Chapter 6

THE FIRST HELGI-LAY AND THE IRISH TALE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY.

        From what precedes we have learned something of the relations of the author of the First Helgi-lay to Irish literature. His lay is by no means a translation of Irish stories, nor is it even a free working-over which follows Irish models step by step. Taking as a basis Germanic heroic saga-material, already treated in older lays, the Norse poet created an altogether new and original poem about the careers of certain Scandinavian personages, especially the hero Helgi Hundingsbani,---a poem in which Norse ideas and Norse views of life are definitely expressed. The preponderating influence in forming his style and mode of presentation, and the decisive factor in determining the poetical form of his lay, were the older Scandinavian heroic and mythical poems, especially the lays on the Völsungs, Niflungs, and Buthlungs, but, above all, the older lays of Helgi Hundingsbani.
        All these poems had themselves been subjected to much foreign influence. But the First Helgi-lay, with regard particularly to certain sections and motives in the action, with regard also to its development and scope, and to some extent its proper names, contains additional foreign elements. Some of these elements are Irish; and the Irish influence on the poetic phraseology has also become stronger than in the older poems. The foreign features, however, are all grouped about personages belonging to the Scandinavian Helgi-cycle. The action takes place in and about Denmark, or, at any rate, in places the names of which did not sound strange to the Scandinavian ear. (1)
        More light will, I hope, be thrown upon the literary relations just defined by my pointing out that another Irish story has been made use of in the Helgi-lay.
        There are several Irish narratives of the Destruction of Troy, all more or less related to one another. The oldest known version is that found in the Book of Leinster, a MS. of about the middle of the twelfth century. (2) Part of another version, closely related to the first, though not drawn from it, is preserved in a MS. of the fourteenth century or the beginning of the fifteenth. (3)
        The chief source of the Irish Destruction of Troy is the Historia de Excidio Trojae of Dares Phrygius; (4) but the original is treated very freely and much extended. The Irish author has embodied in his work many features, some of which he took from other Latin writings and from Irish tales, others which he himself invented in accordance with Irish ideas. The narrative style, with its richness of phraseology (e.g. in the descriptions of battle, sailing, equipments, etc.), and numerous alliterative epithets, is the same as that used in contemporary Irish accounts of domestic affairs in Ireland at that time.
        The story begins by telling of Saturn, his sons and descendants. Among them was Ilus, who first built Troy, and his son Laomedon. It then goes on to speak of Jason and the expedition of the Argonauts, in which Hercules took part. Laomedon offended the Argonauts by chasing them away from the harbour of Troy. In the next section Hercules is the leading figure. In order to revenge the dishonour which the Argonauts had suffered, he collects an army and ships from the whole of Greece, and sets sail with his fleet to Troy. He is victorious, kills Laomedon, and destroys the city. Then follows the main part of the story, an account of the second destruction of Troy in the reign of Priam.
        In my opinion, the Irish version was known by the author of the First Helgi-lay, who borrowed, particularly from the section which deals with the Trojan expedition of Hercules, a number of motives, expressions, and names, which he used especially in the last part of his account of Helgi's war with Höthbrodd. The story of the Hercules expedition was thus used together with the similar story of the Scandinavian reinforcements in the Battle of Ross na Ríg.
        The story of Hercules, like that of the Battle of Ross na Ríg, resembles the Helgi-poem in its general features. Hercules, wishing to revenge the wrong done him by the Trojans, goes about to the various parts of Greece to assemble troops to aid him, and when ready, sends out messengers bidding them come to the place where he himself is. The great fleet assembles and sails out among the islands of the sea. Aided by a favourable wind, the ships soon reach the harbour of Sigeum. When Laomedon learns that a hostile fleet has anchored there, he hastens to the harbour, and makes an attack on the Greeks. But Hercules had meanwhile marched with half his army by another route to Troy. In Laomedon's absence they storm the city, and, after securing great booty, commit it to the flames. Then they make their way to the ships. Laomedon, learning of the destruction of his city, turns back to attack Hercules and his men. There ensues a battle, which is described at length in glowing colours. It results in the complete defeat of the Trojans and the fall of Laomedon by the hand of Hercules. The latter then divides the booty, and gives Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, to Telamon. Hercules and his allies return to their several homes. All are friendly to Hercules when they separate.
        It is worth noting, as regards the general situation, that, while in the story of Ross na Ríg the fleet lands in three divisions among friends, Helgi's fleet, on the contrary, comes in a single body to a hostile land: this agrees not only with the older Helgi-story, but also with the story of Hercules, whose fleet also comes united to the land of his enemies.
        In the following comparison of details I follow principally the oldest version of the Irish story, that in the Book of Leinster, which we may call A. The later version in the MS. which is printed in Irische Texte, we may call B. The line-numbers are those of Stokes.
        In A 527 ff, we read of Hercules: 'When he had all things in readiness and quickness and promptitude, he sent messengers to the kings and princes, to the chieftains and champions, who had proposed with him to go on the journey. When notices and messages had reached them, they came at the call of Hercules. .......When they had all arrived at one stead, they took counsel.'
