Northvegr
Search the Northvegr™ Site



Powered by   Google.com
 
Join the Heathen History mailing list.
  Home | Site Index | Heithinn Idea Contest |
Home of the Eddic Lays


Chapter 9


IX
ENGLISH AND IRISH INFLUENCE ON THE SECOND HELGI-LAY.

Page 1

        Passing on to the verses now known collectively as the 'Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani,' (1) I would first call attention to certain expressions peculiar to that poem, which seem to throw some light on the question where its author lived.
        The so-called Second Helgi-Lay is made up of a series of strophes, brought together in recent times, all of which are in the metre fornyrðislag, with the exception of st. 29, which is in ljóðaháttr. These strophes, which to some extent do not agree with one another, and which do not form a complete whole, are introduced by a bit of prose headed 'On the Völsungs.' Prose passages, moreover, are scattered here and there throughout the poem, uniting different strophes; and the concluding words are also in prose.
        The first four strophes present scenes from Helgi's feuds with Hunding. The latter is slain. In st. 5-13 we have the first conversation between Helgi and Sigrún, the daughter of Högni. In st. 14-18, which in a prose passage are said to belong to 'The Old Lay of the Völsungs,' Sigrún comes to Helgi, and embraces and kisses him. She tells him that she loved him before she saw him, but that she is betrothed to Höthbrodd. Helgi bids her not be afraid: she shall live safely with him (Helgi). Next, a prose passage tells of Helgi's sea-expedition to the land of the sons of Granmar. A little of the conversation between Sinfjötli and Guthmund follows, with a reference to the First Helgi-lay, which, as we have seen, had already found a place in the MS. Then comes a prose passage which records the battle in which Helgi overcomes the sons of Granmar and their allies, Högni and his kinsmen. In st. 25 Sigrún's conversation with the dying Höthbrodd on the battle-field is given; and in st. 26-29 that between Sigrún and Helgi. Then, after the words 'þetta kvað Guðmundr Granmars sonr,' come four strophes (19-22) which have no relation to the context. These contain the retorts in the word-combat between Guthmund and Sinfjötli already mentioned, but in a different form from that first given, along with two strophes (essentially the same as H.H., I, 45-46), in which Helgi puts an end to the dispute (23-24). The words in these strophes were, for the most part, abbreviated by the scribe since they corresponded pretty closely with what he had already written in the First Lay. A prose bit follows, in which we are told that Helgi marries Sigrún, and is afterwards killed by her brother Dag, who thus revenges his father's death. In st. 30-38 Dag informs Sigrún of Helgi's murder, whereupon Sigrún curses Dag, and lauds Helgi. The dead Helgi is now associated with Odin in the rule of Valhöll. He bids Hunding do servile labour there (st. 39). Helgi comes after sunset as a dead man to his grave-mound, where the living Sigrún embraces him. When day dawns, he rides back to Valhöll, never more to return (st. 40-51). In the prose conclusion we are told that Sigrún soon dies of grief.
        There are several words in these verses which point to the British Isles.
        When Sigrún meets Helgi on the battle-field after the battle, in which most of her relatives have fallen, he says to her (H. H., II, 28):
                        Liggja 'at iordán'
                        allra flestir
                        niðjar þínir
                        at nám orðnir.
In ON this can only mean: 'By Jordan lie the great majority of thy relatives, become corpses.' That the poet should have imagined the slain as lying by Jordan, is most remarkable. Therefore editors have altered the text to Liggja at jörðu, which they take to mean 'lie on the earth.' But, though at, 'by,' can well be used before the name of the river Jordan, 'on the earth' in ON is á (not at) jörðu. If, now, á jörðu were the original expression, it would not be easy to explain how the scribe came to write at iordán. It seems to me probable, therefore, that the original expression was the AS on eorðan, 'on the earth,' and that this the poet took into ON in the form at Jordán, 'by Jordan.' We should thus have merely another example of the tendency to introduce fantastic names of places which is evident in the Helgi-poems----as, e.g., when the place where Atli, King Hjörvarth's faithful man, dwells, is called at Glasislundi (H. Hj., I), i.e. 'by the tree with the golden foliage.'
        If this conjecture is justified, then it follows that:---
  1. The first line in H.H., II, 24 is a working-over of a line in an AS poem. (Possibly the same might be said of the following three lines, although we should be entirely unjustified in postulating an AS model for the whole poem.)
  2. The conjectural AS line was probably not in the Northumbrian dialect; for a Leyden MS. of one of the Riddles has the Northumbrian form ofaer eorðu, 'over the earth,' while the Exeter Book writes (in the same riddle) ofer eorðan.
  3. The Norseman who first carried over on eorðan and wrote it in ON at Jordán, had heard the Palestine river mentioned in Christian stories.
  4. The Norse poet who adopted the line Liggja at Jordán must have learned the AS model of this verse from an Englishman in England, or elsewhere in Britain. (2)
        In H. H., II, 20, Sinfjötli, in conversation with Guthmund, says of Helgi:
                        hann hefir 'eþli'
                        ættar þínnar
