Home of the Eddic Lays
Chapter 14
HELGI HUNDINGSBANI IN HIS RELATION TO THE
WOLFINGS, HUNDING, THE VÖLSUNGS, AND
SIGRÚN.
Page 1
Thus the author of the First Lay attributed to Helgi features taken from the saga-hero Wolfdietrich, or rather identified him with the latter, although Wolfdietrich has his historical prototype in the East Gothic Theodoric, and in the German poem is said to be a son of Hugdietrich---i.e. the Frankish Theuderik. Because of this identification, Helgi's mother is called Borghild, in imitation of Wolfdietrich's mother Hildburg, though in the Skjöldungasaga (in Arngrim) the mother of Helgi and Hroar is named Sigrid. (1)
The chief reason for the transference of saga-features from Wolfdietrich to Helgi, seems to be the fact that certain similarities already existed between the two stories, even before the foreign story influenced the Scandinavian; like Wolfdietrich, the king's son, Helgi, is obliged to wander about as an outlaw after his father's death without getting any part of the kingdom, and must later expel the usurper who has wronged him.
Nor was the Wolfdietrich story without influence on the form of the Helgi story preserved in the Second Lay. In II, I, Helgi calls himself 'the grey wolf,' just as Wolf-Theodoric in the Danish ballad, which is a transformation of a Low-German poem, is called Gralver, i.e. gráulfr, and Granuoll, i.e. grán ulf; and as Wolfdietrich, B 369, designates himself as 'the wolf.'
In both the First and the Second Lay Helgi is called the descendant of the Wolfings; and this very race-name seems to have been one of the reasons why the story of Wolfdietrich was attached to the Shielding Helgi. On the one hand, Theodoric, in the West Germanic story of his youth, was named Wolf-Theodoric because he was said to have been fostered by wolves, and the Völsungs Sigmund and Sinfjötli were at one time transformed into wolves; while, on the other hand, as we know from Béowulf, the race of the Wolfings was mentioned in the old epic tradition of the Shieldings: Ecgtheow, a chieftain of the Géats (Jutes), having killed one of the warriors of the Wolfings, is forced to flee to the Shielding king Hrôthgâr. Hrôthgâr receives him as his liegeman, and sends the Wolfings gold to atone for the killing of the warrior. Here, however, the Wolfings (Wylfingas) are of a different race from the Shieldings (Scyldingas).
In Wîd., 29, the ruler of the Wolfings is called Helm, and in Béow., 620, the queen of the Danish king Hrôthgâr is said to be of the race of the Helmings. It thus looks as if the Shieldings and the Wolfings were allied by marriage.
In the Ynglingasaga (ed. F. J., chap. 37), King Granmar's daughter at a banquet drinks to King Hjörvarth, and wishes prosperity to all Wolfings, while the beaker is being emptied in memory of Hrólf Kraki. (2) Here Hrólf Kraki is evidently named as the most prominent representative of the Wolfings. This implies that the Wolfings were either of the same race as the Shieldings, or allied to them by marriage. (3) It suggests also that the Wolfing Helgi (Hundingsbani) was the same person as the Shielding Helgi (Hrólf's father). But the complete identification of the Wolfings and the Shieldings is due to the influence of the foreign story of Wolf-Theodoric. This story may also have influenced the more historical form of the Scandinavian Shielding saga, in which not only Helgi, but also Hroar and Hrólf are mentioned. I shall give one example of this influence.
In the saga of Hrólf Kraki, Halfdan has three children: a daughter, Signy, married to the Earl Sevil, and two sons, Helgi and Hroar. While these sons are still children, Frothi attacks and kills his brother Halfdan. Afterwards Helgi and Hroar avenge their father by killing Frothi. Though their brother-in-law Sevil helps them in their revenge, (4) yet hints are given that earlier he regarded them with but little favour. (5) In fact, Earl Sevil's character is on the whole so vaguely and inconsistently described, that the genuine story with reference to him must, it is clear, be obliterated.
Arngrim Jónsson's extract from the Skjöldungasaga represents Earl Sevil in another light. The account is there as follows: Ingjald kills his brother, the Danish king Halfdan. Signy, Halfdan's daughter, is then brought up at the house of Ingjald's son Frothi, and Ingjald gives her in marriage to Sevil, a Zealand Earl of low origin. (6) Halfdan's sons Hroe and Helgi are brought up secretly, and, when old enough, avenge their father. (7) Evidently Sevil must have been described in the story which underlay this account, as a contemptible person, and ill-disposed toward the kin of Halfdan; for Frothi, the slayer of Halfdan, gives him Halfdan's daughter in marriage, and he is called 'vilis baro.' Similarly, in the story from which the saga of Hrólf Kraki borrowed, Sevil was doubtless regarded as a wicked man and faithless towards Halfdan's kin; for in this saga his son Hrók is so described.
