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SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER, E.M. Smith-Dampier
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THE ANCESTRY OF THE FAROËSE
BALLAD CYCLE
IT is impossible to approach the Faroëse
Sigurd-ballads without attempting some brief indication of the history of the
great legend, heritage of the Gothic races, which, crystallizing in two
slightly different forms, inspired alike the Eddic Lays, and the Lay of the Nibelungs-traditions chiefly
represented in modern days, on the one hand by William Morris's Story of Sigurd, and on the other by the
music-dramas of Richard Wagner. Much has been written on the subject; much
doubtless remains to be written. As the story itself, with its eternal human appeal, may well
inspire the poets of generations to come, so many of the problems concerned
with its 'birth and its wanderings, have, in all probability, not yet reached
their final solution.
The story, as we know it, of Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, of his death and the
vengeance wreaked on his slayers, contains two distinct elements, the mythical
and the quasi-historical. The Dragon-slaying, that is to say,
belongs to the primeval story-stuff of the world, sprung from the esoteric
element common to all religions, and the mysteries of their initiations; but
the principal personages, in process of time, and by a perfectly natural
imaginative process, were identified,
4 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
or fused, with various
characters who left a deep impress on their age, and had, in some cases a
shadowy, in others a definite, historical existence. 'The historical names are
apparently unessential, yet they remain. . . . It is the historical names, and
the vague associations about them, that give to the Nibelung
story, not, indeed, the whole of its plot, but its temper, its pride and glory,
its heroic and epic character.'
This
historical element has its source in the Hunnish invasions of the fifth
century, which burst out from the regions round the Black Sea, and redistributed the
wandering Gothic tribes over the whole face of Europe.
One such tribe was that of the West Germanic Burgundians, which, migrating from the Oder-Vistula
regions, settled during the fourth century on the Upper Main, invaded Roman
territory under its King Gundicarius (406), and
established itself on the left bank of the Rhine (Germania
Prima), round about Worms, Speyer, and Mainz. In 435 Gundicarius attacked Gallia Belgica,
and was defeated by Ætius, who made peace, and left him undisturbed, in hopes, possibly, that his tribe might serve as a barrier
against the common enemy. Shortly afterwards, however (circa 437), the warlike king, together with most of his people,
perished in conflict with the Huns—probably not under the leadership of Attila
in person though the name of the Hunnish conqueror came to be
associated with the event.
The Worms district passed eventually to the Franks;
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5
while the surviving Burgundians settled in Savoy (circa
443).
Early in the sixth century, their King Gondebaud, son of Gondioc, drew up the code known as Lex
Burgundiorum, in which Gundahar (Gundicarius), his father Gibica,
and his brothers Gondomar and Gislahar
find mention. There is nothing to indicate whether these three brothers reigned
successively, or simultaneously, under the overlordship
of Gundahar, who always takes, in legend, the leading
position.
Gundahar is the historical namesake of the German
Gunther, and Old Norse Gunnar; Gibika that of the O.N. Gjuki, Guír
(Regin, v. 56) being a later dialectic form of the name. Gondomar is the Gernôt of the Nibelungen Lied,
and possibly the O.N. Gutthorm. In Gislar's (Gislahar's) early
death, the Faroëse cycle follows the general body of
legend (v. 27-101 ff.). Hjarnar (ibid.) may possibly
be the Hagen of the Nibelungenlied (O.N. Högni) who in some versions of the story, appears as
Gunnar's brother.
Sigurd
himself may have been confused with Segeric, son of
the South-Burgundian king, Sigismund, slain in 523 by Hlodvig
the Frank, son of Hunding. Another theory
points to the Frankish Sigebert, who married the
Visigoth princess Brunhild, of the Baldung family,
daughter of the Spanish king Attnagild, and was later
assassinated, circa 575.
The
Vengeance-motive, which forms the latter part of the story, was doubtless coloured and strengthened if not actually originated, by
the mystery surround-
6 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
ing the death of Attila (453),
found bathed in blood on the morning after his wedding-night, with his bride, Ildico, weeping at his side.
This ignominious end of the Scourge of God was ascribed by some to natural causes, by others to the hand of
his newly-wed wife, thus avenging her forced bridal, and (hypothetically) the
slaughter of her Germanic kinsfolk. The fact that Hild (battle), of
which Hildico is a diminutive, appears
also in the name of Khriemhild, gives some support to this theory.
There
is a general consensus of modem opinion that the legend, as we know it, the
blend, that is to say, of myth and confused historical memories, assumed its
outline among the Franks soon after the death of Attila.