                        arf 'fiorsunga'
                        und sik þrungit.
'He has subdued the inheritance of thy race.' It is generally acknowledged that eðli must mean here 'inherited property, allodial possession'; but it cannot be proved that eðli had this sense in pure ON. In ON the word means 'race, origin,' and 'nature.' Finnur Jónsson changes the MS. eþli to óþle. But eðli in this line may have been carried over into ON in the meaning 'allodial possession, inherited land,' from the AS êðle, dative of êðel, which has that meaning. Like iordán, eþli points to a West Saxon form. (3)
        The word 'fiörsunga' is gen. pl. of fjörsungr, the name of a fish. (4) The name recurs as Fjærsing, Fjæsing, Fjesing in modern Norwegian dialects, but, it should be noted, only in the most southerly part of Norway, and in modern Danish dialects (see the dictionaries of Ross, Molbech, and Feilberg). It designates a fish with large stripes, trachinus draco. In the Helgi-passage fjörsunga is used to designate Höthbrodd's race; but why the members of that race are called by this name the poem does not explain, and this remarkable designation is still entirely obscure. Since eðli, as it seems, is an English word, we are at once prompted to seek the explanation of fjörsunga in Anglo-Saxon. I am bold enough to conjecture that it was introduced by the Norse poet instead of an AS. *wiersinga, i.e. (land) of worse men, (the land which had fallen into the hands of) men of an inferior race. An AS wiersing, *wyrsing, does not occur in the extant literature, but would be a perfectly regular derivative of wiersa, wyrsa, 'worse,' (5) This conjecture is supported by the fact that wyrsa, 'worse,' is actually used in AS heroic poetry to refer to men of a foreign race to whom one feels one's self in opposition, and on whom one looks down. (6)
        The Norseman who introduced fjörsunga into the text may have been thinking of the characteristic feature ascribed to fjæsing in Smaalenene (S.E. Norway), viz. poisonous fins. It is believed in Lässö that a prick of the fjæsing's fin in hand or foot causes pain and swelling, and the inhabitants say of a very angry person: 'He is as angry as a fjæsing.' The Norsemen thought also perhaps of tales of men born of fishes. (7)
        When the dead Helgi has to leave his grave-mound, to which he has come for one night from Valhöll to meet Sigrún, he says:
                        skal ek fyr vestan
                        vindhjálms brúar,
                        áðr salgofnir
                        sigrþjóð veki (II, 49).
'I must be west of the bridges of heaven (8) before "salgofnir" wakes the einherjar.' Here salgofnir must be either a poetic word for 'cock,' or the name of the cock in Valhöll. It occurs elsewhere only in a verse in two MSS. of Snorri's Edda (9) among poetic names for cock, and the author of that verse almost certainly knew the word from the Helgi-lay. An analogous poetic expression for cocks, with the same initial part, appears to be preserved in salgaukar, Grott. 7, 'cuckoos of the hall.' (10) The second part of the compound, viz., gofnir, has not, however, hitherto been satisfactorily explained.
        In my opinion salgofnir had its origin in *salgopnir. (11) This word is derived from the Irish gop, 'beak (of a bird), mouth, snout'---gofnir, *gopnir, is a poetic coinage, like most other words in –nir. It means 'the beaked one,' i.e. the bird; cf. the name of the steed Mélnir (H. H., I, 51), from mél, 'bit.' (12) Irish gop, later pronounced gob, went over into the English, especially the Scottish dialect of English, as gob, 'mouth.' The word is still familiar in some parts of America also. In Mod. Icel. gopi, 'gap, opening,' is used; haltu firi gopann á þjer, 'shut up, keep quiet.' (13) Here we have probably another loan-word from Irish gop, 'beak, mouth.' (14) Salgofnir thus designates the cock as 'the bird of the hall,' as 'the house-bird.'
        The cock that wakes the einherjar in Valhöll is known not only from the strophe here under discussion in the Helgi-lay, but from Völuspá, 43. It is important for the history of the Valhöll myth that this idea is expressed so early in a strophe which contains an Irish word. (15)
        It should be mentioned that the einherjar in the same strophe 49 of the Second Helgi-lay are called sigrþjoð, (16) and that that compound, which never occurs elsewhere in ON, corresponds to sigeþéod, 'victorious people,' or 'people who overcome in battle,' which is to be found in Béowulf, 2204, and frequently in AS poetry.
        Further, in the same strophe, vindhjálmr, 'the wind-helmet,' i.e. 'the heavens,' or, better, 'the air,' agrees with AS modes of expression. In the rather late Icel. religious poem Leiðarvísan, 30, 45, the heavens are called lopthjálmr, 'the helmet of the air'; sólar hjálmr, 'the helmet of the sun,' and similar expressions with hjálmr, occur in Icelandic skaldic poetry as designations of heaven. In AS the atmosphere is called lyfthelm, 'air-helmet' (Gnom. Cott., 46; Exod., 60), lyfte helm, Riddle, 4[54]. These AS designations accord with many other AS poetic expressions in which helm is used of shelter, covering in general. But since ON hjálmr, 'helmet,' is not used in so wide a sense, the ON poetic expressions for 'air' and 'heaven' which I have named, appear to have arisen in imitation of AS forms.
