The Wayland-Dietrich Saga
I have pieced together the Tale of Dietrich, of which that of Wayland Smith is the prelude, from such mediæval "epic" poems, ballads, and prose narratives as we have left in European Literature. These exist, in complete or fragmentary episodes, in Mediæval Latin, Middle-High and Middle-Low German, Mediæval Danish, Swedish and Icelandic (or old Norwegian) with some variants in the old Russian Bylina (Hero-Tales). Here I will confess that at present I cannot read Russian in the original, and read the Scandinavian tongues but haltingly; therefore I have studied these versions with the help of modern German and English translations. I have also made supplemental use of the Old French Chronicles, Chansons de Geste and Fabliaux, and other poems and prose legends in Mediæval Latin, Middle-English, Middle-Scottish, Scandinavian, German and Italian, with translations of Gaelic Texts (Scottish, Welsh and Irish) in order to obtain local colour.
The Tales of Wayland and Dietrich, as much as the Tale of Beowulf, are part of the heritage of the English people, which we share with the Nordic Races of Europe. Wayland Smith's name is still remembered in our folk-lore. Some of our place names also recall his memory and that of individuals in the Dietrich Saga and the Nibelung Lay. For instance, in Norfolk, there is the Hundred of Wayland, in which are Wayland's Wood and Watton, i.e., Wat's Town (Wade was Wayland's father). In neighbouring Hundreds are Attleborough, East and West Harling, Walsingham, Beckenham and others, reminiscent of Atli or Etzel (Attila), the Harlungs (Dietrich's cousins), the Wölsungs or Volsungs (Völsunga Saga) and Bikke, or Sibich, the evil counsellor of Ermanaric. There is also an Attleborough, in conjunction with similar names, in Warwickshire, and everyone knows of Wayland Smith's Cave, in Berkshire, commemorated in "Kenilworth." This indicates that the Anglian and Saxon settlers in these parts were well acquainted with the above names, and doubtless brought with them many ancient legends, now long forgotten by their descendants.
Partly in the hope of reviving the memory of those old tales I have re-written them and have tried in their re-telling to show something of the life and customs of the Thirteenth Century, the period when most of them were written down---with occasional excursions into earlier times. Throughout my aim has been to bridge the gulf that separates us from our mediæval forefathers, by showing them in their habit as they lived and hated, loved and died.
The Dietrich Saga, and its fore-runner, the Tale of Wayland Smith, have not yet, as far as I know, been fully told in English, though the closely connected mediæval German Nibelunglied has been translated several times in prose and verse. The Scandinavian version of the Nibelung Lay has also been translated into prose by William Morris and G. Vigfusson. It was this version that Morris followed in his wonderful poem, Sigurd the Volsung, 1877, which, as Professor Sandbach has said, "stands in the first rank of modern adaptations of the old Sagas" (Sandbach. Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America 1904. p. 132). In the Thirteenth Century Icelandic Author's compilation known as the Thidrek's Saga, these tales appear in a rather disjointed form in company with many others taken from Saxon sources. Two Nineteenth Century German writers have retold the Sagas, as a whole, in modern German. Richard von Kralik published six small undated volumes near the end of the Nineteenth Century, in which he aimed at putting together all the mythological and legendary treasures of Teutonic lore. He accomplished the task of setting the tales of the Northern Gods and Heroes in chronological order, with the generous aim of helping future writers. He put the whole into rhyming couplets, and, so far from adding to the text, he considerably abridged it. I have found his condensed versions and notes very helpful, used with due caution. The other German author to whom I would refer, and to whom I also owe a debt of gratitude, is the late Professor Karl Simrock, who achieved in German what I, perhaps too daringly, have tried to do in English. He wove most of the Wayland-Dietrich prose tales and lays into one great poem (in the Nibelungenlied ballad metre). Unfortunately he, having already completed modern renderings of the Nibelungenlied and various Middle-High-German poems of the Dietrich Cycle, did not incorporate these with his later work, but issured that separately as the Amelungenlied, so called from Amelung, Dietrich's ancestor. Simrock spent about twenty years (1829-1849) in writing this epic poem. It is a most interesting, valuable, and, in part, spirited rendering of the Wayland-Dietrich Cycle; but I cannot help feeling that it shows the want of a central plot, and is also incomplete, inasmuch as it lacks some of the finest episodes. Nevertheless I have profited much by Simrock's splendid work, and in the arrangement of some of the material and adaptation of certain passages, I have sometimes, though not too closely, trodden in his footsteps. What I have tried to do is to supply the central motive, hitherto missing, in this great Saga, the absence of which has probably prevented it from being well known in England. Whether the Dietrich Saga existed as a whole I do not know. There were certainly Ostrogothic versions of the Sagas of Dietmar and Dietrich, and also of Ermanaric and of the Harlungs (now lost), and there is extant, a Low German Lay of the Death of Ermanaric, besides some Scandinavian lays in the Elder Edda.........All these have been fused together in the mediæval German poems and in the Thirteenth Century Icelandic Thidrek's Saga, losing in the process many of their older and wilder elements, and not obtaining unity or a central plot, though gaining accretions of local Sagas and fairytales. The versions of the Saga as found embodied in the mediæval German "epics" differ considerably from each other and are often contradictory on minor points.