From the Rhine, by unknown ways, it travelled through Germany, Scandinavia, and England. England touched it lightly — in the A.-S. poem of Wiðsið (sixth century), which mentions Aetla (Attila), Gifica, and King Gûðhere of Burgundy; the fragment of Waldere brings in Gûðhere and Hagena; and Beowulf (seventh-eighth centuries) attributes monster-slaying feats much like Sigurd's to his father Sigmund the Wælsing (Volsung).
In
Scandinavia, however, at some unknown period the story assumed a powerful and
original form, differing in important particulars from the Southern or
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 7
German version. Not
only is the primitive supernatural element much more prominent,
but, on the human side, the Vengeance completely changes its character.
So far from avenging Sigurd's death on her brothers, Guðrun (Khriemhild)
warns them against the treacherous invitation of Atli
(Attila), her second husband, who desires to obtain the Niflung
treasure; and, finding her efforts vain, wreaks a grisly revenge on
Atli, her children by him, and his entire household.
‘ This
shifting of the centre of a story is not easy to explain. . . . The tragical complications are so many
in the story of the Niblungs, that there could not fail to be variations in the
traditional interpretation of motives, even
without the assistance of the poets and their new readings of character.’
This
seems a more reasonable hypothesis than the far-fetched, if ingenious, theory
that, when the story became known in Bavaria (circa eighth century), the killing of the brothers was
transferred from Etzel (Attila) to Khriemhild, because local legend recalled the magnanimous—and
imaginary—protection extended by Attila to Theodoric
of Verona, or, rather, his father Theodomir.
The Scandinavian version seems most in accord
with the primitive feeling for the all-sacred character of the blood-tie. It is possible
8 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
that Atlamál, Atlakvi&ða,and
Hamðismál though dating perhaps from the eleventh century, represent the
original sixth-century form of the legend.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE LEGEND
The old-time 'maker,' from
courtly Gothic scop to itinerant Spielmann, or
minstrel, was not hampered by a sense of historical perspective, fruit of a
sophisticated intellect and definite documentary evidence.
It is not surprising that, in process of time, other popular
heroes came into the Legend. Such a hero was Didrek
of Bern (O.N. Thjodrekr), a compound figure of Theodonc the Ostrogoth (d. 526),
and his namesake the Visigoth (killed at Châlons 451), who, in the thirteenth-century Vilkina Saga,
written at Bergen; in Tiðrekssaga, based on German and Norwegian tradition;
in an important ballad-cycle; and in the Nibelungenlied itself, is associated with the Burgundian
heroes. In Didrek, indeed, not in Sigurd, the twelfth
century saw its ideal of kingship.
Through one of the Eddic poets, moreover, Suanhilda,
queen of the East Goth Ermanarik, whose tragic story
is told in the sixth century by Jordanes, became the daughter of
Guðrun and a third husband, regardless of the fact
that Ermanarik predeceased Attila by nearly a century.
Ragnar Lodbroks Saga—the
one literary echo of the ninth-century Danish conquest of England—is
placed as the continuation of Volsunga Saga in the
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 9
only vellum copy existing; a fourteenth-century MS. preserved in the Royal Library, Copenhagen (Ny Kgl
Samlg no. 1024b). The two Sagas may possibly have had a common author;
the character of Aslá (Aslaug), at least, who is not mentioned in the Edda, seems to
have been created by the author of V.S.
Ragnar's Saga, however, from a literary point of view, is by much the inferior work;
and, while Ragnar and his sons Ingvar and Ubba had a real, though elusive, historical existence,
the story of Aslá and her bridal belongs to the common stuff of Celtic and German fairy-tale.
The modern historical novelist does not stick at effective anachronism; his
old-time predecessors had far less reason to
hesitate in providing local habitations for airy nothings, and associating them with
historical names.
THE EDDIC LAYS AND VOLSUNGA SAGA
The German version of the Legend found its classical expression in the Nibelungenlied;
the Northern in that group of Lays, composed by different hands at different
dates, which form an important part of the collection known as the Elder, or
Poetic, Edda. The principal MSS. containing the Lays,
written in Iceland during the early Middle Ages, are
preserved in the Royal Library, Copenhagen.
The Sigurd Lays
10 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
form the principal content of the vellum (no. 23650)
known as Codex Regius (R). The text, often broken
and confused, is linked up with explanations in prose.
Since a leaf, moreover, is missing, some important
episodes—notably Sigurd's farewell to Brynhild—
ran great risk of remaining entirely unknown. The lacunæ were fortunately filled up, and the plot of the
whole story made clear, by the unknown author who,
some time between 1250-1300, wrote the prose paraphrase of the Lays known as Volsunga Saga (V.S.).
