Stories and Ballads of the Far Past Part 1

Stories and Ballads of the Far Past.

by Nora Kershaw.

Preface

Very few of the _Fornaldar Sogur Northrlanda_ have hitherto been translated into English. The _Volsungasaga_ is of course well known, but with this exception the 'Stories of Icelanders,' and the 'Stories of the Kings of Norway' are probably the only sagas familiar to the majority of English readers. Of the four sagas contained in this volume only one--the _Thattr of Sorli_--has appeared in English before, though the poetry which they contain has frequently been translated, from the time of Hickes's _Thesaurus_ (1705). So far as I am aware no version of any of the Faroese ballads has appeared in English. Out of the great number which were collected during the 18th and 19th centuries I have chosen a few which deal with the same stories as the sagas translated here; and for purposes of comparison I have added a short extract from one of the Icelandic _Rimur_, as well as a Danish ballad and part of the Shetland _Hildina_.

In accordance with general custom in works of this kind I have discarded the use of accents, unfamiliar symbols, etc., except in a few Norse words which can hardly be anglicised.

My thanks are due to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for undertaking the publication of this book, and to the staff for their unfailing courtesy.

To Professor Thuren of Christiania I am indebted for kindly allowing me to print the melodies from his son's _Folkesangen paa Faererne_. I have also to thank many friends in St Andrews and Cambridge for help which they have kindly given to me in various ways, including Professor Lawson, Dr Maitland Anderson and the staffs of the two University Libraries, and Mr B. d.i.c.kins. Especially I wish to thank Professor Chadwick to whom I am indebted for constant help and advice throughout the book.

N. K.

_2 November, 1920._

PART I

SAGAS

THE SAGAS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The following stories are taken from the _Fornaldarsogur Northrlanda_, or 'Stories of Ancient Times relating to the countries of the North'--a collection of Sagas edited by Rafn in 1829-30 and re-edited by Valdimar asmundarson in 1886-1891. The stories contained in this collection deal almost exclusively with times anterior to Harold the Fairhaired (c. 860-930) and the colonisation of Iceland, and stop therefore where the better known stories relating to Iceland and the historical kings of Norway begin. Some of them relate to persons and events of the ninth century, while others are concerned with times as remote as the fourth or fifth centuries. Their historical value is naturally far inferior to that of the _islendinga Sogur_, or 'Stories of Icelanders' and the _Konunga Sogur_, or 'Stories of the Kings.'

From the literary point of view also the 'Stories of Ancient Times'

are generally much inferior to the others. The 'Stories of Icelanders'

are derived from oral tradition, which generally goes back in more or less fixed form to the time at which the characters in the stories lived, and they give us a vivid picture of the persons themselves and of the conditions of life in their time. In the 'Stories of Ancient Times,' on the other hand, though there is some element derived from tradition, often apparently of a local character, it is generally very meagre. More often perhaps the source of the stories is to be found in poems, notable instances of which will be found in _Hervarar Saga_ and in _Volsunga Saga_. In many cases, however, the stories without doubt contain a large proportion of purely fict.i.tious matter.

The texts of the 'Stories of Ancient Times' which have come down to us date as a rule from the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries though the actual MSS. themselves are generally later. Most of the stories, however, were probably in existence before this time.

The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) was familiar with many of them, including the story of Hethin and Hogni[1] and one of the scenes recorded in _Hervarar Saga_[2]. And we are told that a story which seems to have corresponded, in its main outlines at least, to the story of Hromund Greipsson was composed and recited at a wedding in Iceland in 1119[3]. But in many cases the materials of our stories were far earlier than this, though they no doubt underwent considerable changes before they a.s.sumed their present form.

Indeed many stages in the literary history of the North are represented in the following translations. Of these probably the oldest is that section of the _Hervarar Saga_ which deals with the battle between the Goths and the Huns "at Dylgia and on Dunheith and upon all the heights of Josur." The poetry here included in the saga dates even in its present form probably from the Viking Age, perhaps from the tenth century. But the verses themselves do not appear to be all of the same date. Some of them show a certain elaboration and a sense of conscious art, while others are comparatively bare and primitive in type and contain very early features[4]; and there is every probability that such poetry was ultimately derived from poetry composed at a time when the Goths were still remembered. This is not surprising in view of the fact that stories relating to the Goths were popular in English and German heroic poetry, as well as in the heroic lays of the North. Indeed we know from Jordanes[5] and elsewhere that heroic poetry was common among the Goths themselves and that they were wont to celebrate the deeds of their ancestors in verse sung to the accompaniment of the harp.