This Earl Sevil, (8) who must have shown himself faithless towards Helgi after the death of Helgi's father Halfdan, is, in my opinion, the same saga-figure as the Duke Sabene, who, according to Wfd. A, after having been in Hugdietrich's service, acted wickedly and faithlessly towards Hugdietrich's wife and the boy Wolfdietrich. This same personage is mentioned in Wîd. by the name Seafola, and is there said to have been, together with Theodoric, at the home of Eormanric. His historical prototype is, I believe, (9) the East-Roman leader Sabinianus, who, during the youth of the East-Gothic Theodoric, laid an ambush for a large body of Goths. Among these were Theodoric's mother and brother, both of whom escaped with great difficulty.
Sevill has an l like the AS Seafola; but its i shows it to be the more original form, and Seafola must, then, have come from *Seafela (cf. AS heafola and heafela).
Still another story unites Helgi Hundingsbani with Helgi, son of Halfdan. H. Hund. once disguised himself and visited his enemies as a spy. In a verse which he recites to a shepherd boy when about to depart, he calls himself Hamall. Detter has shown (10) that this name here signifies 'a castrated ram, wether' (Ger. Hammel). He also compares the story in the saga of Hrólf Kraki, in which Helgi, Hroar's brother, goes in disguise to the dwelling of his enemies under the name Hamr. In both cases the hero (H. Hund., or the Helgi of the saga) comes near being betrayed; for a verse is sung about him in which he is said to have 'flashing eyes.' (11)
I have already suggested that the epithet buðlungr is used of Helgi because Wolfdietrich was of the race of Botelunc. Since Helgi is called buðlungr in the Second Lay (st. 44) also, we see that the poem on Helgi's death was not unaffected by the story of Wolfdietrich.
Both the First and Second Helgi lay speak of Helgi's feud with Hunding, the successful termination of which gained for Helgi the surname of Hundingsbani; and in the former we hear also of the slaying of Hunding's sons. But the author of this First Lay deals very briefly (10-14) with this part of the Helgi story, using it merely as an introduction to his description of the fight with Höthbrodd, which is his main subject.
As I have already pointed out (above, p. 92), the saga king Hunding, as Helgi's opponent, was probably taken from the foreign story of Wolfdietrich, because the Irish story of Cormac's Birth (which appears to be connected with the Helgi-lays through the Wolfdietrich story only) had a name, Mac Con, with the same meaning as Hunding. This may have been the chief reason why the Irish tale borrowed features from the stories of Wolfdietrich (Wolf-Theodoric). Moreover, in Anglo-Saxon heroic saga the Hundingas are mentioned; and this fact gives us another argument in favour of the view that the Frankish Wolfdietrich story, which the Scandinavians learned from Anglo-Saxons, mentioned Hunding as the enemy of Wolf-Theodoric.
The old Norsemen undoubtedly brought the name Hunding into connection with hundr, 'hound, dog'; and Hunding was thought of as a faithless and despicable enemy. This we may infer not only from its relation with the Irish Mac Con, but also from a statement in that part of the Second Lay which narrates the Death of Helgi Hundingsbani. There we read: 'When Helgi came to Valhöll, Odin offered to let him rule over all with himself. Helgi said: "Thou shalt, O Hunding! give every man a foot-bath, kindle fires, bind the dogs, look after the horses, give drink to the swine, before thou goest to sleep"' (H. H., II, 39). This passage I would explain thus: Even before Helgi came to Valhöll, Hunding had been set by Odin to perform menial service. Helgi, in his capacity of ruler in Valhöll, simply repeats the kind of orders which Odin had previously given. (12)
With this incident Svend Grundtvig has compared the expressions in the treaty between the Russian Grand Duke Igor and the Byzantine Emperors (13): 'Whoever in the Russian land will disturb such a friendship, he shall........if he is not baptized, have aid neither from God nor Perun [Russian thunder-god], and his own shield shall not protect him, and he shall fall before his own sword, his own arrows, and the rest of his weapons, and he shall be a slave for ever in the future world.' Farther on we read: 'And whoever from our land violates this [agreement], be he a prince or other, baptized or unbaptized, he shall not have aid of God, and shall be a slave for ever in the future life, and fall before his own weapons.' (14) The connection between these statements and the situation in the Helgi lay becomes clearer when we observe that Sigrún's cursing of her brother for breaking his oaths to Helgi agrees with the curse in Nestor in an important point: he who violates the compact is to fall by his own weapons. Svend Grundtvig infers from this place in Nestor that Hunding had broken his oaths to Helgi. The menial tasks imposed upon him in Valhöll show, at all events, that he was regarded as a faithless and despicable enemy. Hence also he is called Hunding, i.e. 'the son (or descendant) of the dog,' while his enemy Helgi is called the Wolfing, 'the descendant of the wolf.'
