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Sigurth spake:
Gripir spake:
Sigurth spake:
Gripir spake:
Gripir spake:
Sigurth spake:
[355]
Gripir spake:
[337]
[Contents]
NOTES
[340]
Prose. The manuscript gives the poem no title. Gripir: this uncle of
Sigurth’s was probably a pure invention of the poet’s. The
Volsungasaga mentions him, but presumably only because of his
appearance here. On Eylimi and Hjordis see Fra Dautha Sinfjotla
and note. Geitir, the serving-man, is likewise apparently an invention
of the poet’s.
3. Sigurth: a few editions use in the verse the older form of this
name, “Sigvorth,” though the manuscript here keeps to the form
used in this translation. The Old High German “Sigifrid” (“Peace-
Bringer through Victory”) became the Norse “Sigvorth” (“Victory-
Guarder”), this, in turn, becoming “Sigurth.”
4. Bugge thinks a stanza has been lost after stanza 4, in which Geitir
tells Gripir who Sigurth is. [342]
5. Grani: Sigurth’s horse. According to the Volsungasaga his father
was Sleipnir, Othin’s eight-legged horse, and Othin himself gave him
to Sigurth. The introductory note to the Reginsmol tells a different
story.
11. The dragon: Fafnir, brother of the dwarf Regin, who turns himself
into a dragon to guard Andvari’s hoard; cf. Reginsmol and Fafnismol.
Gnitaheith: a relic of the German tradition; it has been identified as
lying south of Paderborn.
13. Gjuki: the Norse form of the name Gibeche (“The Giver”). Gjuki is
the father of Gunnar, Hogni, and Guthrun, the family which reflects
most directly the Burgundian part of [344]the tradition (cf. Introductory
Note). The statement that Sigurth is to go direct from the slaying of
Fafnir to Gjuki’s hall involves one of the confusions resulting from the
dual personality of Brynhild. In the older (and the original South
Germanic) story, Sigurth becomes a guest of the Gjukungs before he
has ever heard of Brynhild, and first sees her when, having changed
forms with Gunnar, he goes to woo her for the latter. In another
version he finds Brynhild before he visits the Gjukungs, only to forget
her as the result of the magic draught administered by Guthrun’s
mother. Both these versions are represented in the poems of which
the author of the Gripisspo made use, and he tried, rather clumsily,
to combine them, by having Sigurth go to Gjuki’s house, then find the
unnamed Valkyrie, and then return to Gjuki, the false wooing
following this second visit.
15. Basing his story on the Sigrdrifumol, the poet here tells of
Sigurth’s finding of the Valkyrie, whom he does not identify with
Brynhild, daughter of Buthli (stanza 27), at all. His error in this
respect is not surprising, in view of Brynhild’s dual identity (cf.
Introductory Note, and Fafnismol, 44 and note). [345]Helgi: according
to Helreith Brynhildar (stanza 8), with which the author of the
Gripisspo was almost certainly familiar, the hero for whose death
Brynhild was punished was named Hjalmgunnar. Is Helgi here
identical with Hjalmgunnar, or did the author make a mistake? Finnur
Jonsson thinks the author regarded Sigurth’s Valkyrie as a fourth
incarnation of Svava-Sigrun-Kara, and wrote Helgi’s name in
deliberately. Many editors, following Bugge, have tried to reconstruct
line 2 so as to get rid of Helgi’s name.
19. Heimir: the Volsungasaga says that Heimir was the husband of
Brynhild’s sister, Bekkhild. Brynhild’s family connections [346]involve
a queer mixture of northern and southern legend. Heimir and
Bekkhild are purely of northern invention; neither of them is
mentioned in any of the earlier poems, though Brynhild speaks of her
“foster-father” in Helreith Brynhildar. In the older Norse poems
Brynhild is a sister of Atli (Attila), a relationship wholly foreign to the
southern stories, and the father of this strangely assorted pair is
Buthli, who in the Nibelungenlied is apparently Etzel’s grandfather.
Add to this her role of Valkyrie, and it is small wonder that the
annotator himself was puzzled. [347]
33. Most editions have no comma after line 3, and change the
meaning to “Fain of thee | the fair-haired one / For her daughter
is.” Grimhild: in the northern form of the story Kriemhild, Gunther’s
sister and Siegfried’s wife, becomes Grimhild, mother of Gunnar and
Guthrun, the latter taking Kriemhild’s place. The Volsungasaga tells
how Grimhild gave Sigurth a magic draught which made him utterly
forget Brynhild. Edzardi thinks two stanzas have been lost after
stanza 33, their remains appearing in stanza 37.