Once looked on with awful reverence, as monuments
of almost unguessed-at antiquity, the Lays have
in modern times been studied and analysed from every
conceivable point of view. Their date, during the first
part of the nineteenth century, was fixed by leading
authorities at some period between A.D. 400-800.
After 1860 the date began to creep forward-one scholar took the extreme step of placing it between 1000-1300
until it was generally agreed that no Lay could have been composed before the ninth century.
This view, based chiefly on linguistic grounds, was thought to be final. As regards Atlakviða and Hamðismál, it has recently been modified on metrical grounds; while the whole position has been revolutionized
by the discovery of a grave-slab known as the Eggjum stone, ploughed up in 1917 on the farm
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 11
of that name, in Sogndal, parish of Sogn, Norway.
This stone, dated by Professor Haakon Shetelig between 700-750, has a long runic inscription in Old
West Scandinavian, the language of the Eddic Lays; which language must, therefore, have developed out
of Primitive Scandinavian a century earlier than had been supposed. The anterior time-limit of composition can therefore be pushed back for a similar period. The Helgi Lays, besides, have been assigned to
the eighth century on geographical and historical grounds.
A comparatively novel and most interesting method
of approach has recently been opened up by way of archæology. The references in the Eddic Lays to
the precious metals, to jewellery, weapons, and so forth, classified and compared with the yield of grave-mounds and other excavations, afford considerable support to the theory that many of the poems, or at least a substantial part of their content, existed before the Viking Age.
The Sigurd Lays, composed at various periods,
vary widely in workmanship. The later ones are by no means mere derivatives of the earlier.
They are expressions of individual genius, differing one from an-
12 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
other, not only in atmosphere, but in their versions of
actual incidents. For example, the characteristic Northern account of Sigurd's slaying represents it as taking place within four walls, while the Hero lies sleeping beside Guðrun.
Two of the Lays, however, agree with the German account in placing it out of doors—on the far side of the Rhine,
as Sigurd went to the Thing. ‘ The variety of the three poems of Atli, ending in the careful rhetoric of the Atlamál, is proof sufficient of the labour bestowed by different poets in their use of the epic inheritance.’ .
The problem of the place where the Lays were composed is,
to a great extent, bound up with the question as to when and how the legends which form their subject-matter reached the various Scandinavian countries.
The fact that the MSS. are Icelandic proves nothing, unless that the legends, remnants of Heathenesse, were gradually driven northwards by the advance of Christian civilization.
The authors were travelled men, familiar with types of landscape, vegetation, and animal-life,
unknown in the Far North; the language they use shows traces of Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, and other foreign influence. To say they were travelled men, however, is merely equivalent to saying that they were of the Viking breed.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland itself, have all claimed the honour of giving a birthplace to the Lays.
Atlamál was, it is generally agreed, composed in Greenland.
The Lays of Helgi Hundingsbane have lately been proved to emanate from Ostergötland and Söder-
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 13
manland, whence, with some linguistic modifications, they travelled to West Scandinavia.
The main controversy seems to centre at present round the rival claims of Norway and Iceland.
The claims of the British Isles (i.e. the North of England, Scotland, including the Hebrides, and Ireland) are no longer accepted.
On one point at least there is no disagreement — that, in different versions, and with inevitable local variations, the Eddic legends in general, and those of Sigurd in particular, were widely distributed throughout the whole of Scandinavia.
GERMANY AND THE LAY OF THE
NIBELUNGS
Of the early fortunes of the Legend in Germany nothing is known. German literature in general was slow of development. Its only vestiges from the ninth century consist of two heathen spells, and a fragment of one Heroic Lay, the Hildebrandslied, written down by a couple of monks in the monastery of Fulda. The literary collection has perished which was formed by command of Charlemagne; and his son, Louis le Débonnaire, a strict churchman, was no patron of min-
14 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
strelsy. Another ninth-century national epic is known only through its Anglo-Saxon translation,
the fragment of Waldere, and through the Waltharilied, a Latin poem on the same theme, composed circa 930 by Ekkehard of St Gall,
and revised by another Ekkehard some 100 years later.
This theme, wide-spread and popular, is quite other than that of the Sigurd story, though Gunther, Hagen, and Attila all appear on the scene. Attila, it may be observed, is shown in his most gracious and magnificent guise—unlike the grim tyrant of the Lays—with a splendid hall, rich armour signed by the weapon-smith, and a throne decked in all the glories of purple and fine linen.
