Introduction

we see that the Norse poet here imitated an A.S. poem, and, instead of the word wêrig, 'weary,' there used, inserted veðreygr, which is similar in sound but different in meaning. In Vkv., 6, Níthuth is called 'niara' dróttinn, i.e. Njára dróttinn, an epithet that has hitherto been obscure. The A.S. poem which was the Norse poet's model, must have called Nîthhad (Níthuth) the conqueror of Neoðran, i.e. 'the lower ones' (inferiores). This epithet is explained by the fact that Nîthhad and Wêland (Wayland) here replace Minos and Daedalus, and Minos is said, by the Second Vatican Mythograph (p. 76), to have been apud inferiores judex. Njára arose from *Njaðra, as O.N. hvárir from *hvaðrir. In Vkv., 28, íviðgjarnra (MS. iviþgiarira) is put alongside harma, 'sorrows,' This is probably an incorrect transference of *inwidgyrna (from gyrn, 'sorrow') in the A.S. model; cf. A.S. inwitsorh. Other expressions in this Norse poem which likewise find their explanation in Anglo-Saxon, might be mentioned.
        In Siever's Beiträge (XXII, 115-134) I have, I think, shown that Sigurðarkviða is an imitation of A.S. poems, and contains many English words. In other poems also, English words, or misunderstandings of English expressions, might be pointed out, as, e.g., the following from Guðrúnarhvöt. It is there said (st. 17) that Högni was cut to the heart; the word fló in this connection is from the A.S. dat. flân, from flâ, with the meaning of O.N. fleinn; tregróf, st. 21, 'enumeration of sorrow.' contains A.S. râw, or ræw, 'series'; jörlum, st. 21, means 'men,' a meaning which A.S. eorl may have, but not O.N. jarl.
        Some poetic expressions in the Eddic poems are taken from extant A.S. verses. In Guthr., II, 33, Grímhild says to her daughter, 'I give thee Vínbjörg, Valbjörg.' These places are unknown, and no one has been able to explain the names. The poet, I believe, formed them in imitation of Wîdsîð, 77 f. Here Câsere, the Roman Cæsar, is designated as
                        se þe WÎNBURGA geweald âhte,
                        wiolena and wilna and WALA rîces,
'he who had power over cities, riches, splendid possessions, and the kingdom of the Welsh.' In imitation of wînburg, a poetic expression which occurs pretty often in A.S., with the meaning of 'city' in general, the Norse poet formed the place-name Vínbjörg, (4) and then by analogy with this, he formed Valbjörg from Wala rîce. In Atlakviða, 14, we read of Gunnar, King of the Goths, who is advancing to attack the King of the Huns, that he comes
                        með geiri gjallanda
                        at vekja gramhildi,
'with resounding spear to awake fierce battle.' We detect more than the similarity of a poetic formula in Wîdsîð, 128:
                                (hwînende fléag)
                        giellende gâr on grome þéode.
For here also we find the Goths fighting against the people of Attila. O.N. gramhildi, 'fierce fight for life and death,' is correctly explained by a comparison with the A.S. expression. In Akv., 18, the Huns, who take Gunnar, are wrongly called vinir Borgunda, 'the friends of the Burgundians.' This is probably due to a misunderstanding: in some A.S. poem, doubtless (as in Waldere), Gûthhere was called wine Burgenda, 'friend of the Burgundians,' and the Norse poet took wine wrongly for a plural form.
        Influence from England on the Eddic poems may be detected not merely in poetic expressions, but also in poetic, saga-hitstorical, and mythical motives, in the action of the story, and in its composition.
        The Norseman who formed the mythical picture of the world-tree, the ash Yggdrasil, which the author of Grímnismál reproduces, imagined an eagle in the top of the tree, a squirrel running up and down its trunk, and a snake at its root. This Norseman had probably seen in the north of England monuments with sculptured ornamentation similar to those of the Bewcastle Cross in Cumberland, if, indeed, he had not seen the Bewcastle Cross itself. He had, doubtless, heard that it was the crucified Christ who was represented in such sculptures. Up the side of the cross he had seen a tree rise, in the foilage of which sat an eagle or a hawk, squirrels and dragons, and ate of the fruits of the tree. He called the squirrel by an English name, Ratatoskr, i.e. 'Rat-tusk,' from A.S. ræt, 'rat,' and tusc, 'tusk.'