This poem is no doubt much older than the saga. Originally it would seem to have been complete in itself; but many verses have probably been lost. Thus there can be little doubt that the prose pa.s.sages in chs. XII-XV are often merely a paraphrase of lost verses, though it must not be a.s.sumed that all the prose in this portion of the saga originated in such a way[6]. "It is difficult to tell ... where the prose of the ma.n.u.scripts is to be taken as standing in the place of lost narrative verses, and where it fills a gap that was never intended to be filled with verse, but was always left to the reciter to be supplied in his own way[7]." The difficulty, however, is greater in some cases than in others. The following picturesque pa.s.sage from the opening of ch. 14 of the _Hervarar Saga_ is a very probable instance of a paraphrase of lost verses:

It happened one morning at sunrise that as Hervor was standing on the summit of a tower over the gate of the fortress, she looked southwards towards the forest and saw clouds of dust, arising from a great body of horse, by which the sun was hidden for a long time. Next she saw a gleam beneath the dust, as though she were gazing on a ma.s.s of gold--fair shields overlaid with gold, gilded helmets and white corslets.

The motif of a chief or his lady standing on the pinnacle of a tower of the fort and looking out over the surrounding country for an approaching army is a very common one in ballads. The motif of the above pa.s.sage from _Hervarar Saga_, including the armour of the foe and the shining shields, occurs in the opening stanzas of the Danish Ballad _De vare syv og syvsindstyve_[8], which probably dates from the fourteenth century (though it may possibly be later[9]) and which derives its material ultimately from old heroic lays[10].

To the same period approximately as the poem on the battle with the Huns belong the two pieces from the _Older Edda_ contained in the _Thattr[11] of Nornagest_. The _Reginsmal_ indeed, of which only about half is quoted, may be even earlier than the former (in the form in which it appears in _Hervarar Saga_), while the _h.e.l.lride of Brynhild_ can hardly be later than the early part of the eleventh century.

A second stage in the literary history of the North is represented by the 'episodic' poems _Hjalmar's Death Song_ and the _Waking of Angantyr_, both of which are attributed to the twelfth century by Heusler and Ranisch[12]. Unlike the poem on the battle between the Goths and the Huns, neither of these forms a story complete in itself. They presuppose the existence of a saga in some form or other, presumably oral, dealing at least with the fight at Sams; and the existence of such a saga in the twelfth century is confirmed by the account of the same event given by Saxo[13].

A third stage in the literary development of the heroic legends is represented by the written saga itself, which has evidently been formed by the welding together, with more or less skill as the case may be, of several distinct stories, and of more than one literary form. A particularly striking instance of this is to be found in the _Hervarar Saga_ with its stories of the Heroic and Viking Ages, the poems dealing with the fight on Sams, the primitive Riddles of Gestumblindi and the early poem of the battle between the Goths and Huns[14]. Something of the same kind has also taken place in the composition of the _Thaettir of Nornagest_ and of _Sorli_ respectively, though into the former has entered a considerable element of folk-tale which is introduced with a certain _navete_ and no little skill alongside the old heroic legends. As has been already mentioned, these three sagas, like others of the same type, appear to have been written down in the late thirteenth or the early years of the fourteenth century. On the other hand most if not the whole of the _Saga of Hromund Greipsson_ appears to have been composed early in the twelfth century, but we do not know when it was first written down.

A fourth stage is represented by the Icelandic _Rimur_ which are for the most part rhyming metrical versions of the sagas and which date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As an ill.u.s.tration of this stage I have translated a few stanzas from the _Griplur_, a _Rima_ based on an early form of the story of Hromund Greipsson[15].

The _Rimur_ are, so far as we can judge, somewhat wearisome paraphrases of the prose stories, and while the metre and diction are elaborate in the extreme, the treatment of the story is often mechanical and puerile. Comparatively few of the _Rimur_ have as yet been published and the _Griplur_ is the only one known to me which is primarily concerned with any of the sagas contained in this volume.

