Home of the Eddic Lays
Chapter 23
In the original story it was evidently not a Norwegian king who wooed the daughter of the King of Sváfaland; for his men come to Sváfaland by first riding over a high mountain, and afterwards fording a river (st. 5). According to the prose passage, the king travels thither by land.
There is no trace of there ever having been in Norway any real King Hjörvarth, or any king's sons Helgi or Hethin, in whom we might find the historical prototypes of the heroes of the poem.
In the prose passages in the Edda, as has already been noted, Helgi Hund. is said to be the reborn Helgi Hjör., and the evident parallelism in many features of the two stories supports this statement. This identification in itself seems to indicate that Helgi Hjör. was thought of from the outset as a hero who belonged to the same nationality as Helgi Hund.
Now I have tried to show that Helgi Hund. was considered in the poem as a king of Denmark, a poetic representative of the Danish kings, and that he borrowed his name from the Shielding king Helgi, son of Halfdan. In agreement with this, Helgi Hjör., who is merely a poetical, not an historical personality, seems to have had from the outset closer bonds of union with Danish than with Norwegian kings.
The name of Helgi's father, Hjörvarðr, like that of Helgi himself, was probably borrowed from the Shielding-race. From Béow. 2160 f, we learn that Heorogâr, son of the Shielding Healfdene (Halfdan), and elder brother of Hrôðgâr (Hroar) and Hâlga (Helgi), had a son called the bold (hwæt) Heoroweard (Hjörvarth). From him Helgi's father in the poem may have borrowed his name. (27) Since the name Helgi Hjörvarthsson did not belong to an historical person, it is probable that a poet adopted Hjörvarth from the Shielding race as the name of the father, not only because of the alliteration (cf. Helgi Hundingsbani, Helgi Haddingjaskati), but also because of the etymological meaning of the name 'sword warder, sword guardian,' since the stories of Helgi Hund., Helgi Hjör., Sigmund, and Sigurth all tell that the hero, when he is to begin his career, gets a sword as a gift.
I leave undecided whether Helgi Hjör. got his name Helgi from the historical Helgi, son of Halfdan, like Helgi Hund., or from another Danish king, who might be regarded as the historical prototype of him who was remodelled from the story in Sögubrot into the warrior king Helgi Hvassi (the keen) in Zealand, who was killed by his brother Hrœrik; but, at any rate, the name Helgi was, in my opinion, borrowed from the Shielding story. It cannot, however, be proved that there ever lived an historical king who was called Helgi Hjörvarthsson.
The poem concludes with the following words of Helgi's brother Hethin, son of Hjörvarth, at Helgi's death bed:
Kystu mik, Sváfa!
kem ek eigi áðr (better, aptr?)
Rogheims á vit
né Röðulsfjalla,
áðr ek hefnt hefik
Hjörvarðs sonar,
þess er buðlungr var
beztr und sólu.
'Kiss me, Sváfa! I will not come to Rogheim or the Radiant Fells before I have revenged the son of Hjörvarth, (who was) the best Buthlung (prince) in the world.'
Originally, at any rate, it was not Rógheimr, 'the home of strife,' which was thought of, but Rogheimr, 'the home of the Rygir' (from Rygir, gen. Roga). This name may have brought it about that in some later Norwegian redaction of the poem the home of Helgi and Hethin was located in Norway, the redactor having in mind the Norwegian Rygir. But in the AS poem Wîdsîð we read (21 f):
Hagena (sc. wéold) Holmrygum and Heoden (28) Glommum,
Witta wéold Swæfum.
Here Hagena and Heoden, i.e. Högni and Hethin of the story of the Hjathnings, are named side by side; and here it is said that Hagena ruled over Rygum, i.e. the Rygir at the mouth of the river Weichsel, the Ulmerugii of Jordanes. Now there is evidently traditional connection between the Hethin of the Hjathning story and Helgi's brother of that name. Therefore it seems to me probable that Svend Grundtvig was right in holding that Hethin's home was not originally thought of as the home of the Norwegian Rygir, but as that of the Rygir on the southern coast of the Baltic. Although the name Rügen is of Slavic origin, and was not formed from the name of the Germanic people Rygir (AS Ryge), the similarity in sound of Ryge, of whom Hagena was king, and Rügen may have helped to bring it about that Hagena's opponent Heoden (Hethin) was brought into connection with Heðinsey (Hiddensee), near Rügen. In the name of Hethin's home, Rogheimr, 'the dwelling place of the Rygir,' there is, perhaps, a reference to the time when the Danes had established themselves on the southern coast of the Baltic.
With Rogheim another expression in the poem is connected. In H. Hj., 6, the valkyrie Sváfa addresses Hjörvarth's son, who has not yet received any definite name, as follows:
Síð mundu, Helgi!
hringum ráða,
ríkr rógapaldr!
né Röðulsvöllum.