        Sigrún says of Helgi (in II, 38) after his death: 'Helgi towered up above the chieftains as an ash with its splendid growth over thorn-bushes, or as a young stag, wet with dew, who strides forward, higher than all deer, with horns glittering against heaven itself.' (17) By 'all deer' is certainly meant smaller animals of the deer race, like hinds or roes. (18) The exaggerated poetic expression 'whose horns glitter against heaven itself' does not force us to think of a mythical stag.
        We find the same picture of the stag in Guðr., II, 2, where Guthrún says of the dead Sigurth: 'So was Sigurth above Gjuki's sons as the green leek, grown up above the grass, or as the high-limbed stag above the grey deer, or as red gold in comparison with grey (impure) silver.' (19) 'The grey deer' are probably, as Björn Ólsen suggests, roe-deer, which are of a greyish-brown colour in winter. The evident likeness between the stories of Helgi and Sigurth makes it probable that one of the strophes in which the dead hero is likened to a hart was the model of the other. The expression in the Guthrún-poem seems to be the simpler, and is possibly, therefore, the older. (20)
        That the comparison of a hero to a stag was a common one in ON heroic poetry we see from the fact that it is (inappropriately) applied to a woman: Thora Borgarhjört, Ragnar Lothbrók's first wife, was so called because she was fairer than other women, as the stag is fairer than other animals. (21)
        To compare a hero who surpasses other warriors to the antlered stag which towers above other deer in a herd, was natural in a land where the stag was common and where stag-hunting was the habitual pleasure of chieftains. The Helgi-poet makes the comparison with so much life and vigour as to show clearly, I think, that the poem could not have been composed in Iceland. (22) For the same reason, it is improbable that the Helgi and Guthrún poems, in which this simile occurs, were composed in Norway. It cannot, indeed, be denied that in ancient times there were stags in Norway, especially in the western part; but there is nothing to indicate that they were much thought of by the people. Besides, both the Helgi-poem and (more plainly) the Guthrún-poem appear to contrast the roe-deer with the stag; and the roe-deer has scarcely ever been wild in Norway. (23) On the other hand, the stag has from an early period played a prominent part in life and in story among the people in the British Isles. Stag-hunts are particularly described in old Irish heroic sagas; and therefore the comparison of the hero to a stag might easily have arisen in Ireland. (24)
        There are thus several words, expressions, and images in the second Helgi Lay which appear to show that the Norse author of the poem lived among Irish and English, and understood to some extent the language of both peoples. (25)
        The other pictures from nature which appear in the Second Helgi lay do not, indeed, necessarily point to Ireland or England, though they agree with natural scenery and mode of living in these lands. Some of them, however, forbid us to think of Iceland as the home of the poem.
        In II, 22, Sinfjötli says to Guthmund, who has spoken of battle and revenge: 'Rather shalt thou, O guthmund! tend goats and climb rough mountain-cliffs with hazel-pole (heslikylfu) in thy hands.' True, there were goats in Iceland, but a poet who had never been out of Iceland could scarcely have composed this strophe. In Norway were to be found both goats and hazel; but in Norway old historical writings say nothing of special herdsmen for goats: to be a goatherd was no distinct occupation, for the same person usually herded both goats and sheep. (26) In Rígsþula, 12, the sons of the thrall herd goats. So in Danish compositions of the Middle Ages goat-herding is regarded as one of the most contemptible of occupations. According to Saxo, a witch sets Sigrith (Syritha) to herd goats, and this occupation of hers is also mentioned in an inserted verse. (27) In like manner, Kragelil or Kraaka herds goats in a Danish ballad. (28) It is hard to say how far this feature is due in these cases to the influence of Eddic poems. In later Icelandic fabulous tales, as well as in ballads from the Faroes and Telemarken, goat-herding is mentioned with the greatest contempt, just as in the Helgi lay. (29) This agrees with the situation in Ireland, where goat-herding was a despised occupation. (30)
        Compare H. H., II, 37: 'Helgi had made all his enemies and their kinsmen as timorous as goats, which run wildly before the wolf down from the mountain, full of terror.' (31)
        In the Helgi lay we read that the goatherd has a hazel pole in his hand. This feature, too, may have been borrowed from life in Ireland. In a tale which belongs to the old north-Irish epic cycle, it is said of a man who accompanied the war-fury Morrigan: 'a two-pronged stick of hazel wood was on his back, while he drove a cow before him.' (32)
        We may also note that tending swine is likewise spoken of in the Helgi lays as a contemptible occupation. (33) The Irish regarded swineherds with contempt; (34) but other peoples had the same feeling, so that this expression proves nothing as to the home of the poem.
        Other pictures which the poem presents us are, briefly stated, as follows: the ash rising high above the thorn-bushes (H. H., II, 38); the eagles sitting on the ash after sunset (II, 50); a bear hunt (II, 8). When the poet calls the birds of prey 'the goslings of the valkyries' (II, 7), he refers to the custom of keeping geese as house birds. The maid servant stands by the quern and grinds valbygg (i.e. barley from Valland, II, 3). This word is now in use in the interior of Norway (Buskeruds Fogderi, Hallingdal).