The ballads, both Faroese and Danish[16], belong to a fifth stage in the life of heroic legend in the North; but their origin and history is by no means so clear as that of the _Rimur_, and it is at present impossible to a.s.sign even approximate dates to more than a few of them with any degree of certainty. I have touched on this question at somewhat greater length below[17]; and I would only add here that some Danish and Swedish ballads, e.g. _Ung Sveidal_[18], _Thord af Haffsgaard_[19] and perhaps _Her Aage_[20], appear to be derived more or less directly from poems of the Viking Age, such as _Fjolsvinsmal_, _Thrymskvitha_ and _Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I_--without any intermediate prose stage.

A careful study of the Faroese ballads as a whole might enable one to determine something more of the relation of ballads to 'Literature'[21] and of the various ballad forms to one another, such as that of the short and simple _Ballad of Hjalmar and Angantyr_ to the longer and more complicated _Ballad of Arngrims Sons_.

Simplification and confusion are among the chief characteristics of popular poetry[22]; but it is to be noted that in the case of the _Hervarar Saga_ confusion set in long before the days of the ballad--as early as the saga itself, where there must surely be at least one case of repet.i.tion of character[23]. In reality, considering through how many stages the ballad material has pa.s.sed, one is amazed at the vitality of the stories and the amount of original groundwork preserved. A careful comparison of the _Volsunga Saga_ and the Faroese cycle of ballads generally cla.s.sed together as _Sjurar Kvaei_--which, be it observed, were never written down at all till the nineteenth century--brings out to a degree literally amazing the conservatism of the ballads on the old heroic themes.

Readers who desire to make further acquaintance with the 'Stories of Ancient Times' as a whole will find a further account of the subject in Professor Craigie's _Icelandic Sagas_ (p. 92 ff.). More detailed accounts will be found in Finnur Jonsson's _Oldnorske og Oldislandske Litteraturs Historie_[24], Vol. II, pp. 789-847, and in Mogk's _Geschichte der Altnordischen Literatur_ in Paul's _Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie_, Ed. II, 1904, Vol. II, pp. 830-857, while a discussion of the heroic stories will be found in Professor Chadwick's _Heroic Age_, chs. I-VIII. For a full bibliography of the texts, translations, and general literature dealing with the _Fornaldarsogur_ collectively, see the annual _Islandica_, Vol. V, pp. 1-9, compiled by Halldor Hermannsson and issued by the Cornell University Library, 1912.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Saxo Grammaticus, _Dan. Hist._, Book V, p.

160 (Elton's translation, pp. 197, 198).]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Saxo, _op. cit._, Book V, p. 166 (Elton's translation, p. 205).]

[Footnote 3: Cf. Introduction to the _Saga of Hromund Greipsson_, p. 58 below.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. Heusler and Ranisch, _Eddica Minora_ (Dortmund, 1903) p. xii.]

[Footnote 5: _De Origine Actibusque Getarum_ (transl. C.C.

Mierow, Princeton, 1915), cap. 5.]

[Footnote 6: Cf. Heusler and Ranisch, _op. cit._, p. x ff.]

[Footnote 7: Ker, _Epic and Romance_ (London, 1908, 2nd ed.), p. 112.]

[Footnote 8: S. Grundtvig, _Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser_ (Copenhagen, 1853-1890), Bd I, no. 7.]

[Footnote 9: See General Introduction to Part II, p. 166 below.]

[Footnote 10: Cf. Axel Olrik, _Danske Folkeviser i Udvalg_ (Copenhagen and Christiania, 1913), pp. 81, 82.]

[Footnote 11: A. _Thattr_ (pl. _Thaettir_) is a story within a story--an episode complete in itself but contained in a long saga.]

[Footnote 12: _Eddica Minora_, pp. xxi, xlii.]

[Footnote 13: _Op. cit._, Book V, p. 166 (Elton's translation, pp. 204, 205).]

[Footnote 14: See Introduction to the _Hervarar Saga_, pp.

81-4 below.]

[Footnote 15: See Introduction to the _Griplur_, p. 171 ff.

below.]