Chapter 22
THE HELGI POEMS AND THE BALLADS OF RIBOLD AND OF HJELMER
Page 1
In the Edda, Sigrún follows her lover Helgi, although her father has pledged her to another king's son. In a battle Helgi slays her betrothed, her father, and all her brothers except Dag, whom he spares. Afterwards Dag kills Helgi treacherously.
In the ballad, Guldborg follows her lover Ribold, although she is betrothed to another man. Her father pursues the fugitive couple with a great company. In the ensuing struggle Ribold slays Guldborg's father and her betrothed, along with many of her nearest kinsmen (according to some versions, her six brothers). She begs him to let her youngest brother live, at the same time addressing Ribold by his name. Then he gets his death wound from her brother. In the English ballad (Child, No. 7 A), the only one of the father's men whom Earl Brand does not kill, steals up behind him and gives him a fatal wound in the back. There are, moreover, other points of contact between the Eddic poem and the ballad.
Guldborg says, before she rides away with Ribold, that all her kin are watching her: 'My betrothed is watching me; him I fear most.' Ribold answers: 'Even if all thy kin watch thee, thou shalt keep thy promise to me.' With this we may compare sts. 16, 18 of the Helgi lay, where Sigrún expresses her fear of the anger of her father and relatives, and where Helgi answers that, nevertheless, she must follow him. The expression, 'thy kin' occurs in both poems (H. H., II, 18; Rib., B II). In one form of the old lay, Sigrún rides as a valkyrie through the air and over the sea, armed with helmet, birnie, and sword. This feature the ballad writer in the Middle Ages could not preserve unchanged. He represents Guldborg, when she rides away with Ribold, as armed like a man, with helmet on her head and sword by her side (Dan. B); but this costume is represented as a disguise. We may note further that the brides of both Helgi and Ribold die of sorrow.
But the ballad poet must also have borrowed features from the Eddic Lay of Helgi Hjörvarthsson, or perhaps from an old Danish poem drawn from it.
In the Lay (st. 40) the dying Helgi tells his beloved Sváfa that he is fatally wounded:
ljá buðlungi
blæða undir,
mér hefir hjörr komit
hjarta it næsta.
'The chieftain has wounds which bleed; the sword has reached (come very near) my heart.' With this compare the words of the dying Ribold to Guldborg in the ballad: 'The first is that I am tired and sad; a second is that from me runs blood. Yet this is the worst of all for me: thy brother's sword has visited my heart.' (2)
Directly after these words are spoken, the dying Helgi begs Sváfa to become his brother's bride (H. Hj., 41); but she answers [42] that when she became Helgi's betrothed she vowed never after his death to be the bride of a man who was not famous. In the ballad, Ribold says that he commits Guldborg to his brother; (3) but she answers: 'Never so long as I live will I give my troth to two brothers.' (4)
There seems to be some connection between the name of the hero of the ballad and that of the hero of the lay. In the corresponding English ballad in the Percy MS. (Child, No. 7 F), the hero is called 'the Child of Ell (Elle).' Hillebrand (as the hero is sometimes called in Denmark) and Hillemo (the name given him in Sweden) seem to be only expanded forms of a name corresponding to Ell. (5) The name Earl Brand in Northumberland is evidently a variant of Hillebrand. (6) The form Ell or *Helle appears, thus, to lie at the bottom of these variations; and Grundtvig was, therefore, justified in saying: 'Whoever feels dispared may think of Helgi (Hundingsbani) [when he reads of the Child of Elle].'
In what follows, I shall try to show that the hero's name Ribold was formed from an epithet applied to Helgi Hjörvarthsson in an old Danish poem concerning him, viz. (Roga) ríkr baldr, 'the powerful lord (of the Rygir).'
It seems certain, therefore, that the ballad of Ribold and Guldborg was composed in a district where the Lay of Helgi Hjörvarthsson and the so called Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbani, or the Danish parallels to these Eddic poems, were well known.
Where, then, was this district?