1. After the First Helgi-lay, there follows in the old MS. the story of Helgi, the son of Hjörvarth, introduced by an account of his father. Then Helgi Hundingsbani reappears. Back
2. Björn Ólsen says, in Tímarit, 1894, pp. 30 f, that he has sought diligently in all the Eddic poems without being able to find a single word or a single word-form which, in his opinion, is not or has not been Icelandic. In what precedes, I have pointed out several words and word-forms in these poems which are not Icelandic, and I shall point out many more in the continuation of these investigations. Back
3. In Northumbrian êðel has the form oêðil, and on the Franks Casket we have the dative oþlæ. Back
4. In Sn. Edda, I, 579, fjörsungr occurs among names of fishes: the author of the verse doubtless knew the passage in H. H., I. The occurrence of the word as the name of the hawk in Sn. Edda, II, 488 and 571, is possibly due to a wrong explanation of the word in the Lay. Back
5. Designations of persons in -ing are formed from adjectives, e.g. earming, lytling. That such words can also be formed from comparatives may be seen from the Middle Dutch ouderinc, 'senior,' ON feðrbetrungr, 'a person who is better than his father.' To account for the alteration of AS wiersinga into ON fjörsunga, we may say that the former word was probably not understood, and that w and f shifted readily when f preceeded. (Here AS ierfe (ON arf) doubtless preceded the AS wiersinga.) Back
6. In Béowulf, after the fall of Hygelâc in the land of the Franks, wyrsan wîgfrecan wæl réafedon (l. 1212), 'worse warriors robbed the battlefield.' In the same poem, Béowulf remarks that his old King Hrêthel needed not to seek among foreign peoples wyrsan wîgfrecan, 'worse warriors' (l. 2496). Back
7. In an Irish tale, a salmon of the red gold made St. Finan's mother Becnait pregnant when she was bathing after sunset (Rev. Celt., II, 200). In Bjarnarsaga Hítdælakappa (ed. Friðriksson, p. 42), a malicious verse, which Björn sings about Thórth Kolbeinsson, tells how Thórth's mother was supposed to have conceived him after devouring an ugly fish. Other similar tales could be cited. Back
8. One cannot understand brúar as gen. sing. without changing fyr to fyrr. Back
9. Cod. A. M., 748, 4to (Sn. Ed., II, 488), and Cod. A. M., 757, 4to (Sn. Ed., II, 572). Back
10. Or of sal gaukar. The author of the prose bit on Grotti in Cod. reg. and leß of Sn. Edda misunderstood the word here---taking it to mean the cuckoo. Back
11. A poetic name for the eagle is written in Sn. Ed. in U (II, 354), 748 (II, 488), 757 (II, 572), leß (II, 597), Cod. reg. (I, 490, where the forms in U and 748 differ), gallofnir. But gallopnir in leß, Sn. Ed., II, 598; and the form with p is in þórsdrápa (Sn. Ed., I, 292, in Cod. reg. and Worm.) made certain by its rhyming with gaupnum. I leave it undecided whether the change from salgopnir to salgofnir is to be explained by the influence of the analogous word ofnir (cf. the name of the cock, viðofnir), or from the fact that the syllable to which p belonged, had a secondary accent; pn can also readily be misread for fn. Thus in Sigrdr. 13, in Cod. reg., earlier editors read by mistake hoddropnis for hoddrofnis. Note sopna = sofna in Cod. A. M. 673 A, 4to; hipni = hifni, himni in Eirspennill, fol. 177a. Back
