Part 3
EVIDENCE THAT HALFDAN IS IDENTICAL WITH HELGI HUNDINGSBANI.
The main outlines of Halfdan's saga reappear related as history, and more or less blended with foreign elements, in Saxo's accounts of the kings Gram, Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson (see No. 23). Contributions to the saga are found in Hyndluljóð (14, 15, 16) and in Skáldskaparmál (chapter 80), in what they tell about Halfdan Skjoldung and Halfdan the Old. The juvenile adventures of the hero have, with some modifications, furnished the materials for both the songs about Helgi Hundingsbani, with which Saxo's story of Helgo Hundingicida (Hist., 80-110) and Völsungasaga's about Helgi Sigmundsson are to be compared. The Grótta-song also (22) identifies Helgi Hundingsbani with Halfdan.
For the history of the origin of the existing heroic poems from mythic sources, of their relation to these and to each other, it is important to get the original identity of the hero-myth, concerning Halfdan and the heroic poems concerning Helgi Hundingsbani, fixed on a firm foundation. The following parallels suffice to show that this Helgi is a later time's reproduction of the mythic Halfdan:
| Halfdan-Gram, sent on a warlike expedition, meets Groa, who is mounted on horseback and accompanied by other women on horseback (Saxo 26, 27). | Helgi Hundingsbani, sent on a warlike expedition, meets Sigrun, who is mounted on horseback and is accompanied by other women on horseback (Helg. Hund. i. 16; Völs. ch. 9). |
| The meeting takes place in a forest (Saxo 26). | The meeting takes place in a forest (Völs. ch. 9). |
| Halfdan-Gram is on the occasion completely wrapped in the skin of a wild beast, so that even his face is concealed (Saxo 26). | Helgi is on the occasion disguised. He speaks frá úlfíði "from a wolf guise" (Helg. Hund. i. 16), which expression finds its interpretation in Saxo, where Halfdan appears wrapped in the skin of a wild beast. |
| Conversation is begun between Halfdan-Gram and Groa. Halfdan pretends to be a person who is his brother-at-arms (Saxo 27). | Conversation is begun between Helgi and Sigrun. Helgi pretends to be a person who is his foster-brother (Helg. Hund. ii. 6). |
| Groa asks Halfdan-Gram: Quis, rogo, vestrum dirigit agmen, quo duce signa bellica fertis? (Saxo 27.) |
Sigrun asks Helgi: Hverir láta fljóta fley við bakka? Hvar, hermegir heima eiguð? (Helg. Hund. ii. 5.) |
| Halfdan-Gram invites Groa to accompany him. At first invitation is refused (Saxo 27). | Helgi invites Sigrun to accompany him. At first the invitation is rebuked (Helg. Hund. i. 16-17). |
| Groa's father had already given her hand to another (Saxo 26). | Sigrun's father had already promised her to another (Helg. Hund. i. 18). |
| Halfdan-Gram explains that this rival ought not to cause them to fear (Saxo 28). | Helgi explains that this rival should not cause them to fear (Helg. Hund. i., ii.). |
| Halfdan-Gram makes war on Groa's father, on his rival, and on the kinsmen of the latter (Saxo 32). | Helgi makes war on Sigrun's father, on his rival, and on the kinsmen of the latter (Helg. Hund. i., ii.). |
| Halfdan-Gram slays Groa's father and betrothed, and many heroes who belonged to his circle of kinsmen or were subject to him (Saxo 32). | Helgi kills Sigrun's father and suitors, and many heroes who were the brothers or allies of his rival (Helg Hund. ii.). |
| Halfdan-Gram marries Groa (Saxo 33). | Helgi marries Sigrun (Helg. Hund. i. 56). |
| Halfdan-Gram conquers a king Ring (Saxo 32). | Helgi conquers Ring's sons (Helg. Hund. i. 52). |
| Borgar's son has defeated and slain king Hunding (Saxo 362; cp. Saxo 337). | Helgi has slain king Hunding, and thus gotten the name Hundingsbane (Helg. Hund. i. 10). |
| Halfdan-Gram has felled Svarin and many of his brothers. Svarin was viceroy under Groa's father (Saxo 32). | Helgi's rival and the many brothers of the latter dwell around Svarin's grave-mound. They are allies or subjects of Sigrun's father. |
| Halfdan-Gram is slain by Svipdag, who is armed with an Asgard weapon (Saxo 34, to be compared with other sources. See Nos. 33, 98, 101, 103). | Helgi is slain by Dag, who is armed with an Asgard weapon (Helg. Hund. ii.). |
| Halfdan-Berggram's father is slain by his brother Frode, who took his kingdom (Saxo 320). | Helgi's father was slain by his brother Fróði, who took his kingdom (Hrólfs Saga Kraka). |
| Halfdan Berggram and his brother were in their childhood protected by Regno (Saxo 320). | Helgi and his brother were in their childhood protected by Reginn (Hrólfs Saga Kraka). |
| Halfdan Berggram and his brother burnt Frode to death in his house (Saxo 323). | Helgi and his brothers burnt Fróði to death in his house (Hrólfs Saga Kraka). |
| Halfdan Berggram as a youth left the kingdom to his brother and went warfaring (Saxo 320 ff.). | Helgi Hundingsbani as a youth left the kingdom to his brother and went warfaring (Saxo 80). |
| During Halfdan's absence Denmark is attacked by an enemy, who conquers his brother in three battles and slays him in a fourth (Saxo 325). | During Helgi Hundingsbani's absence Denmark is attacked by an enemy, who conquers his brother in three battles and slays him in a fourth (Saxo 82). |
| Halfdan, the descendant of Scef and Scyld, becomes the father of Rolf (Beowulf poem). | Helgi Hundingsbani became the father of Rolf (Saxo 83; compare Hrólfs Saga Kraka). |
| Halfdan had a son with his own sister Yrsa (Grotta-song 22; mun Yrsu sonr við Halfdana hefna Fróða; sá mun hennar heitinn verða bur ok bróðir). | Helgi Hundingsbani had a son with his own sister Ursa (Saxo 82). The son was Rolf (compare Hrólfs Saga Kraka). |
A glance at these parallels is sufficient to remove every doubt that the hero in the songs concerning Helgi Hundingsbani is originally the same mythic person as is celebrated in the song or songs from which Saxo gathered his materials concerning the kings, Gram Skjoldson, Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson. It is the ancient myth in regard to Halfdan, the son of Skjold-Borgar, which myth, after the introduction of Christianity in Scandinavia, is divided into two branches, of which the one continues to be the saga of this patriarch, while the other utilises the history of his youth and tranforms it into a new saga, that of Helgi Hundingsbani. In Saxo's time, and long before him, this division into two branches had already taken place. How this younger branch, Helgi Hundingsbani's saga, was afterwards partly appropriated by the all-absorbing Sigurdsaga and became connected with it in an external and purely genealogical manner, and partly did itself appropriate (as in Saxo) the old Danish local tradition about Rolf, the illegitimate son of Halfdan Skjoldung, and, in fact, foreign to his pedigree; how it got mixed with the saga about an evil Frode and his stepsons, a saga with which it formerly had no connection; - all these are questions which I shall discuss fully in a second part of this work, and in a separate treatise on the heroic sagas. For the present, my task is to show what influence this knowledge of Halfdan and Helgi Hundingsbani's identity has upon the interpretation of the myth concerning the antiquity of the Teutons.
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