        In comparing with this certain strophes of the Helgi-lay, we must look at the matter as a whole. I do not imply that these strophes can (strictly speaking) prove that the Norse poet knew the Irish story; and we must also bear in mind the relations already pointed out between the poem and the Battle of Ross na Ríg. H. H., I, 21-22, reads: 'Thereupon the king sent messengers.....over the sea to beg for help, and to offer the chieftains and their sons abundance of gold. "Bid them go quickly to their ships and be ready at (?) Brandey." There the king waited until the men came thither (?) in hundreds from Hethinsey.' (5)
        Farther on in the Helgi-poem, we read that twelve hundred men have sailed into Qrvasund (I, 25), and after the arrival of the fleet in the land of their enemies, we learn that there are seven thousand out in the fjord, while fifteen companies (6) have landed (I, 50).
        This way of giving the number of ships and of the crew of great fleets seems to have come into Old Norse poems partly from foreign literature, partly from a knowledge of the large western fleets. (7) According to the Irish story, the ships of Hercules and his allies numbered 106. There were 1222 ships (A 1207) in the Greek fleet which set out in the second expedition against Troy. In B 135, we read: 'The kings, who had promised, came unto him with thousands and hosts and armies.' (8)
        The sailing is described only in the Book of Leinster, not in B. In A 535, it runs thus: 'Those ships and galleys were then set on the strong, heavy-stormed Tyrrhene sea and on the blue deep main, and on the furrowed, islanded, isleted country of their uneternal, undivine god Neptune.'
        Here (as in the story of Ross na Ríg), the expression for 'ships and vessels,' na longa ocus na laidenga, resembles the langhöfðuð skip und líðundum in H. H., I, 24, 'the long-beaked ships with seamen aboard.' Here also we have the alliteration on l. Irish láideng is a loan-word from ON leiðangr, 'a levy of ships for war,' which is related to líðendr, 'seamen.'
        The Norse poet introduces Rán and Ægir's daughters, dwellers in the sea. The Irish narrator names Neptune. The expressions which he uses to describe the sea might well have been models for ON kennings. (9) But the Norse poet followed the Irish account of the Scandinavian reinforcements in making the fleet encounter a violent storm, while Hercules had all the way a favourable wind.
        In A 538 f, we read: 'They sailed and they rowed unweariedly and untiredly.' Likewise in H. H., I, 26-27: 'The chieftains hoisted the sails to the masts, ......the vikings rowed; the king's fleet with the nobles on board went whizzing from the land.'
        After the storm Helgi's ships lay in the evening together in a bay by the sea-shore (H. H., I, 31). The fleet of Hercules anchored in the night in the harbour of Sigeum. Hercules marched with half of the army against Troy, whilst the second division, under Castor, Pollux, and Nestor, remained by the ships. When Laomedon was told that a Greek fleet had anchored at Sigeum he was very angry, and set out immediately against his enemies. In the Norse, Höthbrodd also was informed that a hostile fleet had come. 'Fifteen companies went up on land, but seven thousand were still out in the fjord.' Thus, here too the army was divided into two parts, of which one remained by the ships.
        The words which I have translaged 'out in the fjord' read in H. H., I, 50:---
                        er í Sogn út
                        sjau þúsundir.
Here Sogn must mean a fjord or a harbour. (10) There is nothing to indicate that the word as an appellative had such a meaning in ordinary prose at the time when the poem was composed, although Sogn, used in Norway as the name of a fjord, rivers, and farmsteads, comes from súga, 'to suck,' and is related with sog, 'suction, stream.' The word Sogn in the announcement to Höthbrodd must have been used for some particular reason.
        In the Irish story (B 143), it is said: 'Thereafter Laomedon was told that a great host of Greeks had seized the port of Sigeum.' The Book of Leinster has here i purt Ségi, and in two other places the form Ségi; while B has twice (140, 144) Sygei. This was its form, as I suppose, in the Irish MS. from which, directly or indirectly, the Helgi-poet learned to know the story. Dares Phrygius has: 'Laomedonti regi nuntiatum est classem Graecorum ad Sigeum accessisse.' The Norse poet introduces regularly native, or apparently native, names for the foreign ones before him. For the port Sygei, 'the harbour of Sigeum,' in the Irish there was no native name nearer than the adjective sygnskr, and Sygnir, 'the people by the Sognefjord,' which comes from Sogn. (11) It was for this reason, in my opinion, that the Norse poet let the announcement be given that Helgi's ships lay out í Sogn, 'on the Sognefjord,' the expression being modelled after port Sygei, 'the harbour of Sigeum,' where, as it was reported to Laomedon, the Greek fleet had anchored.
        When Höthbrodd learned of the coming of his enemies, he sent out riders to summon help. To the strophe of the Helgi-lay which tell of this, the Irish account of Laomedon affords no parallel. On the other hand, the latter, before telling how Hercules sent out messengers to induce his allies to come to him in haste, says that he himself went about in Greece to get promises of help; but the Helgi-lay reports nothing similar of Helgi.
        But even here the Norse poem seems to show connection with the Irish tale; for the strophes which tell how Höthbrodd sought help appear to have been influenced by the Irish account of how Hercules sought help. We read of Höthbrodd in H. H., I, 51:
                        Renni raukn bitluð
                        til reginþinga.
'Let bitted trotters (12) run to the great meetings.' The word reginþinga is used to denote the meeting-place frequented by many men. Then follows:
                        en Sporvitnir
                        at Sparinsheiði.
'(The steed) Sporvitnir (i.e. 'the animal which is spurred') to Sparin's heath.' (13) No satisfactory explanation of this place has hitherto been given. The Irish tale of Hercules seems, however, to throw light on it. A 474, reads: 'Then he went to beseech the kings and the captains and the champions to go with him to avenge on the Trojans his sigh and his groan.' He went first to the kings of Sparta (co rígu Sparte) (14). In Sparins heiðr I see a Norse working-over of Sparta. The Norse name was formed in its first part to resemble Varinsfjörðr and Svarinshaugr in the same poem; and an attempt was made to give a familiar native look and sound to the foreign word. (15)



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