Throughout my version I have tried to keep to the Thirteenth Century colouring, except in certain parts, e.g., the Maximus Tale, which is Fourth Century, A.D. The manners, dress, armour, etc., of the main portion of the tale are shown as Thirteenth Century, with occasional reversions to earlier periods. Therefore, though the historical Theodoric lived at the end of the Fifth Century and beginning of the Sixth (452/4-526 A.D.), the setting is Thirteenth Century; precisely as Malory places King Arthur and his Knights in a Fifteenth Century setting.
Such history as may be traced in the legend is seen in a mediæval glass darkly and distorted, lightened with occasional vivid gleams of remembered fact. Legend has hopelessly entangled Dietrich's story with that of his father Dietmar (Thetmar), making him contemporary with Attila, King of the Huns (who died in the year 453, A.D.), and Ermanaric, King of the Ostrogoths, his predecessor and his father's enemy. The legendary Attila, or Etzel, has a character quite different from that of the historical Hun Conqueror. This character varies considerably in the several versions of the Saga. I have endeavoured to make it consistent, and have found the legendary aspects not irreconcilable. Dietrich's character, on the whole, as portrayed in the Poems and Sagas, is generally considered to give a good picture of that of Theodoric, the great Ostrogoth, who sat, not unworthily, in the seat of the Roman Emperors. Some scholars have transformed the legendary Dietrich into a Sun-Hero, but with that aspect of him I hve not dealt.
As to my method: I have translated as closely and faithfully as was in me from certain portions of my sources, combining variants where possible, and throwing out superfluous matter, such as redundancies and repetitions. When it has been necessary to choose between two or more contradictory versions I hve chosen what appeared to be the most dramatic, giving the preference, in case of doubt, to the earliest form. Where I have used the Völsunga Saga and the Nibelung Lay I have subordinated their plots to that of the Dietrich Saga, and have, of necessity, reversed the relative importance of Sigurd, or Siegfried, and Dietrich. Where there are gaps, or references to lost tales or episodes, I have ventured to improvise, in order to avoid inconsistencies, and to preserve the unity of the Tale. These improvisations will be indicated in my final notes.
As to my medium: I have used "narrative verse," by which I mean blank verse, with occasional rhyming couplets, and some internal rhymes to break the monotony. I have also introduced interludes in other metres, with some lyrics. In the matter of diction I have tried to avoid obsolete archaisms on the one hand, and modern slang on the other. I have allowed myself the use of certain Provincial words, and of some that have fallen into undeserved disuse; for instance, the word thole (to bear or endure), which, though discarded in Southern England, is in common use amongst the eductated classes in Scotland, and, I believe, in the North of England. Where such words are used a gloss will be given at the foot of the page. I hve retained the spelling of the Authorised Version of the Bible in such words as judgement, and, with some misgivings, have committed myself to the use of "thee" and "thou" as most appropriate to the Thirteenth Century setting. For the use of such forms as 'tis, 'gainst, etc., I am content with the authority of Shakespeare. I have also restored such old English forms as mellay, instead of the modern French form mêlée, for which I offer no apology. If here and there I use a vigorous word of apparently modern slang it will be found to be one deep-rooted in the past. Where I have been unable to trace the exact mediæval military, naval, and technical terms I have used what appear to be the corresponding terms, ranging from Fifteenth Century use to that of the present day---not being infallible, I crave the indulgence of my professional readers.
Perhaps I ought to say here that I may be found to have slightly ante- or post-dated certain details. For instance, in the Maximus Episode, I have introduced a quinquereme about the middle of the Fourth Century A.D. and am thereby in danger of runner her on the rocks of controversy. I will merely say that the names "quinquereme" and "trireme" certainly survived at this period, and it is quite probable that actual vessels of these classes were still kept in commission in outlying waters, even as our old wooden three-deckers were used with the earlier iron-clads, and the latter with the modern battleships.
My sources will be found briefly indicated in footnotes, and more fully at the end of each section of the poem, with such notes as seem necessary. I hope, however, to enlarge these references in a supplementary study.
I have no more to say---I have tried to tell a good story; whether successfully or not, I do not know---The telling of it has given me great pleasure, and if I can in some degree impart this pleasure to others I shall be content.
KATHERINE M. BUCK.
"Needs must I speak who have heard the keen summons,
Yet am I like to be called a vain babbler!
Men look for, but see not, the end of my song.
[Read but a portion, ere scornful ye judge it]........
My task is done. Let such as will have it......
For their entertainment, piece by piece put together,
I have set out anew a rudderless tale."
Adapted from End-Piece. Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, II. 368.
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