'It will be long, Helgi!.......ere thou rulest over rings or the Radiant Plains.' Here rógapaldr, 'apple tree of strife,' is a poetic term for a hero. But if we compare this place with st. 43,
Rogheims á vit
né Röðulsfjalla,
it is clear that rog-, which alliterates with röðuls in both strophes, must originally have had the same meaning in both places. Therefore, I now believe, in accordance with a suggestion made by Svend Grundtvig, (29) that ríkr rógapaldr, 'thou mighty apple tree of strife,' is an artistic modification of the original expression (in a corresponding Danish poem?) ríkr Roga baldr, 'thou mighty lord of the Rygir.' (30)
This rógapaldr was in its turn imitated in brynþings apaldr, 'apple tree of the birnie meeting,' as the designation of a hero, in Sigrdr. 10. The expression used of the chieftain Roga baldr, 'lord of the Rygir,' agrees fully with such expressions as gumena baldor, rinca baldor, 'lord of men,' in AS poems; cf. herbaldr, in Sigrdr. 18.
This explanation of rógapaldr is composed in Danish in England (probably about the year 1200), and to have been influenced by the ancient Lay of Helgi Hjör., a fact which proves, therefore, that this ancient lay was known among the Danes in England. In the old versions of the ballad, the hero is called Ribold (Ribolt), to which correspond the forms Rigbolt, Rigebold in modern Danish, Ríkeball in modern Norwegian, and Ríbald, Ribbald in modern Icelandic. I would explain the name in the ballad as due to the fact that an ancient (Danish?) poem designated Helgi Hjör. as Roga ríkr baldr, where the extant Norwegian poem corresponding has ríkr rógapaldr. From the epithet in the old poem the Danish author of the ballad made up the name Ríkbald (Ribold) in England under the influence of English masculine names in –bald.
Since Röðulsfjalla, in H. Hj., 43, clearly corresponds to Röðulsvöllum, in H. Hj., 9, the older (Danish?) poem seems to have had in 43, Röðulsvalla, which the Norwegian poet altered by inserting the Norwegian mountains instead of the Danish plains. (31)
If a Danish poem was the basis of our ON lay, Helgi, who was on a warlike expedition in the south, might, according to Grundtvig's supposition, have met his brother Hethin with the words: 'What news can you tell from the North (or norðrvegi, instead of Nóregi, H. Hj., 31)?' Compare H. H., I, 4, where the Norn cast one of the threads of fate for Helgi, the son of Sigmund, towards the North (á norðrvega). Yet this seems to me rather improbable.
As I have already shown, the relation of the Hjörvarth lay to the ballad of Rodengaar and the Eagle also argues for the knowledge of an older version of the lay among the Danes in England. It is certain, moreover, that it was in the west (32) that the story of the Hjathnings, by which the Lay of Helgi Hjör. was influenced, got the form in which it was known to Norwegians and Icelanders.
27. Hjörvarðr Ylfingr, a saga king, is mentioned in the Ynglingasaga (chaps. 37-39, ed. F. J.), in Sögubrot (Fas., I, 338), and in Nornagests þáttr (chap. 2, p. 50 B). He was thought of either as a Shielding king or as related to the Shieldings by marriage; for Granmar's daughter drinks his health with the words: allir heilir Ylfingar at Hrólfs minni kraka. In Sögubrot it is said that he killed King Ella (of England). This indicates that he belongs to the Danish Shielding story which developed in England, and was thought of as the poetical representative of Danish viking kings. He is so regarded in Nornagests þáttr, where it is said that Half, the Norwegian viking king, exorted property from him. In the Yngl. s., Hjörvarðr Ylfingr marries a daughter of Granmar, which shows that the story about him stood earlier in connection with the story of Helgi Hund. When this Granmar was represented as King of Sødermanland, a departure was made from the original situation. In origin, Hjörvarðr Ylfingr may be identical with the Heoroward of Béowulf. (Detter, in Sievers, Beit., XVIII, 104, combines in a different way Hjörvarðr Ylfingr with Helgi's father Hjörvarth.) In the Shielding stories which developed in Denmark and, following Danish stories, in Iceland, there is also a certain Hjörvarðr (Hiaruarth, Hiarthuar) mentioned; but he is the slayer of Hrólf Kraki, and is not said to have been a Shielding. Back
28. The MS. has Holmrycum and Henden. Back
29. He conjectured Roga valdr or Roga baldr. Back
30. It is not improbable that, at the time when the extant Norwegian poem arose, the Danes in England pronounced p between two vowels, not, to be sure, as b, but still differently from Norwegians, so that Roga-baldr could sound to Norwegians like róg apaldr when it was pronounced by the Danes. Back
31. Yet the two words interchange elsewhere. In Völuspá, Cod. Reg. 36, (aniþa) fiollom was first written, but this was corrected to vollom; cf. niþa fiollom, 62. Back
32. Cf. my Bidrag til den ældste Skaldedigtnings Historie, p. 101. Back
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