 7) Sophus Bugge, Studies on the Origin of the Scandinavian Stories of Gods and //^r<3^j', Christiania, 1881-9. The Heroic Poems in the Older Edda, ibid., 1896. The latter is translated by W. H. Schofield {The Home of the Eddie Poems London, 1899). good brief discussion is given by H. Gering, Die Edda, Introd.

A

^

^

(p.

{Camb.

9)

W.

P. Ker,

Lit. History, Vol.

The Literal y Influence of X, Chapter X), to which this

the

Middle Ages

section

is

otherwise

indebted. ^^

(p.

9)

Though

often translated

inspired no notable poetry in English.

L'Epee Appendix

in

^

d' Angentyr

and always admired, the Waking has Leconte de Lisle rendered it finely

{Poemes Barbares).

A notice

of

it is

subjoined in

I.

(p. 11)

It is

interesting to

remember

that

when Gray's

lay

was published

768, it was read by a clergyman in the Orkneys to the peasants there. After a few lines they said they knew it in Norse and had often sung it to him when he asked them to recite an old song. Scott, Pirate, XV. " (p. 14) Harvard Studies, Vol. IX, 1903. ^^ Byron notices him in the (p. 14) Select Icelandic Poetry, 1804. in

1

English Bards

—

Herbert

wield Thor's hammer, and sometimes rugged rhymes.

shall

In gratitude thou'lt praise his ^^

(p. 14) It of skulls " being

was based on a curious misunderstanding, " crooked boughs merely a poetic periphrasis for drinking horns.

(p. 6) Of this scene, as known to us through the prose of the saga, Andrew Lang wrote {Homer and the Epic, p. 396, quoted by Professor Ker, The Dark Ages, p. 282) " Homer has no such scene, no such ideas. The ^'

1

:

mastery of love in Brunhild's heart, her scene with Sigurd, where he ranges through every choice before them, to live as friends, to live as lovers, her disdainful rejection of friendship, her northern pride of puiily, his anguish^

"

;

THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY

28

all this is mere perfection, all her drtrrminalion to slay and follow him on thr loftiest level of Shakespeare, and has no parallel in Greek or Roman .

.

.

is

This and several other crucial scenes, are known

poetry."

to us unfortunately

only from the prose paraphrase, the corresponding verse ha\ ing belonged to the lost

leaves of the great '^

On

(p. 17)

"* '*

the

Edda MS. German development

(p.

18) Journ.ils of J'mir/ in

(p.

19)

The

of the story see

/<>•/
forging of this sword, called

suggests comparison with the famous

showmg how

Appendix

11.

1871.

"The Wrath

Homeric making

Sigurd,"

of

of the shield of Achilles

;

done and made, his insight into All the famous writers of epic arts and crafts, is in fact a Homeric trait. were men of letters whose only artistry before him, Virgil, Tasso, Milton was verse Morris alone was craftsman as well as poet. It is true that the motive of Morris's forging scene is not only, like Homer's, the craftsman's art; Regin, the Northern Vulcan, is " Master of the Masters in the smithying craft," but he is also cunning with all the cunning of the dwarf race, and does his best to cheat the boy of the sword he has promised him so when it is tried on the anvil it shivers into fragments. The scene is thus tense with Morris's

love of

things are

—

:

:

drama

;

we

but

feel the craftsman's instinct in the vivid

exposure of the fraud

:

Then Regin trembled and

As

As

fell

the steel flakes

:

shrank, so bright his eyes outshone

and smote the sword thereon and Sigurd's heart grew wroth " Lo, there the right hand's troth tinkled about him

he turned about

But the shards

rendering of that fierce

Sigurd bids Regin try the finished weapon

to the anvil,

shivering earthward,

1

:

There is a closer parallel to the Homeric shield with its inwrought basreliefs Greek life, in the description of Brynhild's weaving (Morris's special craft)

of

of

a golden web, with

not forget to

tell

dark-blue

(p.

of

'^

for

it

(p.

all

the feats of Sigurd wrought in

us that the

weaver

it.

And

of the glittering gold is seated

he does on cloths

186).

19) Blue

is

was derived from

frequent in the early art of artistry not archaeology.

man; but Morris's

turn

APPENDIX

I.

The Waking of Angentyr. Waking of Angentyr

The

is one of the pieces which reflect most savage grandeur and the volcanic terrors of Iceland. In poetic greatness, as in concentrated power of style, it surpasses anything in Old

distinctly the

Hervor, daughter of the dead hero Angentyr has come across the sea where her father lies buried, to wake him from his death- sleep and demand of him the magic sword Tyrfing, forged by the dwarfs, her It is a sinister heirloom, fraught with disaster to her race, and the heritage. girl's quest, like Childe Roland's in Browning, is at once heroic and tragic, an undaunted thrusting on towards an end which, she knows, means her doom. And as only in the tragedies of the primitive myth world, and as in that wonderful fantasia on them, Childe Roland'xXs,^, all the earth and heaven,

EngHsh.

to the island

man and

nature, appears as grim onlookers

at the

tragic

whole scene with bodeful or mocking voices and appalling is

action

filling

the

Nothing

visions.

indifferent.

The whole two

story

of narrative.

with a flock."