How the Niblung story developed, with what local variations, cannot, then, be conjectured. It was borne from place to place by the Spielmann, the wandering minstrel, the true preserver of epic and national poetry throughout the so-called Dark Ages. Some slight evidence of differing traditions is afforded by one medieval poem, Das Lied vom hürnen Seyfried, which bears, on the whole, less resemblance to the Nibelungenlied than to the Faroëse cycle, and to a group of Norwegian folk-songs of Sigurd. In any case, however, the spirit of the Lied itself is far removed from that of primitive legend; it was born of the great medieval revival, when the labours of the Church were producing the rudiments of an educated public, and
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 15
the Germanic spirit became for the first time fully reconciled with Christianity in the great adventure of the
Crusades. French song, French chivalry, proved a powerful stimulus to German creative power. Epic poetry began to abound, and divided itself into two
streams—popular epic, such as König Rother (circa 1160), the Rolandslied (1135) and the Alexanderlied(1140), both of which are midway between popular and court epic&mdassh;and such national epic as Gudrun (1210-15), the best parts of the Heldenbuch, and the supreme achievement, the Lay of the Nibelungs. A highly artistic reconstruction, the latter indulges in new anachronisms, introduces new characters, such as the ninth-century Bishop Pilgerin, and decks out the elusive Folk of the Mist in the trappings of Christian chivalry—trappings which ill disguise the grimness and ancientry of the theme. ‘ Que serait l'Iliade, si elle avait reçu sa forme dernière d'un Homère élevé dans un couvent du XIIme siècle?’
The identity of the author will probably never be determined. During the second half of the twelfth century the centre of poetic activity shifted from the Rhineland to Saxony, Bavaria, and Austria. Although the wandering minstrel was seldom persona grata in ecclesiastical eyes, and found his scanty living en-
16 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
croached on, at times, by the competition of monkish Spielleute, his status during this period began slowly to improve, and his taste to refine. The Church, moreover, despite such repressive periods as that of the Cluniac Revival (twelfth century), was the patron, to some extent the fountain-head, of both polite and popular literature. It is, generally speaking, a true saying that heroic tradition entered the monastery precincts in the form of popular songs, was perpetuated therein by means of Latin verse or prose, and emerged once again as romance in the vulgar tongue. This, applying to some parts, at least, of Germany, applies still more strongly to Austria, where, under aristocratic patronage, the minstrel took yet another step upwards towards respectability. Rupertus, minstrel to Henry IV, Eberhardus, attached to Leopold V, Duke of Austria, and Wolfkerus, whose patron was the Bishop of Passau, appear towards the end of the twelfth century as signatories of public Acts; while a Viennese convent accepted a gift from Wolfkerus consisting of two ells of red cloth and a German book. In Austria, during that same century, the Nibelungenlied was composed, possibly (though opinions differ) by one of these courtly Austrian minstrels.
The only definite name which emerges is that of von Kürenberg, author of some stanzas of a very in-
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 17
dividual metrical form, in which stanzas the Lied itself is written—a departure from the usual practice of using rhymed couplets for narrative poetry. These stanzas consist each of four lines, divided by a cæsura, with three stresses in each half-line, except that the last half of the fourth line has four. Rhymed couplets, however, are used for the Klage, an inferior continuation which, in some MSS., is appended to the Lied, and describes the lamentations of the survivors over the Woe of the Nibelungs.
More fortunate than the Poetic Edda, the Nibelungenlied survives in a number of MSS., abounding in discrepancies, yet all preserving the main thread of the story without serious variation. The principal of these are:
a. The Munich version, late thirteenth century,
copied by two hands.
b. The St Gall, mid-thirteenth century, copied by
three hands. Commonly known as 'the Vulgate.'
c. The Donaueschingen, early thirteenth century.
This, unlike the two first, concludes the Lay proper
with: 'Dies ist das Nibelungeliêt,—not 'Nibelungenôt.'
All these three MSS. conclude with the Klage.
Attempts have been made, in this case as in others,
to dissolve the Nibelungenlied into a series of ballads, current at the time, and more or less skilfully com- bined to form a continuous whole.2 Be that as it may
18 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
—and the theory, in my own humble opinion, smack less of the poet than the pedant—it can at least not be denied that the result is a true epic—epic in its weight and its dignity, in the sweep of its narrative and the power of its episodes. Despite the inherent discrepancy between heathen and Christian ideals, the Lay breathes a gallant spirit, and, with its glittering pageantry, stands out in spring-time contrast against the winter majesty of the Edda.
