Völsunga saga

“ The hard acorn of thought From the high king they took, Laid it bleeding on trencher And bare it Gunnar. "Here have I the heart Of Hogni the hardy, Little like to the heart Of Hjalli the trembler. Howso little it quaketh Laid here on the dish, Yet far less it quaked In the breast of him laid. "So far mayst thou bide From men's eyen, O Atli, As from that treasure Thou shalt abide! "Behold in my heart Is hidden for ever That hoard of the Niblungs, Now Hogni is dead. Doubt threw me two ways While the twain of us lived, But all that is gone Now I live on alone. ”

“ Of all the stories kept in being by the saga-tellers, and left for our delight, there is none that so epitomises human experience; has within the same space so much of nature and of life; so fully expresses the temper and genius of the Northern folk, as that of the Volsungs and Niblungs, which has in varied shapes entered into the literature of many lands. ”

“ For wrong and hatred Shall rest them never, Nay, nor sore sorrow. Both wit and weapons Well must the king have Who is fain to be the foremost. The last rede and eleventh: Until all ill look thou. And watch thy friends' ways ever Scarce durst I look For long life for thee, king: Strong trouble ariseth now already. ENDNOTES: (1) This continues the first part of the lay given in Chapter XX of the Saga; and is, in fact, the original verse of Chapter XXI.
THE LAY CALLED THE SHORT LAY OF SIGURD. Sigurd of yore, Sought the dwelling of Giuki, As he fared, the young Volsung, After fight won ”

“ Them hadst sat then in saddle Through days bright with the sun Fight to awaken And fair fields to redden: "O'er the folk fate makes pale Should the Norn's tears have fallen, The shield mays of the Huns Should have known of all sorrow; And King Atli himself To worm-close should be brought; But now is the worm-close Kept but for thee." Then spake Gunnar Great 'mid the people: "Over-late sister The Niblungs to summon; A long way to seek The helping of warriors, The high lord unshamed, From the hills of the Rhine!" ”

“ While the bold in battle, The Hun King, bides living. "And no nobler kin Shall be known afield, If our five sons We long may foster; Yea, a goodly stem Shall surely wax. —But I clearly see In what wise it standeth, Brynhild's sore urging O'ermuch on thee beareth. "Guttorm shall we Get for the slaying, Our younger brother Bare of wisdom; For he was out of All the oaths sworn, All the oaths sworn, And the plighted troth." Easy to rouse him Who of naught recketh! —Deep stood the sword In the heart of Sigurd. There, in the hall, Gat the high-hearted vengeance ”

“ As a saga, therefore, Völsunga is far behind not only such great works as Njala, but also many of the smaller sagas. It lacks form, and is marred by inconsistencies; it is often careless in grammar and diction; it is full of traces of the decadent Page 12romantic age. Sigurd, in the true spirit of romance, is endowed with magic weapons and supernatural powers, which are no improvement on the heroic tradition, “Courage is better than a good sword.” At every turn, Odin is at hand to help him, which tends to efface the older and truer picture of the hero with all the fates against him ”

“ It is a mark of the savage intellect not to discriminate abruptly between man and the lower animals. In the tales of the lower peoples, the characters are just as often beasts as men and women. Now, in the earlier and wilder parts of the “Volsunga Saga,” otters and dragons play human parts. Signy and his son, and the mother of their enemy, put on the skins of wolves, become wolves, and pass through hideous adventures. The story reeks with blood, and ravins with lust of blood. But when Sigurd arrives at full years of manhood, the barbarism yields place, the Saga becomes human and conscious. ”

“ Brave, strong, generous, dignified, and utterly truthful, he moves amid a tangle of tragic events, overmastered by a mighty fate, and in life or death is still a hero without stain or flaw. It is no wonder that he survives to this day in the national songs of the Faroe Islands and in the folk-ballads of Denmark; that his legend should have been mingled with northern history through Ragnar Lodbrog, or southern through Attila and Theodoric; or that it should have inspired William Morris in producing the one great English epic of the century ”