A comparison of the Danish version of this ballad with the Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic versions shows, I believe, that the ballad went from Denmark to Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, and that the Danish forms are on the whole the most primitive. But the ballad was also known in England and Scotland. We have a modern Northumbrian version in 'Earl Brand'; (7) and fragments of the same ballad are preserved in 'The Child of Ell' in Bishop Percy's MS., (8) and in the Scottish 'The Douglas Tragedy.' (9)
We have, then, to answer the following questions: Was the ballad originally composed in Denmark or in Britain? in England or in Scotland? in Danish or in English? A feature in the ballad of Earl Brand seems to throw light on these questions. When the Earl and the King of England's daughter ride away together, they meet 'an auld carl that wears grey hair,' 'auld carl Hood, he's aye for ill, and never for good.' This old man informs the king that Earl Brand has ridden away with his daughter. To 'auld carl Hood' correspond 'the carlish knight, Sir John of the North Country,' in Child of Ell, and in the Scandinavian versions 'the rich Count (Greve),' 'Count (Greve) Paal,' 'an old man,' 'a wily man.' Other poems also know this typical personality, a malicious old man who betrays the lovers and brings about their misfortune. He appears e.g. in the Norwegian version of the Benedict ballad, from Finmarken, as Blinde Molvigsen, i.e. Blindr enn bölvísi, 'Blind the bale wise,' who betrays Benedict to his loved one's father. (10) He must have been transferred from a ballad on Hagbarth and Signy. Saxo mentions Bolvisus luminibus captus, i.e. Bölvíss blindr, as King Sigar's wicked counsellor and Hagbarth's enemy.
In the Second Helgi lay, Helgi disguises himself as a peasant woman in order to escape from his enemies who pursue him. One of them, Blindr enn bölvísi, recognises him and wishes to betray him. Exactly the same feature is attached to Hrómund Greipsson in the saga concerning him. Here Blindr enn illi is King Hadding's counsellor, and reveals to him that Hrómund is alive.
There can be no doubt that in this malicious old man we have a human alter ego (gjenganger) of Odin, i.e. of Odin conceived as a devil. Odin appears as an old man (karl) with a grey beard, and is, therefore, called Hárbarðr (Hoary-beard). In 'Earl Brand' he is called Hood, 'a head covering, hat.' Similarly, in the first chapter of the Hálfssaga, Odin appears among men under the name Höttr, 'hat.' He is called elsewhere Síðhöttr, 'slouch hat'; and his characteristic mark is a slouch hat. (11) In the Second Helgi lay [34] Dag says, after Helgi is killed: 'Odin alone is to blame for all this misfortune; for he awoke strife among kinsmen.'
But if 'auld carl Hood' in 'Earl Brand' is a human alter ego of Odin, then the English ballad must be older than the Danish, which has not preserved this name. The English ballad, in which a human alter ego of Odin appears, must have arisen early in the Middle Ages, since it has preserved the memory of the heathen god. But such a memory can hardly have been retained by the English, who were so early christianised, and who have no heathen poem in which Woden plays a part. (12) His memory must have kept itself alive among the Scandinavians.
The ballad under discussion (Earl Brand or Ribold) must, therefore, have been composed in the early Christian Middle Ages in a Scandinavian language in Britain, most likely in Northern England. Afterwards it was, on the one hand, translated into English, and on the other, it was carried over in Danish form from England to Denmark. (13)
The role of Odin in the ballad appears to agree with Old Norse, but not with Danish conceptions of that god. (14) This fact argues in favour of the view that it was the work of an Old Norse poet which influenced the ballad that was composed by a Danish poet in England.
The name Ribold, Rigebold (drawn, as I believe, from Roga ríkr baldr in the old lay), also supports the hypothesis that the ballad was composed in England; for names in –bald were used in England, but not in Denmark.
Still another feature argues for the view that the ballad as sung in Denmark was carried over to that country from England. Ribold says to Guldborg in their first conversation: 'I will take thee to the isle where thou shalt live and never die. I will take thee to the land where thou shalt not know sorrow---to a land where grows no other grass than leeks, where sing no other birds than cuckoos, where runs no other liquid than wine.'
This opening, in which a man promises to take a maiden to an earthly paradise, (15) is common to several ballads. It occurs, for example, in the ballad of 'The Murderer of Women' (Kvindemorderen, Grundtvig, No. 183). Grundtvig is doubtless right in his remark (IV, 28) that these verses belong originally to a ballad in which a supernatural being woos the daughter of a mortal.