12. Cf. Andhrímnir, hrím; Sessrúmnir, rúm; Falhófnir, hófr; etc. On words in -nir, cf. Sievers, 'Ueber Germanische Nominalbildungen in -aja-, -eja-,' in Königl. Sächs. Gesellsch. d. Wiss., Sitzung vom 14 Juli, 1894, pp. 148-50. Back
13. 'Stringe rostrum' (Björn Haldorsen). Egilsson has already explained Salgofnir by Salgopnir, 'a gapa hiare, gopi hiatus, qs. in aedibus hians, aperto rostro canens.' Back
14. In Mod. Icel. gopi, the Irish word is probably smelted with a true Norwegian word. Aasen has gop (open o), neut., 'a great deep, an abyss,' from Norddalen in Sondmøre; Ross from Hornindal, Nordfjord. Or can the Norwegian word have arisen from the pl. form of ON gap? Back
15. Whitley Stokes, to whom I had communicated my idea of salgofnir, regards (Bezzenb. Beitr., XXI, 126) gofnir as a genuine Scandinavian word, related to Irish gop. But against this view we can oppose both the vowel o and the circumstance that the word occurs only in a skaldic kenning in H. H., II, and nowhere else in ON literature, and that it is unknown to the dialects of modern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Back
16. Finnur Jónsson inserts sigþjoð, 'battle-people.' This change does not seem to me necessary. In the artificial skaldic poetry not only sig- but also sigr- has the meaning 'battle' as first element of such a compound (see Gislason, Efterladte Skrifter, I, 99, 102, 274, 281). This meaning has developed through words like sigr þjóð from the older meaning, 'overpowering force in fight' (especially 'victory'). That in the Eddic poems also, sigr- has the same meaning as sig- is shown, e.g., by Sigrlinn alongside Sigmundr. Back
17. Svá bar Helgi /af hildingum /sem ítrskapaðr / askr af þyrni, / eða sá dýrkálfr / döggu slunginn / er øfri ferr / öllum dýrum / ok horn glóa / við himin sjálfan. The imitation in Konráðsrím., II, 3, suggests that þyrni was understood as the dat. of þyrnir; but I take it rather to be the dat. of a neuter þyrni, 'briar-thicket,' for if þyrnir had been used, it would most likely have been put in the plural. Back
18. Björn Ólsen (Tímarit, 1894, p. 59), says '=skógardír, sjerstaklega rádír.' Back
19. Svá var Sigurðr / uf sonum Gjúka / sem væri grœnn laukr / ór grasi vaxinn / eða hjörtr hábeinn / um hösum dýrum / eða gull glóðrautt / af grá silfri. Hösum is a correction by F. Jónsson of the hvossom in the MS. I had independently decided on the same correction. F. J. takes it to refer to wolves. Björn Ólsen, however, opposes such an interpretation. To his reasons I add the following: if the expression referred to wolves, it would by this picture describe Gjuki's sons as Sigurth's enemies; but Guthrún's account shows that they are not to be considered at that time otherwise than as Sigurth's retainers. Back
20. Sijmons (Paul-Braune, Beit., IV, 200) and Müllenhoff (Deut. Alt., V, 392) are of the opposite opinion. Back
21. Fornaldarsögur, I, 237. On 'Hart' as a surname for a man, cf. Fritzner, Ordbog, 2nd ed. Landstad, Norske Folkeviser, p. 401, has a stev (lyric poem) from Telemarken in which men are likened to harts.
Hjorten spelar i heio nor,
han sprikjer si klo.
Hau so gjere alle dei Herjus søninn
som giljar mæ or, etc.
But this verse was doubtless not originally composed in Norway. Corresponding verses are to be found
in Sweden and Denmark, where they have been joined to ballads partly or wholly lyric in character.
See R. Steffen in Uppsalastudier, pp. 107 f. Back

