Chapter 7

THE RELATION OF THE FIRST HELGI-LAY TO THE WOLFDIETRICH STORY.

        Various High-German poets celebrate Wolfdietrich, the son of Huge Dietrich (or Hugdietrich). Müllenhoff has tried to prove (1) that this legendary hero had his historical prototype in the Merovingian King Theodebert (d. 547), son of Theodoric (d. 534). Theodoric is referred to in the Quedlinburg Annals (2) of the beginning of the eleventh century as 'Hugo Theodoricus,......id est Francus, quia olim omnes Franci Hugones vocabantur a suo quodam duce Hugone.' Widukind (the second half of the tenth century) says (I, 9) that Thiadricus was the son of Huga. The so-called Poeta Saxo (about 890) testifies (v. 119) that this Theodoric was the subject of songs (Theodricos......canunt). There can be no doubt that the Huge Dietrich of poetic saga got his name Huge from the Frankish Theodoric. This name must have been applied to him in some Frankish form of the heroic poem. But originally he was, I suppose, intended to represent the East-Gothic Theodoric; and the poem, which in its oldest form must have been Gothic, originally treated of his birth and his early life in the Balkan peninsula. (3) The Wolfdietrich-saga is now chiefly known to us from several High-German poems of a 'popular' epic character (Spielmannsdichtungen) of the thirteenth century, (4) varying more or less from one another.
        Wolfdietrich A is found in a unique MS. of the year 1517. It serves as a continuation of Ortnit, which in its original form was composed, not before 1231, by a poet of Bavarian-Austrian nationality, perhaps from the Tyrol. In language, style, and metre, Woldietrich A resembles Ortnit so closely that it must be the work either of the same poet or of an imitator who lived in the first half of the thirteenth century. Yet this is true only of that part which takes us up to the twelfth adventure. What follows (v. 506 ff) was composed by a different poet, and shows the influence of Wolfdietrich B. The MS ends with the sixteenth adventure (after v. 606), and the conclusion of this version of the story is known only from a poor summary (K).
        Wolfdietrich B is believed to have been composed about 1225 by a Bavarian poet. It has as an introduction, not Ortnit, but a tale of Hugdietrich's love-making. Only the first two sections are extant in their original full extent. The four following sections are known from a shortened version, of less poetic value, supposed to date from about 1250.
        Of Wolfdietrich C, which is thought to have had its origin in Frankish Bavaria, not before 1250, only a few fragments are preserved. Like Wfd. A the poem is united with Ortnit. This is likewise the case with D, the most extensive of all the German versions, formed from B and C with many changes and amplifications, D is in the Alemannian dialect, and was written in northern Swabia immediately after 1280.
        All these versions of the Wolfdietrich-story are composed in a modified form of the Nibelungen strophe. They are not much affected by 'courtly' art, but have many of the special features of popular poetry. (5) These German versions were influenced by French epic poetry. (6) The Middle High German poem Rother adopted some motives from the Wolfdietrich-story.
        The main contents of this story (of which versions A and B concern us most) are as follows: Woldietrich was the son of the Greek King Hugdietrich. (7) When a new-born infant he was found uninjured among a number of wolves,---hence his name. He grew up under the care of the old and faithful Berchtung von Meran. On the death of his father, the kingdom was divided among the king's sons; but Wolfdietrich was at once repudiated by his brothers, who were unwilling to recognise him as their father's legitimate son, and his faithful followers were imprisoned. This was brought about, according to A, by the faithless Sabene. Wolfdietrich then set out for foreign lands and had many adventures, among others one with a mermaid. He killed a serpent which had caused King Ortnit's death, and married the latter's widow. Long afterwards he returned from his wanderings, freed his men, imprisoned his brothers, and recovered his kingdom.
        There were also Low-German poems, now lost, about this same hero. As I have elsewhere (8) pointed out the Danish ballad of Gralver (Grundtvig, No. 29), i.e. Gráulfr or Granuol, i.e. gránulf, is based on a Low-German poem (presumably of the thirteenth century) which told how a serpent was killed by 'Graywolf' (i.e. Wolfdietrich).
