Home of the Eddic Lays
Chapter 16
THE HELGI LAYS AND THE STORY OF ERIC THE ELOQUENT
Granmar has many sons. When Helgi, accompanied by his brother Sinfjötli, who is less noble and dignified than he, comes sailing westwards to land, Guthmund, one of Granmar's sons, rides to the shore and enters into a conversation with Sinfjötli. The reproaches they fling at each other---especially in the First Lay---contain the worst sort of abusive terms. After the conversation, Guthmund rides with all speed to his brother Höthbrodd to announce to him that enemies have landed. Höthbrodd collects warriors. Later, a battle takes place in which the sons of Granmar fall before Helgi.
In Saxo's story, Westmar(us) (2) (the second part of whose name is the same as that of Granmar) and his twelve sons are with Frotho. Eric, accompanied by his brother Roller(us), who is described as less noble and dignified than he, comes sailing to Frotho's land. Grepp(us), Westmar's son, hearing this, rides to the shore and enters into a conversation with Eric. The conversation, which is in verse, contains the worst sort of abusive terms. (3) When Grepp has no retorts left, he rides home in all haste to collect warriors against the strangers who have come. Afterwards, Eric slays the sons of Westmar.
Wherever there is connection between the tale of Eric the Eloquent and the Helgi lays, the latter served, in my opinion, as model for the former.
The Eric story also shows kinship with what we read in H. H., II, 5-13, and in the preceding prose passage: Eric slays Frotho's chieftain Odd (Oddo) on the coast of Denmark, then puts out to sea and sails in to Lässö. Afterwards he goes with but one ship to Zealand, and, lacking provisions, he and his men commit depredations along the coast, and carry the flesh of the slaughtered cattle on board their ship. When Eric later goes ashore, he meets Westmar's son Grepp, and in a series of verses they exchange rough words with each other. These words begin with Grepp's questions: 'Who art thou? What dost thou seek? Whence dost thou come? Of what race art thou?' Afterwards Eric, in a conversation with King Frotho, tells in enigmatical words of Odd's death, and the king confesses that Eric has confused him by his obscure speech.
After Helgi has slain Hunding, he sails with his ship into a bay. He and his people commit depredations there, and eat the raw flesh of the cattle they slaughter. Sigrún comes to him, and they exchange words in verse with each other. She asks first: 'Who are ye? Where is your home? What are ye waiting for? Whither will ye go?' In his reply, Helgi says: 'Our home is in Lässö.' Thereupon he tells in boasting words of Hunding's death.
When Eric boastfully recounts the death of Odd, he plays on the word 'odd' (point of the sword), saying: 'The wolves licked the weapons of the slain, for they were tired of the corpse; there Odd (point) was struck away from the king's strength.' (4) Observe that Helgi, in boastfully recounting the death of Hunding, says:
ætt ara
oddum saddak (II, 8).
'The young of the eagle I sated with points.' If we write here:
ætt ara
oddi saddak,
'I sated the young of the eagle with the point,' we might also have a play on the word 'odd' (although the words are not to be so understood in the Helgi poem), and it might be a boastful expression for: 'I slew Odd, and gave his corpse to the young of the eagle to eat.'
It looks, therefore, as if the poet who invented the story of Eric the Eloquent drew the features just pointed out, in which it agrees with the story of Helgi, from the Helgi lays. Into the statement in the Helgi poem, 'I sated the young of the eagle with the point,' the poit seems to have introduced a play on the word 'odd.'
But the relation of the Eric story to the Helgi lays contributes something to the history of the latter. Olrik points out that Eric's obscure speeches remind us of episodes in the sagas, in which may be found very close parallels to Eric's obscure publication of the manslaughter. To this I would add the following remark: The enigmatical speeches with their plays on words (5) in the Eric story and in Icelandic sagas have their models in Irish heroic tales. We have an example in the story of the Wooing of Emer, belonging to the old Ulster heroic cycle, and preserved in the MS Lebor na-h Uidre of ca. 1100. (6) Here the hero and his betrothed exchange enigmatical speeches with plays on words, which speeches are, without a doubt, closely akin to those in Old Norse.
The obscure speeches in the Irish tale, as in the ON story, are intended to show the surpassing ingenuity of the speaker, which enables him to express himself so that the majority do not understand what he says and only those of unusual powers comprehend his words. The plays on words are so complicated that one of the personages in the story has to explain their meaning.
Cuchulinn's first enigmatical speech is made in answer to Emer's questions: 'Whence hast thou come? Where didst thou sleep?' In like manner, Friththjóf gives an ambiguous answer to the questions: 'What is thy name? Where wast thou last night? Where is thy kin?' Eric's obscure speech is also occasioned by the questions: 'Whence hast thou come, and how didst thou come here?' Frotho goes on to inquire of Eric the way he has taken. This same question Emer asks Cuchulinn, whereupon the latter answers with a play on words. Moreover, Emer's statement of the achievements which the hero must perform in order to win her, contains a series of plays on words.
Thus, in the story of Eric the Eloquent, features from the Helgi lays and features which have Irish models are fused together. May we not, therefore, infer that it was in the British Isles that the inventor of the Eric story became familiar with the Helgi lays and with the obscure speeches with numerous plays on words modelled after passages in Irish tales?
Moreover, the first conversation between Sigrún and Helgi in the Second Lay, although it does not contain artificial puns, may nevertheless be said to show a tendency toward obscure speeches in its covert pictorial expressions. Helgi hints at the death of Hunding when he says: 'I took bears in Bragalund and sated the young of the eagle with (sword-) points'; and Sigrún praises Helgi for being shrewd (slægjan) when he 'publishes manslaughter in death-runes.' (7)
- Sakses
Oldhist., II, 49 ff. Back
- In connection with the
name West-mar, we may observe that Helgi sails westwards to the land
of Granmar's sons. Back
- In the details also there
are some similarities with the First Helgi lay. With nec nisi crimen
oles, Saxo, p. 200, cf. gerðir þik frægjan af firinverkum, H. H., I,
41, 'thou didst make thyself notorious by crimes.' With exanimis corvos
exangui corpore pasces / esca feris, avidæ praeda futurus avi, Saxo,
p. 201, cf. Fyrr vildak / at Frekasteini / hrafna seðja / á hræum þinum,
H. H., I, 44, 'First would I at Wolfstone sate ravens with thy corpses.'
Back
- Exsatiati humanis cadaveribus
lupi suprema telorum acumina collambebant. Ibi cuspis a robore regis
excussa est (Saxo, ed. M., p. 206). Eric explains this in what follows:
Caedem enim ddonis mea gestam manu superiori cuspidis appellatione signavi.
Back
- For these see Heinzel,
Beschreibung d. isl. Saga, pp. 192 f = [296 f] and Cederschiöld, Kalfdråpet,
pp. 22 f. Let me particularly call attention to Glúma, chaps. 14 to
16; Friðþj. s., chap. 13 (Fornald. s., II, 95); Króka-Refs s. (Copen.,
1881), p. 34; Dropl., p. 10; Finnb., pp. 79, 87 f. Back
- Translated by Kuno Meyer
in Archæological Review, 1889. Back
- With í valrúnum cf. AS
wælrûn, Elene, 28; with vígspöll cf. AS gûðspell, wéaspell. Back
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