“ These dreadful things Thrust her toward murder: —"Listen, Gunnar, For thou shalt lose My wide lands, Yea, me myself! Never love I my life, With thee for my lord— "I will fare back thither From whence I came, To my nighest kin And those that know me There shall I sit Sleeping my life away, Unless thou slayest Sigurd the Hun King, Making thy might more E'en than his might was! "Yea, let the son fare After the father, And no young wolf A long while nourish! For on earth man lieth Vengeance lighter, And peace shall be surer If the son live not." ”

“ I shall have death, Or my fair, my lovely, Laid in mine arms. "For the word once spoken, I sorrow sorely— His queen is Gudrun, I am wed to Gunnar; The dread Norns wrought for us A long while of woe." Oft with heart deep In dreadful thoughts, O'er ice-fields and ice-hills She fared a-night time, When he and Gudrun Were gone to their fair bed, And Sigurd wrapped The bed-gear round her. "Ah! Now the Hun King His queen in arms holdeth, While love I go lacking, And all things longed for With no delight But in dreadful thought." ”

“ Crawling out, E'en Atli's mother, All sorrow upon her! A grave gat her sting In the heart of Gunnar, So that no helping Was left for my hero. "O gold-clad woman, Full oft I wonder How I my life Still hold thereafter, For methought I loved That light in battle, The swift with the sword, As my very self. "Thou hast sat and hearkened As I have told thee Of many an ill-fate, Mine and theirs— Each man liveth E'en as he may live— Now hath gone forth The greeting of Oddrun." ”

“ Life shall he lay down Later than ye, And still bear more might Aloft than thy might. "I shall tell thee, Gunnar, Though well the tale thou knowest, In what early days Ye dealt abroad your wrong: Young was I then, Worn with no woe, Good wealth I had In the house of my brother! "No mind had I That a man should have me, Or ever ye Giukings, Rode into our garth; There ye sat on your steeds Three kings of the people— —Ah! That that faring Had never befallen! "Then spake Atli To me apart, And said that no wealth He would give unto me, Neither gold nor lands If I would not be wedded ”

“ Then spake Volsung the king, "All people and nations shall tell of the word I spake, yet being unborn, wherein I vowed a vow that I would flee in fear from neither fire nor the sword; even so have I done hitherto, and shall I depart therefrom now I am old? Yea withal never shall the maidens mock these my sons at the games, and cry out at them that they fear death; once alone must all men need die, and from that season shall none escape; so my rede is that we flee nowhither, but do the work of our hands in as manly wise as we may ”

“ Every student of old northern literature is aware that amongst its remains none are more interesting as literary monuments, none more characteristic of the people from which they sprang than the two Eddas and the Volsunga Saga. Next to the Siege of Troy and the Arthurian legends perhaps no story or agglomeration of stories has left so many and so important traces in international fiction as the tale of Sigurd or Siegfried and his race, the heroic god-born Volsungs. ”

“ The Sigurd died, O'er his dead corpse thou sattest, Not heeding aught gladsome, Since Gunnar so willed it. "Great grief for Atli Gatst thou by Erp's murder, And the end of thine Eitil, But worse grief for thyself. Good to use sword For the slaying of others In such wise that its edge Shall not turn on ourselves!" Then well spake Sorli From a heart full of wisdom: "No words will I Make with my mother, Though both ye twain Need words belike— What askest thou, Gudrun, To let thee go greeting? "Weep for thy brethren, Weep for thy sweet sons, And thy nighest kinsfolk Laid by the fight-side! ”

“ Shall ye come to see me." "Sit thee down, Gunnar, A word must I say to thee Of the life's ruin Of thy lightsome bride— —Nor shall thy ship Swim soft and sweetly For all that I Lay life adown. "Sooner than ye might deem Shall ye make peace with Gudrun, For the wise woman Shall full in the young wife The hard memory Of her dead husband. "There is a may born Reared by her mother, Whiter and brighter Than is the bright day; She shall be Swanhild, She shall be Sunbeam. "Thou shalt give Gudrun Unto a great one, Noble, well-praised Of the world's folk ”

“ So Volsung weds her withal; and long they abode together with good hap and great love. They had ten sons and one daughter, and their eldest son was hight Sigmund, and their daughter Signy; and these two were twins, and in all wise the foremost and the fairest of the children of Volsung the king, and mighty, as all his seed was; even as has been long told from ancient days, and in tales of long ago, with the greatest fame of all men, how that the Volsungs have been great men and high-minded and far above the most of men both in cunning and in prowess and all things high and mighty. ”