22. Herein I am at one with F. Jónsson (Litt. Hist., I, 258) as oposed to Bj. Ólsen (Tímarit, 1894, p. 59). That the hart may be mentioned by a modern Icelandic poet cannot be used as an argument against my opinion. Back
23. See R. Collett in O. J. Broch's Statistisk Årbog for Kongeriget Norge, p. 604. The name of the Norwegian river Hirta appears to be derived from hjörtr. Back
24. In Ireland there are also stories of a man turned into a stag. Back
25. In the First Helgi lay there also occurs an expression which seems to point to stag-hunting. In I, 49, rakka hirtir (stags of the parral-ropes) is more probably a designation of the masts than of the ships themselves. The word rakki means a ring put in the middle of the sail-yards, by which the sail is fastened to the mast, and which runs up and down with the sails. But rakki means also a dog. The expression in the poem contains a play on words. The mast on which the ring, which is called rakki, runs up and down, is compared to the stag, on whom the dog in a hunt runs up, only to be cast down again. Rosenberg explains the expression somewhat differently in Nordboernes Aandsliv, I, 401 Note. Back
26. In a ballad from Telemarken we read of a herdsman: han gjætte bå souir å gjeitar (he herded both sheep and goats). In Norway the names of places which begin with Geits- appear, indeed, to argue for geitir, 'a goat-herd'; but the word does not occur in that meaning in the old literature. Back
27. Saxo, ed. Müller, Bk. VII, p. 332; cf. Olrik, Sakses Oldhist., II, 234. Back
28. Grundtvig, Danm. gl. Folkev., No. 22A, 7, 9, 11; No. 23A, 9. Back
29. Cf. Fyrr muntu verða geitahirðir á Gautlandi, enn þú hafir nokkut yfirboð þessa staðar (Hrólfs Gautrekssaga in Fornaldarsögur, III, 98). In the ballad of Hermo Idde from Telemarken: eg tenkte, han blei ein gjeiteherre (=geitahirðir) som du å dei andre fleire (in Landstad, p. 208, by mistake, geysteherre). In the Faroe ballad, Hermundur illi: Tínum hálsi vildi eg náað, ei tínum geitasveini (Fær. Anthol., I, 70). See also Fritzner, Ordbog, s.v. geit. Back
30. See Zimmer in Gött. Gel. Anz., 1891 (No. 5), pp. 179 f, who cites the following places from Acta sanct. Hib., 1888: 'Quodam tempore Fintanus erat in scolis sancti Comgalli, qui quodam die jussit ei ut suas capras pasceret. Quod officium minime honestum Fintanus putans, oravit ut capre verterentur in boves, quod et factum est.'---Col. 227, 5. 'Item quadam die puer Lugidus missus est ut gregem caprarum custodiret; sed grex ovium erat quandiu Lugidus custodiebat eam.'---Col. 267, 16. Back
31. In Irish works also, at any rate in later times, the hero who rushes in upon and chases his enemies is compared to a wolf. In Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, p. 205, we read: 'Fiona overthrew them.....like a wolf among a flock of sheep' (in the tale called 'The Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees,' after MSS. of the eighteenth century); Cath Ruis na Ríg, p. 72. But the picture meets us also among other peoples---e.g. Dudo says (275) of the Normans: 'velut lupi per bidentium ovilia occidens et prosternens hostium severiter agmina' (cited by Steenstrup, Normannerne, I, 362). In the Iliad, 16, 352 ff, and elsewhere. Back
32. In the story Táin bó Regamna in Windisch, Irische Texte, II, 2, pp. 243, 249 (after the Book of Leccan of the fifteenth century and Egerton 1782, of the sixteenth century). Back
33. See H. H., I, 44; II, 39. In Rígsþula, 12, the sons of the thrall tend swine. Cf. Atlamál, 62; Hervar., II, st. 14; Fms. VI, 258. Back
34. See Zimmer in Gött. Gel. Anz., 1891 (No. 5), p. 180. Back