THE BALLAD IN DENMARK AND THE FAROËS
In the release of creative energy which inaugurated the Middle Ages, the North had its full share. The new age began in Norway with the accession of Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer (1102), and Norwegian literary taste kept abreast of the times. When Princess Christina married the Spanish prince Philip (1258), legends of Didrek, read aloud by Magister Björn, Bishop of Nidaros, formed part of the bridal entertainment.
Vilkina Saga (thirteenth century) went southward from Bergen, followed by Ragnar Loðbrók Saga, and the story of Nornagest.
As for the Ice anders, in the capacity of Vikings, Varangians, and retainers of Scandinavian colonial courts, they had always been in touch with Continental culture. After the Viking forays came to an end, this influence was maintained by Catholicism, by commerce, and by foreign intermarriage. The Heroic Lays went out of fash-
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 19
ion, though Snorri's Edda (1222) and Volsunga Saga swept their subject-matter into the current of the splendid Icelandic prose-development. Iceland, during the thirteenth century, produced more than 100 translations of popular romance—stories of Troy, of
Karlamagnus and his Champions, of Tristram and Iseult, of the Breton legend-cycles. No narrow intellect presided over the making of Hauksbók, an omnibus volume assembled by Hauk Erlandsson during the fourteenth century. Together with three of the shorter sagas, it contains Volúspá; Christni Saga; the History of the Cross and the Destruction of Jerusalem; Extracts from Augustine; the Spaeings of Merlin; Lucidarium, a handbook of science; and Algorismus, an arithmetical treatise of Hauk's own composition.
What applies to Iceland, applies, in its degree, to the Faroës. As they had had their Vikings, so they had their commerce, their foreign settlers, and family ties. The Hanseatic League had an outpost in Suðeroy. Danish ships bound to Greenland called, not only there, but at Vaag in the Northern isles. Thirteenth-century marriage-contracts between Faroëse and Norwegians are preserved among the archives at Oslo. The names of certain 'booths' and 'tofts' testify to the existence of at least one early Icelandic settlement; and, as is to be expected, frequent mention of Iceland occurs in Faroëse ballads:
20 SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER
‘ Here is a tale from Iceland come,
Written in book so broad ’ —
or, even more minutely:
‘ A tale is come from Iceland,
That tale your minstrel took;
Have ye heard tell of that mighty king
Is written of in a book? ’ —
'book,' of course, meaning skinnbók or parchment. An elusive tradition tells of one particularly splendid skinnbók, brought to Suðeroy by an Icelandic vessel, a parchment so bulky that it formed a sufficient load for one side of a pack-horse; but neither this nor any other exists at the present day.
Despite this natural relation with Iceland, however, the cosmopolitan nature of these early sea-borne influences is attested by the fact that the Faroëse Sigurd ballad-cycle smacks less, on the whole, of the Eddic tradition 'than of the German, though its tone and atmosphere remain unmistakably Norse. The extraordinary vigour of Faroëse ballad-development owes, in any case, nothing to the example of the neighbouring island, whose genius passed on from the Lay to the Saga, and, comparatively speaking, barely con- cerned itself with the ballad. The Rímur, versifications of prose Chronicles, with elaborate metrical effects, belong to a different category. They are feeble in
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 21
narrative, where the ballad is strong, and abound in a rhetoric of which the latter knows nothing.
The ballad, that hardy wild-flower of Parnassus, burst out in the medieval spring-time of practically every country in Europe. Wedded to the dance as its name implies, it sprang from the same root as the ancient Germanic sword-dances, and the world-wide myth-dancing of religious solemnity. To medieval , Iceland the word 'dance' was synonymous with 'song' —though, oddly enough, no mention of the ballad-dance occurs in the Sagas. The original form of dance-song, a simple lyrical stanza, united itself with the newly-fashioned narrative-poem about the beginning of the thirteenth century; which lyrical stanza, in many instances, was retained as an opening verse introducing the story, and was broken up to serve as Burden. A leader, male or female, sang the narrative proper; the Burden was 'borne up' by the rest of the dancers. The leader might dance singly, with silver goblet or rose in hand, before a procession or chain of couples; or, which was more usual, he might form part of the circle, holding hands and 'dancing the round.' Details of the various procedures are thrown, up in vivid pictures by the ballads themselves.