“ Norway also possesses a rich fund of folk tales, which have been collected by Asbjörnsen, and which, having many of the qualities of prose epics, have delighted many generations.
THE VOLSUNGA SAGA [34] The Second Part of the Edda contains the famous Volsunga Saga, or Epic of the Volsungs, which has not only given rise to the Nibelungenlied and to Wagner's famous Trilogy of operas, but also to William Morris' Sigurd the Volsung. ”

“ Ne'er shalt thou, Gunnar, The gold have joy of; The dear-bought rings Shall drag thee to death, Whereon thou swarest Oath unto Sigurd. Ah, in the days by-gone Great mirth in the homefield When my Sigurd Set saddle on Grani, And they went their ways For the wooing of Brynhild! An ill day, an ill woman, And most ill hap!" Then spake Brynhild, Budli's daughter— "May the woman lack Both love and children, Who gained greeting For thee, O Gudrun! Who gave thee this morning Many words!" Then spake Gullrond, Giuki's daughter— "Hold peace of such words Thou hated of all folk! ”

“ During these years Morris learned Icelandic, and his next published works were translations of some of the Icelandic sagas, writings composed from six to nine hundred years ago, and containing a mass of legends, histories and romances finely told in a noble language. These translations were followed in 1876 by his great epic poem, "Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs." In that poem he retold a story of which an Icelandic version, the "Volsunga Saga," written in the twelfth century, is one of the world's masterpieces. ”

“ To whomso they may avail, Unbewildered unspoilt; They are wholesome to have: Thrive thou with these then. When thou hast learnt their lore, Till the Gods end thy life-days. "Now shalt thou choose thee E'en as choice is bidden, Sharp steel's root and stem, Choose song or silence; See to each in thy heart, All hurt has been heeded."
Then answered Sigurd—
"Ne'er shall I flee, Though thou wottest me fey; Never was I born for blenching, Thy loved rede will I Hold aright in my heart Even as long as I may live." ”

“ Then laughed Brynhild— Loud rang the whole house— One laugh only From out her heart: "Long shall your bliss be Of lands and people, Whereas the famed lord You have felled to the earth!" Then spake Gudrun, Giuki's daughter; "Much thou speakest, Many things fearful, All grame be on Gunnar The bane of Sigurd! From a heart full of hate Shall come heavy vengeance." Forth sped the even Enow there was drunken, Full enow was there Of all soft speech; And all men got sleep When to bed they were gotten; Gunnar only lay waking Long after all men. ”

“ And Swanhild shall she Send from the land, That may born of her, The may born of Sigurd. "Her shall bite The rede of Bikki, Whereas for no good Wins Jormunrek life; And so is clean perished All the kin of Sigurd, Yea, and more greeting, And more for Gudrun. "And now one prayer Yet pray I of thee— That last word of mine Here in the world— So broad on the field Be the burg of the dead That fair space may be left For us all to lie down, All those that died At Sigurd's death! ”

“ The argument that the "treachery of the Jutes" means the treachery of Finn, King of the Frisians, has, then, no support at all.
One further argument there is, for attributing treason to Finn.
It has been urged that in other stories a husband entraps and betrays the brother of his wife. But we are not justified in reading pieces of one story into another, unless we believe the two stories to be really connected. The Signy of the Vǫlsunga Saga has been quoted as a parallel to Hildeburh [492] . Signy leaves the home of her father Volsung and her brother Sigmund to wed King Siggeir. ”

“ And that no better Might ever be born Into the world, If fate would not spoil it. "Brynhild in bower Sewed at her broidery, Folk she had And fair lands about her; Earth lay a-sleeping, Slept the heavens aloft When Fafnir's-bane The burg first saw. "Then was war waged With the Welsh-wrought sword And the burg all broken That Brynhild owned; Nor wore long space, E'en as well might be, Ere all those wiles Full well she knew. "Hard and dreadful Was the vengeance she drew down, So that all we Have woe enow. ”