"

is

At

told in brief pregnant dialogue, with barely a line or

sunset in

A weird

Munarvoe

haunting picture in

the young maid met a shepherd

The shepherd

itself.

bids her

and seek shelter. She scornfully refuses, and asks the way to the mounds. He is horror-struck. " Ask me not that, thou art in evil

turn back burial

Let us run thence fast as feet can carry us for out of doors all is to men's eyes." She offers him gifts to guide her. But the richest gifts would not keep him from rushing home. For all the island is ablaze with " What of the graves are opening, field and fen are all alight. flames " though all the island be aflame, we must not let the that," quoth Hervor dead men scare us so soon we have to parley with them." And so the shepherd speeds away to the woods, but " greater grows at the stress of peril the close-knit heart in the breast of Hervor ". She comes to the grave mound and calls aloud to her father through the flames " Wake thou, Give me Angentyr It is Hervor thy only daughter that bids thee wake There is no answer. the sword out of the grave which the Dwarfs forged." " Surely ye are become heaps of She turns to scoff at all the buried chiefs. dust since ye will not answer me." And she calls again, and curses theii obstinacy. At last Angentyr unwillingly replies " Hervor, daughter, why dost thou call and curse ? Thou art walking to thy doom mad art thou She answers grown, and wild of wit that thou wakenest ihe dead ? case

!

:

awesome ;

;

:

:

!

!

:

:

"

sharply of thee

:

:

"

1

give

was ever held to be me the sword " !

like other

He

mortals

pretends that 2CJ

till it is

1

came

hither in search

not there

;

for

foemen

THE JOHN F^YLANDS LIBRARY

30

buried him .tnd kept Tyrfing.

Lei her hurry back to her ship out of the

She only answers by threatening to lay spells on ihem so that they would rot and be really dead. At last he confesses that the magic sword lies under him, all wrapped about with fire, and no maid on flames while she may.

earth dares brandish

it.

my

it.

"I care nothing

for the

burning

fire,

the flame sinks

And when

she rushes forward towards the fire to clasp " for I cannot deny he thinks only of savmg her and gives her the sword

before

eyes."

:

"Well hast an exultmg ci*y Viking chief me sees a happier lot is mine than if 1 had conthou done. But the father answers sadly and scornfully he quered all Norway ". " Thou knowest not, knows that her joy is vain and the prelude to doom. hapless are thy words. daughter, whereat thou rejoicest Thou shalt bear thee,

thou young

maiden!" She breaks

O

into

:

;

:

:

a son

who

" Little

shall

wield Tyrfing, and

how my

it

shall

be the ruin

of

all

thy race."

may quarrel, the daughter of kings is of high heart." And she speeds away with a last greeting to the dead in the mound. But now, like Lady Macbeth, after the crisis she knows what she has gone " Truly through. felt between life and death, she mutters, when all around " mc the fires were burning 1

reck

sons

1

!

APPENDIX

11.

The German and the Northern Versions

of the Volsung

Story. German

epic the complex story has an artistic unity which it has on the other hand, the primitive sublimity of the tale has been attenuated along with its primitive paganism we are reading a romance In the

not in the North

:

;

of adventure, reflecting the Christianized manners, the brilliant court

life,

and

the chivalry, of the Minnesinger age. fell top,

only to be

won

Instead of the Valkyrie on the wild by riding through the ring of flames, Brynhild is a

princess in a palace, overcome by cunning in a test of strength.

more concentrated and better organized. In story of Gudmund and Signy, so loosely attached

is

The whole

particular,

the antecedent

to that of

Sigurd, and so

deeply tinged with the savage grandeur of the pagan age, falls away altogether, and had probably quite faded out of the German tradition. The sequel story, on the other hand, receives a new and powerful motive, which for the

first

time knits

it

close to the story of Sigurd.

For

it

becomes now

the story of Gudrun's vengeance upon her brothers for the murder of her passionately loved lord. Whereas in the Northern version, Gudrun's

new chapter in a story already complete and on Gunnar is motived not by vengeance for Sigurd, but by hunger for the treasure he has won. Gudrun's passion of grief for the glorious hero she has lost is incomparably rendered in the northern poems but they have nothing parallel to the terrible heroine of the Second Part of the Nibelungenlied, transformed by her loss from a tender woman into a pitiless avenger, insatiable in her consuming anger until the last of her guilty kinsmen is dead. The central story, on the other hand, has in the German version been impoverished by the loss of its most potent trait. Brynhild and Sigurd have had no earlier meeting on Hyndfell, no exchange of vows nor of rings. Hence, when he helps Gunnar to win her by personating him in shape and name, he is not playing false to an old love, and the wrong she marriage to Atli begins a

;

Atli's treacherous attack

;

suffers,

though mortifying to her pride,

jured lover.

The

is

not the deadly offence of the per-

tragic tension of the situation

is

therefore very sensibly

diminished. It

was necessary

German developments

to indicate the chief

of the

points in

German legend go

the great nineteenth century versions of the

which the Norse and

apart, in order to appreciate

Volsung

story.

It

is

the strongest

evidence of the superiority of the fragmentary but sublime Norse poetry to the rounded, coherent, and humanized German epic that the Norse form of the Volsung story rather than the German was chosen by the two great poets who nearly at the same time were occupied with it, one of them a German himself,

— Richard Wagner and William Morris.

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