This pastime, in the inexplicable manner of all new fashions, took Europe by storm. All Scandinavia danced wherever it was gathered together, indoors and outdoors, in season and out of season. The knight danced in the castle-garth, the peasant under the greenwood-tree; while the village churchyard formed an al fresco ballroom, not only common to all, but protected by hallowed association against the Elves, who
22 SIGURD THE
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also were addicted to dancing, only too alluringly. For this reason, amongst others, the dance was denounced by contemporary kill-joys, from Saxo Grammaticus, contemptuous of such undignified 'mountebank antics,' to the priesthood who bore in mind the magic rituals of none-too-distant heathen times. Ballad-dancing in the churchyard during the Vigil was considered no fit preparation for the early Mass of the greater Festivals. The first record, indeed, of the Danish ballad occurs (1170) in the reprimand addressed by the Warrior-Bishop Absalon, to the merry monks i of Eskilsö (Sœlland), whose inordinate dancing was rendered still more scandalous by the presence of feminine partners. On the Feast of St John, 1425, an Interdict was pronounced by the Copenhagen clergy against all who took part in this 'heathen diversion.' It is assuredly a pretty touch of historical irony that the only contemporary picture of a Danish ballad-dance should be preserved in a church—that of Orslev, Sœlland, where a fresco of six knights and three ladies dancing the round flaunts its frivolity on the very walls of the chancel.
No definite date can be assigned to the Faroëse Sigurd-ballads; but, judged by the whole style of their workmanship, as by the safe critical rule that the more trivial the contents, the later the ballad, it is obvious
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 23
that the three principal ballads, Regin, Brynhild, and Högni, belong to the finest period; though the fact that this lasted in Denmark approximately from 1250-1350, can hardly be taken as a rule for the Faroës. That there, as elsewhere, the medieval ballad, properly so-called, had its culminating period, its decline, and its fall, can be seen by comparison between the three principal Sigurd-ballads, and those which follow; but the dates of those periods, the circumstances considered, need not have synchronized with those obtaining in Denmark. The Faroës were exempt from the changing conditions which caused the Danish ballad-dance to flourish and decline with the Middle Ages themselves. Times changed in Denmark, and manners with them. The democratic assemblage in the Great Hall was broken up by the introduction of separate sitting-rooms. New dances, new literary fashions, such as the French pastoral, absorbed the attention of the gentry; and though the Danish peasant, notably in Jutland, long remained faithful to the ballad, it became a mere song or recitation divorced from the dance. Only in the Faroës, still wild, still hard of access, have the ballad-dance as a national pastime, and the ballad as the main channel of literary expression, survived from their birth till the present day.
The influences tending to produce this conservatism have not been entirely of a geographical nature.
24 SIGURD THE
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Exploited during the sixteenth century (as they bitterly complained) by a series of adventurers, to whom they were 'loaned,' or pledged, the Islands were subjected in 1709 to the Danish trading monopoly. Till its abolition in 1856, they were more completely iso- lated from the world than during the Viking Period. The Danes, nevertheless, are Scandinavians; a Faroëse looks on a Dane much as an old-fashioned Lowland Scot looks on a Londoner, and the rivalry between the two languages bears no resemblance to that, say, between English and Gaelic—it is rather, roughly speaking, that between standard English and the language of Robert Burns. Although Danish words and locutions crept into the native ballads; though the dancing of Danish ballads became popular among the Northern isles, the result of such adulteration is, to a foreign observer, not readily perceptible. Despite Danish influence, the Faroëse remain proudly and consciously Norse; Faroëse life, Faroëse character, have changed little since the beginning. Fishermen, fowlers, and crofters wring out their living amid conditions as hard and perilous as any on the face of the earth. Everyday existence—even apart from such outstanding events as shipwrecks and whale-hunts—is of the; stuff whence ballads can be made, and are made continually. Feats of special daring find fame through the ballad; the fishermen have their Trawleravísa; while unpopular persons are still satirized by means of the Taatter (Smœdevise) or 'Shame-ballad,' complete with dance, in which the victim is forced to take part, if his neighbours can manage it.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 25
An evening spent by the central hearth in the aptly-named 'smoke-room,' or parlour, of a Faroëse farmstead is an evening spent in the Hall of the Viking Age. The Faroëse mind, naturally strong, nurtured on traditional culture, is still almost unspoilt by the modem deluge of reading-material. The Faroëse language lends itself to vivid poetic expression. When for weeks, or even months together, the furious winter gales, added to winter darkness, make outdoor occupation impossible, the Islanders would fare badly did not their vigorous minds and hardy bodies find exercise in the threefold activity provided by the national pastime.