In the prose preface to the Second Lay we read: Hundingr.......við hann er Hundland kent, 'Hunding ..........from him Hundland gets its name.' We know, however, of no country so called. (15) This name Hundland must also have been connected with hundr, 'dog,' not with the numeral hund in 'hundred.' Apparently Hundland was regarded as a far-distant and almost fabulous land. (16)
1. It is doubtless an accidental resemblance between the Wolfdietrich story and the Skjöldungasaga that Huge-Dietrich in Wfd. A 6, makes war on his nephew Fruote of Denmark, and that the Shielding Helgi, son of Halfdan, according to one form of the saga, kills Frotho. Back
2. Hon............gékk fryir Hjörvarð konung ok mælti: 'Allir heilir Ylfingar at Hrólfs minni kraka.' Back
3. Cf. e.g. Sijmons in Paul-Braune, Beit., IV, 177 f. Back
4. þessu nærst er Sævill jarl útkominn ok allir hans menn; hann mælti þá: aukum nú eldana, ok veitum lið sveinum þessum; er mèr engi vandi við Fróða konúng (Fas., I, 14). þeir bræðr þökkuðu góða liðveizlu Sævil jarli, mági sínum (Fas., I, 16). Back
5. Sveinir þessir komu til Sævils jarls, ok voru þar viku, áðr enn þeir ræddu um þarvist sína við jarl; hann sagði: lítit mannkaup ætla ek í ykkr vera, en ekki spara ek mat við ykkr um stundarsakir (Fas., I, 8). Back
6. Frodonem; apud hunc educta est filia Signya; quam Ingialldus vili Back
7. Aarb. f. nord. Oldk., 1894, p. 112 f. Back
8. Sevil must have a short vowel in the first syllable. This is evident from the verse en Sevils rekka, Fas., I, 10. Arngrim (p. 113) also writes Sevillo. In Fas. and in Olrik's book the name is incorrectly written Sœvill. Back
9. Müllenhoff, on the contrary, regards Seafola, Sabene, as originally mythical. Back
10. Ztsch. f. d. Alt., XXXVI, 14 ff. Back
11. The sibyl in Hrólfssaga (Fas. I, 12) says: ötul eru augu / Hams ok Hrana. (Alliteration is lacking. Ötul is probably not a mistake for hvöss; but two lines have fallen out.) The following words are put into the mouth of Blindr inn bölvísi in H. H., II, 2: hvöss eru augu í Hagals þýju; cf. 4: ötul augu. Back
12. Lüning (in his edition), Sijmons (Paul-Braune, Beit., IV, 171 f), Schullerus (Paul-Braune, XII, 238, note I), Schück (Svensk Literatur-hist., I, 22), Gering (Die Edda, p. 180) and F. Jónsson (Litt. Hist., I, 257) are, on the contrary, of the opinion that the strophe is out of place here, and that it really belongs to a word-combat between Helgi and Hunding when both were still alive. This view seems to me erroneous. A poet could not let Helgi, who had not conquered Hunding before he killed him, say to Hunding in a dispute: 'Thou shalt do the work of a thrall,' without representing Helgi as boastful and ignoble, in direct opposition to the idea given of Helgi elsewhere. Moreover, there is no trace of such a word combat. Niedner's view with reference to this strophe (Zur Lieder-Edda, Berlin 1896, p. 27) also seems to me erroneous. Back
13. In Om de gotiske Folks Vaabened (Videnskabernes Selskabs Oversigt, 1870, p. 95). Heinzel (Ueber die Hervararsaga, p. 73 = 487) compares the statement of Leo Diaconus (Bk. 9, chap. 8) that there was a belief among the Russians that he who was killed in battle must serve his conqueror in the other world. Back
14. Nestor's Russian Chronicle, translated by C. V. Smith, pp. 45, 49. Back
15. The form hundland in Cod. A. M. 2845, 4to, of Hervararsaga (ed. Bugge, p. 327) is a mistake of the scribe, or a misreading for Húnaland, which is in Hauksbók. Back
16. My discussion of Hunding was written down before I read Werner Hahn's Helgi und Sigrún, pp. 62-67, where a theory resembling mine in some respects (e.g. as regards H. H., II, 39) is to be found. I have, however, taken nothing from the work of Hahn. Back
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