Preface
In the preface to the
first or mythological part of this translation of Sæmund´s Edda,
I announced my intention of publishing the second or heroic
portion, should that first part be not unfavourably received.
That condition has been fulfilled, for not only has its
reception here been favourable, but in the
United States of
America
it has been noticed in terms highly gratifying to the
translator. I now therefore do not hesitate to publish the
second part.
The limits within which
I deem it necessary to confine myself, from my desire to produce
a small work at a moderate cost, admit only of a very brief
notice of the poems contained in this portion of the Edda:
The Lay of Völund
(Völundarkvida) celebrates the story of Völund´s doing and
sufferings during his sojourn in the territory of the Swedish
kin Nidud. (Ger. Wieland, Fr. Veland and Galans) is the
Scandinavian and Germanic Vulcan (Hephaistos) and Dædalus. In
England
his story, as a skillful smith, is traceable to a very early
period. In the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf we find that hero
desiring, in the event of his falling in conflict with Grendel,
that his corslet may be sent to Hygelac, being, as he says, the
work of Weland: and king Ælfred, in his translation of Boethius
de Consolatione, renders the words fidelis ossa Fabricii,
etc. by Hwæt (hwær) sint nu Þæs foremæran and Þæs wisan
goldsmiðes ban Welondes? (Where are now the bones of the famous
and wise goldsmith Weland?), evidently taking the proper name of
Fabricius for an appellative equivalent to faber. In
the Exeter Book, too, there is a poem in substance closely
resembling the Eddaic lay. In his novel of Kenilworth, Walter
Scott has been guilty of a woful perversion of the old
tradition, travestied from the
Berkshire
legend of Wayland Smith. As a land-boundary we find Weland’s
smithy in a charter of king Eadred a.D. 955. Ampler details
concerning Weland are to be found in Mr. Price’s preface to
Warton’s History of English poetry 8vo., edit.;
Müller, Sagabibliothek, II. pp. 157 sqq.; Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologie, pp. 349 sqq. edit. 1844; Müller, Altdeutsche
Religion, p. 311. Much interesting matter will also be found in
Weber and Jamieson´s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities.
Bishop Müller, derives the name from O. Nor. Vél, thinking that
it is only according to the Norse pronunciation that it has a
signification, viz. art, wile, guile, and lundr,
mind, disposition, and is thence inclined to assign a
Northern origin to the story. But may not the form Völundr be
merely a Northern adaptation of the German Wieland or
Anglo-Saxon Weland?
On the Lay of Helgi
Hiörvard´s Son there is nothing to remark beyond what appears in
the poem itself. The
Lays of Helgi Hundingcide form the first of the series of
stories relating to the Völsung race, and the Giukungs, or
Niflungs. The
connection of the several personages celebrated in these poems
will appear plain from the following tables.
Sigi, king of Hunaland, said to be a son of
Odin
|
Rerir
|
Völsung = a daughter of the giant Hrimnir
|
Sigmund = Signi
= Borghild = Hiördis
|
|
|
|
Hamund Sinflötli
Helgi = Sigrun Sigurd = Gudrun
Sigmund, Svanhild
m Jörmunrek
Giuki = Grimhild
|
Gunnar = Gaumvör
Högni=Kostbera Guthorm Gudrun, = 1. Sigurd
2. Atli
3. Jonakr
Budli
|
Atli = Gudrun:
Brynhild = Gunnar Oddrun Beckhild = Heimr
|
Alsvid
Jonakr = Gudrun
|
|
Erp
Hamdir Sörli
The Eddaic series of the
Völsung and Niflung lays terminates with the Lay of Hamdir; the one
entitled Gunnar’s Melody is no doubt a comparatively late
composition; yet being written in the true ancient spirit of the
North is well deserving of a place among the Eddaic poems. Nor,
indeed, is the claim of the Lay of Grotti to rank among the poems
collected by Sæmund, by any means clear, we know it only from its
existence in the Skalda; yet on account of its antiquity, its
intrinsic worth, and its reception in other editions of the Edda,
both in original and translation, the present work would seem, and
justly so, incomplete without it.
Had the limits, within which
I am desirous to confine my humble attempt at a version of the
Poetic Edda, permitted, I would have assigned a portion of this
preface to some notice of the relation between the Northern poems
relating to the Völsungs and Giukungs, or Niflungs, and the same
subject as it appears in the Nibelunge Not; but as the latter is
familiar to many readers and accessible to all, in the original old
German, in modern German, and in more than one excellent English
version, I omit all further mention of the subject.
In compliance with the
expressed wish of the Publishers, I subscribe my name as the
translator of Sæmund´s Edda.
BENJAMIN THORPE