Ballad-dancing is, then, in no sense an artificial survival; it is a satisfying form of artistic expression, for wliich modern times have provided no adequate substitute; nor is it, by any manner of means, a mere child- like, irreflective activity. The Islanders, till the nineteenth century, were practically unacquainted with musical instruments; dance, air, and narrative form an inseparable whole, susceptible of varied and intelligent dramatic modulation. Since the work is divided in the old way between leader and chorus, the performance of such a work as the Sigurd-cycIe forms no mean test of the narrator's ability—and where audience and performers alike are all critics and connoisseurs, there is stimulus and to spare for artistic ambition. Certain ballads are the monopoly of certain hamlets, or certain families; and their performance is an event, since they are seldom brought á gólvi (on the
26 SIGURD THE
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floor) twice in one season. (Modern enterprise in producing popular ballad-anthologies causes some heart-burning amongst those who see their jealously-guarded treasures become common property.) There are subtle differences in technique, and different schools of interpretation; and the fame of a gifted singer does not end with his lifetime.
Travellers in search, presumably, of the spectacular, have called it monotonous, even dismal; but I can testify from personal experience to the extreme fascination of the Faroëse ballad-dance. Its monotony is that of the winds and the waves, its sadness that inherent in the unending folk-tune, in 'old, unhappy, far-off things,' in the waste-mark and the wild cliffs, and the white nights of a Far Northern summer. The setting of the dance I had the privilege of joining was the fairy-tale town of Tórshavn, with its wooden houses, its 'staircase lanes,' and its turf roofs bearing crops of hay and wild-flowers—a Hans Andersen town, placed among reefs and fells which belong to the Saga. The circle 'broke' to admit new dancers, and curved into strange forms as it wound in and out, shifting and adapting itself to the groups of spectators. Ships' lanterns glimmered in the haven; sea-gulls skirted round the walls of the dancing-room. In the intervals we heard the roar of the sea which brought us our ballad, of Roland's last fight at Roncesvalles,
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 27
an echo of Southern chivalry under the Northern moon. 'Time?' said an Icelander to me—an Icelander who wished to get home—'there's no time in the Faroës!' He was not referring to the dance, but he spoke more truly than he knew. To yield to its cumulative spell is to wake the spell of the past still living at the roots of the nerves, and muttering like a water- kelpie in the tides of the blood.
These special conditions in the Islands naturally
gave rise to a specialized product. Brevity in a ballad is no recommendation. A true Faroëse ballad is as long as a winter night, revels in perilous sea-faring and prolonged battles, and piles up the numbers of the slain. Inspiration has always been at hand in that legendary past, so soon worked out in Denmark, so tenaciously alive in Iceland and the Faroës. Add to this the influence of the clergy and other 'lettered' men, who, unlike their kind elsewhere, shared the common enthusiasm, and a fruitful soil is prepared for works of a larger scope and deeper content than the majority of ballads. Though the ballad, like the epic, is a narrative poem; though it may have origi- nated among the knightly circles with whose doings it is chiefly concerned; its outlook in matters worldly and other-worldly, is usually that of the plain man; and this distinction between ballad and epic is inherent in the very metre of ballads. Loftiness of utterance belongs to the hexameter, and the battle-axe swing of the Fornyrðislag—but the great truths of the world cannot be uttered in 'eight and six,' nor even in 'eight and eight.' A reflection like that of Robin Hood:
28 SIGURD THE
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‘ I think it was never man's destinie
To die before his day, ’
represents the average ballad's highest flight of philosophy. Character is expressed only through action. Motives, if not obvious, are left in obscurity. The towering peaks of the Spirit are veiled; we have descended to the flowery foot-hills, the many-coloured world of the Soul.
The power of the great Volsung story, as of the Faroëse genius, appears, in that the three principal Sigurd ballads retain a profound sense of the terrific clash of human wills, of human personalities, at root of the drama; while such a verse as:
‘ Long hath it lain in my bosom,
The thread that the Norns entwine;
Sigurd, son of Sigmund,
I have loved through winters nine, ’
points back to the cosmic vision, the majesty of the Heroic Age, when men still walked with the gods, and saw their hands at work on the interweavings of destiny. The Sigurd ballads, besides, are no mere reflection, no cunning patchwork, from other sources. They abound in original touches, due either to the poet's own imagination, or to age-old local tradition. When the legends reached the Faroes, and in what precise form, cannot be determined. Long memories belong to secluded communities, and variants forgotten else- where may well have been preserved ill the Islands.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 29
Though we say for the sake of convenience that here the poet follows Volsunga Saga, and there follows Vilkina, we have not the slightest evidence that he was acquainted either with the one or the other; he is as likely to have followed an independent stream of tradition.
