The "fierce eyes" of the hero or heroine, which can daunt an assassin as could the piercing glance of Marius, are the "falcon eyes" of the Eddic Lays.
The shining, effulgent, "illuminating hair" of the hero, which gives light in the darkness, is noticed here, as it obtains in Cuaran's thirteenth century English legend.
The wide-spread tale of the "City founded on a site marked out by a hide cut into finest thongs", occurs, told of Hella and Iwarus exactly as our Kentishmen told it of Hengist, and as it is also told of Dido.
The incidents of the "hero sleeping by a rill", of the guarded king's daughter, with her thirty attendants, the king's son keeping sheep, are part of the regular stock incidents in European folk-tales.So are the Nausicaa incident of the "king's daughter going a washing", the hero disguising himself as a woman and winding wool (like a second Heracles).
There are a certain number of stories, which only occur in Saxo and in our other Northern sources with attributions, though they are of course legendary; such are:
The "Everlasting Battle" between Hedhin and Hogne, a legend connected with the great Brisinga-men story, and paralleled by the Cordelia-tale among the Britons.
The story of the "Children preserved" is not very clearly told, and Saxo seems to have euhemerized.It is evidently of the same type as the Lionel-Lancelot story in the Arthurian cycle.Two children, ordered to be killed, are saved by the slaying of other children in their place; and afterwards by their being kept and named as dogs; they come to their own and avenge their wrongs.
The "Journey to Hell" story is told of Eric, who goes to a far land to fetch a princess back, and is successful.It is apparently an adventure of Swipdag, if everyone had their rights.
It is also told of Thorkill, whose adventures are rather of the "True Thomas" type.
The "Test of Endurance" by sitting between fires, and the relief of the tortured and patient hero by a kindly trick, is a variant of the famous Eddic Lays concerning Agnar.
The "Robbers of the Island", evidently comes from an Icelandic source (cf.The historic "Holmveria Saga" and Icelandic folk-tales of later date), the incident of the hero slaying his slave, that the body might be mistaken for his, is archaic in tone; the powerful horse recalls Grani, Bayard, and even Sleipner; the dog which had once belonged to Unfoot (Ofote), the giant shepherd (cf.its analogues in old Welsh tales), is not quite assimilated or properly used in this story.It seems (as Dr.Rydberg suspects) a mythical story coloured by the Icelandic relater with memory full of the robber-hands of his own land.
The stratagem of "Starcad", who tried even in death to slay his slayer, seems an integral part of the Starcad story; as much as the doom of three crimes which are to be the price for the threefold life that a triple man or giant should enjoy.The noose story in Starcad (cf.that told of Bicce in the Eormenric story), is also integral.
SAXO'S MYTHOLOGY.
No one has commented upon Saxo's mythology with such brilliancy, such minute consideration, and such success as the Swedish scholar, Victor Rydberg.More than occasionally he is over-ingenious and over-anxious to reduce chaos to order; sometimes he almost loses his faithful reader in the maze he treads so easily and confidently, and sometimes he stumbles badly.But he has placed the whole subject on a fresh footing, and much that is to follow will be drawn from his "Teutonic Mythology" (cited here from the English version by Rasmus B.Anderson, London, 1889, as "T.M.").
Let us take first some of the incontestable results of his investigations that affect Saxo.
SCIOLD is the father of Gram in Saxo, and the son of Sceaf in other older authorities.Dr.Rydberg (97-101) forms the following equations for the Sciolding patriarchs: --a.Scef -- Heimdal -- Rig.
b.Sciold -- Borgar -- Jarl.
c.Gram -- Halfdan -- Koming.
Chief among the mythic tales that concern Saxo are the various portions of the Swipdag-Myth, which Dr.Rydberg has been able to complete with much success.They may be resumed briefly as follows: --Swipdag, helped by the incantations of his dead mother, whom he had raised from the dead to teach him spells of protection, sets forth on his quests.He is the Odusseus of the Teutonic mythology.He desires to avenge his father on Halfdan that slew him.To this end he must have a weapon of might against Halfdan's club.The Moon-god tells him of the blade Thiasse has forged.It has been stolen by Mimer, who has gone out into the cold wilderness on the rim of the world.Swipdag achieves the sword, and defeats and slays Halfdan.He now buys a wife, Menglad, of her kinsmen the gods by the gift of the sword, which thus passes into Frey's hands.
How he established a claim upon Frey, and who Menglad was, is explained in Saxo's story of Eric, where the characters may be identified thus: --Swipdag -- Eric Freya -- Gunwara Frey -- Frode IIINiord -- Fridlaf Wuldor -- Roller Thor -- Brac Giants -- The Greps Giants -- Coller.
Frey and Freya had been carried off by the giants, and Swipdag and his faithful friend resolve to get them back for the Anses, who bewail their absence.They journey to Monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her brother can only be rescued by his father Niord.It is by wit rather than by force that Swipdag is successful here.
The third journey of Swipdag is undertaken on Frey's behalf; he goes under the name of Scirner to woo giant Gymer's daughter Gerth for his brother-in-law, buying her with the sword that he himself had paid to Frey as his sister's bride-price.So the sword gets back to the giants again.