39. The last half of line 4 is obscure, and the reading is conjectural.
47. Brynhild tells Gunnar that Sigurth really possessed her during the
three nights when he slept by her in Gunnar’s form, thus violating his
oath. Here again there is a confusion of two traditions. If Sigurth did
not meet Brynhild until after his oath to Gunnar (cf. note on stanza
13), Brynhild’s charge is entirely false, as she herself admits in
Helreith Brynhildar. On the other hand, according to the version in
which Sigurth finds Brynhild before he meets Gjuki’s sons, their
union was not only completed, but she had by him a daughter,
Aslaug, whom she leaves in Heimir’s charge before going to become
Gunnar’s wife. This is the Volsungasaga version, and thus the
statement Brynhild makes to Gunnar, as a result of which Sigurth is
slain, is quite true. [354]
[Contents]
REGINSMOL
The Ballad of Regin
[Contents]
Introductory Note
The Reginsmol immediately follows the Gripisspo in the Codex
Regius, and in addition stanzas 1, 2, 6, and 18 are quoted in the
Volsungasaga, and stanzas 13–26 in the Nornageststhattr. In no
instance is the title of the poem stated, and in Regius there stands
before the introductory prose, very faintly written, what appears to be
“Of Sigurth.” As a result, various titles have been affixed to it, the two
most often used being “the Ballad of Regin” and “the First Lay of
Sigurth Fafnisbane.”
For convenience I have here followed the usual plan of dividing this
material into distinct parts, or poems, but I greatly doubt if this
division is logically sound. The compiler seems, rather, to have
undertaken to set down the story of Sigurth in consecutive form,
making use of all the verse with which he was familiar, and which, by
any stretch of the imagination, could be made to fit, filling up the
gaps with prose narrative notes based on the living oral tradition.
This view is supported by the fact that not one of the three poems in
question, and least of all the Reginsmol, can possibly be regarded as
a unit. For one thing, each of them includes both types of stanza
commonly used in the Eddic poems, and this, notwithstanding the
efforts of Grundtvig and Müllenhoff to prove the contrary, is almost if
not quite conclusive proof that each poem consists of material taken
from more than one source. Furthermore, there is nowhere continuity
within the verse itself for more than a very few stanzas. An analysis
of the Reginsmol shows that stanzas 1–4, 6–10, and 12, all in
Ljothahattr stanza form, seem to belong together as fragments of a
poem dealing with [357]Loki’s (not Andvari’s) curse on the gold taken
by the gods from Andvari and paid to Hreithmar, together with
Hreithmar’s death at the hands of his son, Fafnir, as the first result of
this curse. Stanza 5, in Fornyrthislag, is a curse on the gold, here
ascribed to Andvari, but the only proper name in the stanza, Gust, is
quite unidentifiable, and the stanza may originally have had to do
with a totally different story. Stanza 11, likewise in Fornyrthislag, is
merely a father’s demand that his daughter rear a family to avenge
his death; there is nothing in it to link it necessarily with the dying
Hreithmar. Stanzas 13–18, all in Fornyrthislag, give Regin’s welcome
to Sigurth (stanzas 13–14), Sigurth’s announcement that he will
avenge his father’s death on the sons of Hunding before he seeks
any treasure (stanza 15), and a dialogue between a certain Hnikar,
who is really Othin, and Regin, as the latter and Sigurth are on the
point of being shipwrecked. This section (stanzas 13–18) bears a
striking resemblance to the Helgi lays, and may well have come
originally from that cycle. Next follows a passage in Ljothahattr form
(stanzas 19–22 and 24–25) in which Hnikar-Othin gives some
general advice as to lucky omens and good conduct in battle; the
entire passage might equally well stand in the Hovamol, and I
suspect that it originally came from just such a collection of wise
saws. Inserted in this passage is stanza 23, in Fornyrthislag, likewise
on the conduct of battle, with a bit of tactical advice included. The
“poem” ends with a single stanza, in Fornyrthislag, simply stating
that the bloody fight is over and that Sigurth fought well—a
statement equally applicable to any part of the hero’s career.
Finnur Jonsson has divided the Reginsmol into two poems, or rather
into two sets of fragments, but this, as the foregoing analysis has
indicated, does not appear to go nearly far enough. It accords much
better with the facts to assume that the compiler of the collection
represented by the Codex Regius, having set out to tell the story of
Sigurth, took his verse fragments pretty much wherever he
happened to find them. In this connection, it should be remembered
that in the fluid state of oral tradition poems, fragments, and stanzas
passed readily and frequently from one story to another. Tradition,
never critical, doubtless connected with the Sigurth story much verse
that never originated there.
If the entire passage beginning with the prose Fra Dautha Sinfjotla,
and, except for the Gripisspo, including the Reginsmol, Fafnismol,
and Sigrdrifumol, be regarded as a highly uncritical [358]piece of
compilation, rendered consecutive by the compiler’s prose narrative,
its difficulties are largely smoothed away; any other way of looking at
it results in utterly inconclusive attempts to reconstruct poems some
of which quite possibly never existed.
[360]
Andvari spake:
Loki spake:
Andvari spake:
Hreithmar spake:
Loki spake:
Hreithmar spake:
Lyngheith spake:
[365]
Regin answered:
[367]
[Contents]
NOTES
[359]