        A church door, which cannot be older than 1180-1190, from Valþjófsstaðir in the eastern part of Iceland, has carvings which represent a knight conquering a dragon, and thereby freeing a lion. This knight is evidently Wolfdietrich; for in the accompanying runic inscription he is designated as 'King of the Greeks.' This Icelandic story had also, doubtless, a North-German source. We have the same account in the þiðrikssaga, which here follows a Low-German authority, and in a Danish ballad about Diedrich of Bern.
        The Anglo-Saxons also knew the stories of the Frankish Theodoric, for in the poem Wîdsîð, which refers to a great many heroic sagas, and contains reminiscences of events of the sixth century and earlier, we read (l. 24): 'Theodric ruled over the Franks.' Among those whom the minstrel visited at the court of Eormanric, he mentions (l. 115) Seafola and Theodric; but Seafola is certainly, as Müllenhoff has pointed out, the same person as the faithless Sabene in Wolfdietrich A. The stories of this Theodoric, who corresponds to Woldietrich, and of Seafola, must have come to the English from the Franks.
        This saga of the West-Germanic Franks was also inherited by the French. Heinzel has proved (9) that a French chanson de geste, 'Parise la duchesse,' (10) preserved in a MS of the thirteenth century, shows great similarity to Wolfdietrich, not only in separate features and names, but also in the whole course of the story. In general, the French poem resembles most of the German redaction A, as, for example, in the feature that the hero's mother is slandered and obliged to leave the land. In certain features, however, the French poem is closer to B; we read, for example, in both that the child had a cross on the right shoulder.
        It has not hitherto been noticed that the Frankish Wolfdietrich-story, doubtless in the form in which it was known by the English, also exerted some influence on an Irish story. I refer to the story of Cormac's Birth, preserved in the Book of Ballymote, an Irish MS of the end of the fourteenth century. (11) The main features are as follows: King Art, son of Conn of the Hudnred Battles, comes, the night before his death, to the house of the smith Olc Acha, and sleeps with Etan, the latter's daughter. He tells her that she shall bear him a son who shall become King of Ireland, and he instructs her how she is to act in regard to the child. In the morning he takes his leave, bidding her carry her son, whom she is to call Cormac, to his (Art's) friend Lugna in Corann in Connaught, to be brought up by him. That same day King Art falls, as he had foretold, in a battle against Lugaid mac Con.
        When Etan feels that her time is at hand, she sets out to go to Lugna; but on the way gives birth to her child in a forest. Cormac is born. He then utters a poem on the child's coming greatness, saying: 'Now is born the son of the true prince, Cormac the son of Art,' and at once goes in search of him.
        The mother falls asleep after being delivered. The maid who accompanies her also falls asleep, and a she-wolf then comes and bears the infant unnoticed to her cave. The mother laments when she wakes and does not find her child. Lugna soon comes to her, and she accompanies him home.
        Lugna offers a reward to the finder of the babe. Grec mac Arod, wandering one day in the forest, comes upon the wolf's cave, and sees the little boy moving about on all-fours among the young wolves. He tells this to Lugna, who returns with him to the place and takes both the boy and the whelps. The child is brought up by Lugna, who calls him Cormac in accordance with Art's wish.
        Once when Cormac was playing with Lugna's two sons, he strikes one of them, who thereupon taunts the young hero with not having a father. Much distressed, Cormac tells Lugna what he has heard. Lugna reveals to him his parentage, and adds that it was prophesied that he should become king. Cormac, with his wolves, then makes his way to the royal residence at Tara. He is accompanied by Lugna and by a body of men who have been in Corann because too heavy a fine has been laid upon them for a murder. In Tara, Cormac is received as a foster-son.
        Some time after, King Lugaid mac Con pronounces an unjust judgment in a legal dispute. Cormac speaks out against this and proposes another decision which the whole people approve. They cry out: 'This is the true prince's son.' Mac Con is thereupon driven away, and Cormac is made king.