        In Hyndluljóð, Freyja comes at midnight with her favourite, Ottar, to the seeress Hyndla, who dwells in a cave. Freyja wishes to induce Hyndla to accompany her to Valhöll, so that Ottar may hear Hyndla enumerate the whole line of his descendants. Freyja praises Ottar; for he had raised a stone altar to her and consecrated it with the fresh blood of cattle (nauta blóði); he has always believed in the goddesses. Hyndla enumerates all Ottar's race for him (allt er þat ætt þín). This poem, which is attached to Ottar, who came from Hörthaland, presupposes some familiarity with the contents of Virgil's Æneid. Æneas, the son and favourite of Venus, comes to Sibylla Cumaea, who dwells in a cave, to get her to accompany him to the abodes of the dead, to Elysium. Æneas goes thither with the Sibyl at midnight to learn of all the race that shall descend from him. The pious Æneas shows by sacrifices his faith in many goddesses. He offers up petitions to Venus and sacrifices of cattle on altars to the goddesses of death (pecudum sanguine, Æneid, V, 736). In the abodes of the blessed, whither the Sibyl is to conduct Æneas, he shall learn of all his race (genus omne tuum.......disces, Æneid, V, 737).
        In Rígsþula the different ranks of society, and in particular the office of king, are referred for their origin to the god Rígr. We learn that the representative, or eponym, of kingship, after having proved his intellectual superiority, adopts the name of the ancestor of his race, Rígr. This name is, as Vigfusson observed, the Irish rí, oblique case ríg, 'king.' A Norse poet could scarcely designate the eponym of kingship by the Irish word for 'king' unless a Norse king in whose neighbourhood the poet lived, or whose subject he was, had Irish subjects as well. The theory that Rígsþula arose in the West is supported also by the numerous foreign words in the poem---e.g. skutill, 'a flat wooden plate' on which dishes are placed, from A.S. scutel, which in its turn comes from Lat. scutella or scutula; frakka, fem., 'a lance,' from A.S. franca, masc.; kálkr; kanna; kartr; drekka ok dæma, 'drink and converse,' an alteration of A.S. drincan and drêman; Boddi, the name of the peasant, from Irish bodach; Fljóð, one of the epithets for a woman, taken from A.S. names of women in -flêd.
        Völundarkviða, as I have already hinted in what precedes, was composed with an A.S. poem on Wêland Nîthhad, and Beadohild as a model. But the Norse poet represented the swan-maidens, who were introduced into a poem, as connected in race with historical kings, among others with a Frankish Hlöðvér, or Ludwig, called after one of Charlemagne's successors who bore the same name.
        Here I can only suggest that the saga-cycle of the Völsungs and Niflungs must have come first to the Scandinavians from the English, who in their turn learned it from the Franks. This is evident both from the subject-matter of the Scandinavian poems and from their phraseology.
        The Norwegian poets who composed the majority of the Eddic lays (including the oldest pieces in the collection) were probably, as a rule, attached to the courts of Scandinavian kings who reigned, now in Northumberland, now at Dublin.
        In England, epic composition probably developed earlier among the Danes than among the Norwegians. Several of the saga-historical and mythical motives and names which appear prominently in the Eddic poems seem to have been transferred from Danish poems, now lost, to the Norwegian; and this took place at all events in part, in England. Several Norse poems included in the Eddic collection may be imitations of older Danish poems that treated the same or a closely related subject. This I have shown in the present volume to be the case with regard to the Helgi-lays. We may possibly draw a similar inference respecting Grottasöngr, if only because the chief human personage in the poem is a Danish king.