In any case, we have in the Sigurd ballad-cycle not. the least beautiful version of a story which ranks among the great stories of all time. Best-beloved in its own land, it is chief among ballads most frequendy brought á gólvi, and quotations from its verses are continually on the lips of the people. But for the ballads of Regin, Brynhild, and Högni, containing the story proper, we should be ignorant of the heights the ballad-form can attain in sustained dramatic narration; while the lesser and later ballads illustrate the dissolution of all greatlegend into folk-song and fairy-tale. They too, their ancestry considered, have their worth and their interest; they are embers of the Waver-Lowe not yet to be extinguished; ‘ for Sigurd's fame is spoken in all tongues northward of Greekland's Sea; and thus must it be so long as the world endures. ’
COLLECTIONS OF FAROËSE BALLADS
A copy of five Faroëse
Ballads, now forgotten, was possessed by Ole Worm in 1639; but the first Dane
to pay them serious attention was Jens Kristian
30 SIGURD THE
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Svabo who visited the Isles in 1781-82, and collected 52 examples. His MS.,purchased by the Crown Prince, lies in the Royal Library, Copenhagen. Like Bishop Percy of the 'Reliques,' Svabo made apologies for his singular tastes; but he had a finer critical sense than Percy, and a more genuine appreciation of his 'rude remains of Antiquity.' Disappointed with his career in the Danish Civil Service, he retired eventually to the Faroës, and went on collecting Ballads till his death in 1829. This collection has never been published.
Svabo passed on his enthusiasm to others, such as J. Klementsen (Sandoyjar Bók), Hans Hansen (Fugloyjar Bók), N. Nölso, and J. H. Schröter. Above all, he infected Pastor H. C. Lyngby, who spent two months in the Isles collecting sea-weed for scientific purposes, and made Svabo's personal acquaintance. Since Lyngby knew neither Icelandic nor Faroëse, his transcriptions were necessarily faulty to a degree; nevertheless his 'Færoiske Qvæðer om Sjurð Fovnisbane og hans Æt,' published at Randers, 1822, brought the Ballads at last before the notice of the world.
Then came V. U. Hammershaimb, himself a Faroëse, who republished the Sigurd-cycle with necessary corrections in 1851; 'Faroiske Kvæði' in 1855, and 'Færoiske Antologi, with Glossary' in 1891.
Finally S. Grundtvig did for the Isles what he had done for Denmark. His Collection (finished after his death by J. Bloch) contains 234 Ballads, with every known variant, fills sixteen large MS. volumes, and still reposes, awaiting a publisher, in the Royal Library, Copenhagen.
The recension used in this present translation belongs to an admirable modern popular series, pub-
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 31
lished at Tórshavn under the auspices of the Föroya
Lögting, and ably edited by Jóannes Patursson.
The principal printed
anthologies of Danish Ballads are those of Anders Sorensen Vedel, 'Queen Sofie's Ballad Book,' and 'One Hundred Danish Ballads' (1591);
'Tragica or Love Ballads' (1657); Peder Syv's Collection, mainly from Broadsheets (1695); 'Danish Ballads from the Middle Ages,'
Abrahamson, Nyerup, and Rahbek (1812); and S. Grundtvig's 'Denmark's Ancient Ballads' (Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, alluded to as Dg F)
published in 1853.
Axel Olrik's 'Selected Danish Folk -Ballads' (Danske Folkeviser i Udvalg) is the most useful anthology for general reading. My translation of the first volume was published by the Cambridge University Press, 1920.
SOME FAROËSE DANCE-STEPS
The Stigingarstev, used for serious Ballads:
1. Left foot onward.
2. Right foot up to left.
3. Repeat both steps.
4. Right to side or back.
5. Left back to right.
The Trokingarstev
(Tripping Step) for livelier work, is confined to the Southern islands. The dancers sometimes stand in two rows, men facing women, sometimes dance the round, moving one way during the narrative verse (örindi), and reversing the movement during the Burden. The peasants of Little Russia have
32 SIGURD THE
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a similar dance, which first moves withershins (west to east), then averts the il1 omen by reversing.
There are also Bandadansur, with ribbons, and a variety of singing games.
For the music, which I am unqualified to discuss, consult the exhaustive studies by Hjalmar Thuren. The airs are mostly genuine folk-tunes, with those endings on leading note or super-tonic which facilitate endless repetition. Traces are found of the pentatonic scale, though to a lesser degree than in Hebridean folk-music. The Faroëse has been largely influenced by the Gregorian mode, and ecclesiastical plain-song in general.
BURDEN OF ALL THESE
BALLADS
GRANE bore the golden hoard,
Wroth did Sigurd swing his sword,
There he slew the Dragon grim,
Wroth did Sigurd swing his sword.
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