<< Previous Page       Next Page >>





© 2004-2007 Northvegr.
Most of the material on this site is in the public domain. However, many people have worked very hard to bring these texts to you so if you do use the work, we would appreciate it if you could give credit to both the Northvegr site and to the individuals who worked to bring you these texts. A small number of texts are copyrighted and cannot be used without the author's permission. Any text that is copyrighted will have a clear notation of such on the main index page for that text. Inquiries can be sent to info@northvegr.org. Northvegr™ and the Northvegr symbol are trademarks and service marks of the Northvegr Foundation.

> Northvegr™ Foundation
>> About Northvegr Foundation
>> What's New
>> Contact Info
>> Link to Us
>> E-mail Updates
>> Links
>> Mailing Lists
>> Statement of Purpose
>> Socio-Political Stance
>> Donate

> The Vík - Online Store
>> More Norse Merchandise

> Advertise With Us

> Heithni
>> Books & Articles
>> Trúlög
>> Sögumál
>> Heithinn Date Calculator
>> Recommended Reading
>> The 30 Northern Virtues

> Recommended Heithinn Faith Organizations
>> Alfaleith.org

> NESP
>> Transcribe Texts
>> Translate Texts
>> HTML Coding
>> PDF Construction

> N. European Studies
>> Texts
>> Texts in PDF Format
>> NESP Reviews
>> Germanic Sources
>> Roman Scandinavia
>> Maps

> Language Resources
>> Zoëga Old Icelandic Dict.
>> Cleasby-Vigfusson Dictionary
>> Sweet's Old Icelandic Primer
>> Old Icelandic Grammar
>> Holy Language Lexicon
>> Old English Lexicon
>> Gothic Grammar Project
>> Old English Project
>> Language Resources

> Northern Family
>> Northern Fairy Tales
>> Norse-ery Rhymes
>> Children's Books/Links
>> Tafl
>> Northern Recipes
>> Kubb

> Other Sections
>> The Holy Fylfot
>> Tradition Roots



Search Now:

Host Your Domain on Dreamhost!

Please Visit Our Sponsors




Web site design and coding by Golden Boar Creations