The description of this marvellous land certainly originated in Celtic (especially Irish) stories of the 'Land of Youth,' the 'Land of the Living,' an island far out in the sea to the west---the finest land under the sun, where there is abundance of silver, gold, and precious stones, of honey and wine. There the trees bear fruit, flowers bloom, and green foliage abounds the never grow old. In Irish poems we read that men who belong to that wonderful place succeed in luring mortal women thither by their description of its beauty. (16)
The use of this motive in the Ribold ballad may possibly be connected with the fact that in the Lay of Helgi Hjörvarthsson the hero's father, or his faithful man, is said to dwell at Glasislundi, 'by the tree with the golden foliage' (i.e. in the earthly paradise); and Helgi is said to rule over Röðulsvellir, 'the radiant plains.'
1.
Danm. gl. Folkev., II, 340; cf. Child, Eng. and Scot. Pop. Ballads, I,
94. Back
2. The text of the ballad (Dan. A, 33, 34), is as follows:---
Det
første er det, jeg er træt og mod,
et
andet er det, mig rinder Blod.
Endog
gjør det mig allerværst,
din
Broders Sværd har mit Hjærte gjæst.
In the last line, B 46 has 'fæst.' C 41 reads: 'din yngste Broder
var mit Hjærte næst.' D 47: 'eders Broders Sværd i mit
Hjærte haver frist.' E 42: 'din yngste Broders Sværd mit Hjærte
haver kryst.' Here, even in the poetic phraseology, we find definite connection
with the Eddic poem. Originally the ballad doubtless read: din Broders
Sværd (as in A and B) var mit Hjærte næst (as in C),
which is certainly connected with the words in the lay mér hefir
hjörr komit hjarta it mæsta. Back
3. The same also in 'Earl Brand,' the English form
of the ballad. Back
4. Cf. also Dan. B 25, where Ribold says to Guldborg, 'Weep not so, my
dearest!' with H. Hj., 41, where Helgi says to Sváfa, brúðr,
gráttattu! 'Weep not, my bride!' In Dan. B 27, Guldborg says, 'for
I am not very glad in heart'; cf. H. Hj., 38, where Sváfa says,
mér er harðliga harma leitat, 'I am sorely smitten with grief.'
The fact that Ribold gets his death when his beloved calls him by name,
forms a sort of contrast to the situation in the lay, where Sváfa
awakes Helgi to activity when she gives him his name. Back
5. See Grundtvig, I, 340. In the changes which take place in the proper
names in ballads, similarity in sound, not etymology, is oftenest the
deciding factor. Back
6. See Grundtvig, III, 854 ff. Back
7. Grundtvig, l.c.; Child, No. 7 A. Back
8. Percy's Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, I, 133. Child, No. 7 F.
Back
9. Child, No. 7 B C D E; 'Erlinton' (Child, No. 8) is more distantly related.
Back
10. See Grundtvig, III, 795 f. Back
11. Cf. Child, Ballads, I, 94 f; F. York Powell, C. P. B., I, 506. Back
12. Binz (in Sievers, Beit., XX, 222 f) tries, by means of an examination
of certain place names, to make it probable that the Anglo Saxons knew
a mythical person Hôd. But there is nothing to indicate that their
conception of this person was the same as that of 'auld carl Hood' in
the ballad. Back
13. Cf. F. York Powell in C. P. B., I, 504 ff. Back
14. Olrik, Saxses Oldhist., I, 31. Back
15. It is not to be found in the extant forms of the English ballad 'Earl
Brand'; but, as Professor Child points out (Ballads, I, 90, note), there
are traces of it in the following opening verses of another ballad, 'Leesome
Brand' (Child, No. 15): Back
My boy was scarcely ten years auld,
When he went to an unco land,
Where wind never blew, nor cocks ever crew,
Ohon for my son, Leesome Brand!
This ballad has also other points of contact with 'Earl Brand.'
16. Cf. Zimmer, Kelt. Beiträge, II, 279; Alfred Nutt, The Happy Otherworld.
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