        Cormac is a genuine Irish saga-king. He is said to have been born in the year 195 of our era, and to have reigned as High-King of Ireland from 227-266. He had the reputation of being one of the wisest of the ancient rulers of Ireland, and was famed as a judge and lawgiver.
        The Book of Leinster, which was written before 1160, contains a story called The Battle of Mag Mucrime (12) (the battle in which King Art fell when fighting against Lugaid mac Con.). Here we find the first part of the story of Cormac's Birth along with information as to Art's death. Yet Art's friend, at whose house his son is to be brought up, is merely described as one of the men of Connaught, netiher his name nor that of his dwelling being given. The story also tells of Lugaid's unjust and Cormac's just judgment in Tara, which occasioned Cormac's call to the throne.
        I take that part of the story which the tale of Cormac's Birth in the Book of Ballymote has retained from the older account of the Battle of ag Mucrime (preserved among other places, in the Book of Leinster) to be original Irish tradition. Zimmer has set forth the view (13) that it is a story from Munster and Leinster, and that, since it shows no connection with the saga-king Finn, it is somewhat older than the year 1000.
        An Irish poem by Cinaed hua Artacain, who died in 975, mentions the death of Art and Lugaid mac Con, and the grave of Cormac, son of Art. (14)
        In the story of Cormac's Birth (which is found in no MSS that are earlier than the end of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries) between the two original Irish sections which tell, the one of Art's death and what takes place directly before, the other of Cormac's appearance at Tara, a section is introduced describing Cormac's birth and his youth spent with Lugna. This section appears to me to be for the most part an imitation of some English poem on Wolf-Theodoric (Wolfdietrich), which poem the Anglo-Saxons must have got from the Franks.
        The form of the Wolfdietrich-story which influenced the Irish tale must have agreed with the German version B in representing the hero's mother not as his father's queen, but as a young girl with whom he had secret intercourse. In German B 104-109, Hugdietrich talks in the night with Hiltpurc, at whose side he is sleeping. He tells her that she shall give birth to a child, decides what name the child shall have, and gives her further instructions as to how she shall act. (15) Next morning Hugdietrich departs (B 124 ff). The English redaction of the Wolfdietrich-story which influenced the Irish tale must have contained practically the same form of this motive as that in German B. The obvious similarity between the original Irish tale of Cormac and the Germanic story of Wolfdietrich in this striking feature was one of the reasons why the former came to be influenced by the latter. The same thing may be said of another point of resemblance between the two accounts: Hugdietrich on his deathbed confides Wolfdietrich to the faithful Berchtung (B 262, A 256), just as King Art before his death decides that his son Cormac is to be brought up at the house of his friend Lugna.
        Let us now compare that section of the Irish tale which is essentially an imitation of the Germanic story of Wolfdietrich, with the various forms of the latter.
        Cormac's mother makes her way after Art's death to the latter's true friend Lugna. In like manner Wolfdietrich's mother, in German A (278), betakes herself to Hugdietrich's faithful follower Berchtung. But there is a difference, in that Cormac's mother sets out in accordance with Art's instructions, and before her child is born, whereas Woldietrich's mother, after her son is born, is forced by Hugdietrich's brothers to make her way to Berchtung. In one respect, the Irish tale here agrees with the French poem, for in the latter Parise, exiled by her husband, sets out for a foreign land before her son is born. (16)
        Cormac's mother gives birth to her son in a forest. Her maid breaks branches from the trees and lays them under her. In this feature the Irish story shows a close agreement with the French poem, in which Huguet is born out in the wood. When Parise cannot travel further, her companions make her a bed of branches and leaves.
        In the Irish, a she-wolf finds the child and carries it to a cave surrounded by bushes, where her young are. So in German B (152-154) a wolf finds the child, carries it away to a high mountain in which there is a cave, and lays it down before its whelps. German A, which here is in general different, agrees, nevertheless, with the Irish in that the child is borne away while the mother sleeps. In both the Irish story and the German poem (A 121 ff, B 183 f) the mother is in despair over the child's disappearance. So in the French poem, where also the child is removed while the mother sleeps.


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