        Several verses in Atlakviða betray A.S. influence: for example, the phrase geirr gjallandi, of which mention has already been made, referring to the attack of the Goths on the Huns; mjöðrann, 9, from A.S. medoærn. In birnir blakkfjallir, 11, blakkr has not its usual Norse meaning, but the same signification as A.S. blæc, 'black.' Expressions in several verses suggest Danish written forms. In Akv., 21, occurs balldriþa. The Norse form would be rather ballriþa, Lok., 37. The d in balldriþa may perhaps be explained as due either to an A.S. or to a Danish spelling. In Akv., 4, we find serki val röþa, i.e. valrøða, a Danish form of valrauða. Liðskjálfar, Akv., 14, which alliterates with land, may also be Danish. In Akv., 28, it is said of Gunnar, who is being driven to the serpent-pit:
                        ok meir þaðan
                        menvörð bituls
                        dólgrögni dró
                        til 'davþ scokr.'
The phrase 'davþ scokr,' which has never been correctly explained, should doubtless be understood as a Danish til døþsc økr; døþsc = dauðs, the ending being written as in Placitusdrápa, where borþsc = borðs, linsc = linnz; okr, i.e. Danish økr = Old Swedish øker, Gutnish oykr, O.N. eykr, here in the meaning of 'a span of horses,' økr to be construed with bituls. Atlakviða seems, therefore, to be in part a reconstruction of a Danish poem, which in its turn imitated an A.S. lay on the same subject.
        Several mythical words in the mythological poems in the Edda also presuppose Danish written forms. Grímnismál, 25, tells of the goat which stands at Valhöll and bites off Leraþs' twigs. In the First Series of my Studies I have expressed the opinion that the foundation of the name of the heavenly tree is the Latin phrase species lauri in a scholium to Statius. This was translated into A.S. by *laur-hâd, which was adopted by a Danish poet as *Láraðr, and this finally became in the Norse work Læraðr, since O.N. lær corresponded to Old Danish lár.
        The first man is called, in Völuspá, Askr, the first woman, Embla. The man's name, 'ash,' shows that the woman's must also be that of a tree. I believe that Embla to have arisen from a Danish Elmbla, formed from almr, 'elm.' Auðumbla is likewise Danish.
        The most important, from a mythological point of view, of all the Eddic poems about the gods is Völuspá, i.e. 'the Prophecy of the Sibyl (völva).' Into the mouth of a Sibyl, or prophetess, the poet has put a prediction of the fate of the whole world. She begins with the earliest eras, before heaven and earth existed, before gods and men were created, and follows the life and fate of the gods even to their destruction, and that of the world, in ragnarøk. Nor is this all. The Sibyl sees still further into the future: she foretells the birth of a new world; she sees gods and men living in a new golden age in eternal peace and joy. Finally, she predicts that the Mighty One shall come, he who shall rule all things. She dwells longest on the beginning and end, especially the latter, and passes quickly over the life of the gods under the present order of the world.
        We must infer from the manner of presentation and from the mythical personages mentioned in the poem that the author was a heathen, and belonged to a people who worshipped the Scandinavian gods; but both in the composition as a whole, and in many single features, especially towards the conclusion, we observe the strong influence of Christian ideas.
        Germanic heathendom was familiar with seeresses of supernatural powers, who were treated with respect. But the giant-fostered seeress in Völuspá, who turns her gaze toward the whole human race and meditates upon the fate of the world from its beginning to its destruction and resurrection, has unquestionably Christian prototypes, and shows particular kinship with the Sibyls of the Middle Ages.
        Among other Germanic peoples we have traces of poems that, like Völuspá, treated the creation of the world; but these poems were Christian. In a Bavarian manuscript of the early part of the ninth century, copied from an Old Saxon original, is preserved the so-called Wessobrunner-Gebet. This contains nine verses, forming the beginning of a poem in which the creation of the world was described in accordance with Bible teaching. Two lines which tell of the time when 'the earth was not, nor the high heaven,' betray a similarity with lines in Völuspá that cannot be accidental. In Vpá., 3, we read:
                        jörð fannzk æva
                        né upphiminn.
In the Wessobrunner-Gebet:
                        ero ni was
                        noh ûfhimil,
but, directly after, definite Christian ideas appear:
                        dô was der eino
                        almahtîco cot.


ENDNOTES: