64 
 
 :mo 
 
 n 
 
 92 
 
 mSVMvWfn^Wn-Tu 
 
 
 ll''.'l.l 
 
 
 liVy, I 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ENGLISH COLLECTION 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924076344047 
 
■1^ GRIMM CENTENARY }^ 
 
 SIGFRED-ARMINIVS 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS 
 
 BY 
 
 GUDBRAND VIGFUSSON, M.A., ISL. 
 - -^ 
 
 AND 
 
 F. YORK POWELL, M.A., Brit. 
 
 OXFORD 
 CLARENDON PRESS DEPOSITORY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER, E.C. 
 CU1886 
 
 s 
 
©iforU 
 
 PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 ,{AU rights reservta] 
 
TO 
 
 THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM 
 
 ON THEIR FIRST CENTENARIES 
 
 4 ;AN. 1785 AND 24 FEB. I786 
 BY 
 
 GUDBRAND VIGFUSSON, M.A., IsL. 
 
 AND 
 
 F. YORK POWELL, M.A., Brit. 
 
 OXFOBD : MDCCCLXXXV 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prologue in Berlin (G. V.) . . ■ . . . . i 
 
 I. Sigfred-Arminius (G. V.) 5 
 
 II. The Details of the Defeat of Varus (G. V.) . . 22 
 
 III. The Place of the Helgi Lays (G. V.) . . . 29 
 
 IV. The Place of the Hamtheow Lay (G. V.) 37 
 
 V. Two Latin Law Words (G. V.) 44 
 
 VI. The Ballad of Sir Ogie (F. Y. P.) . . . 47 
 
 VII. Traces pp Old Law in the Eddic Lays (F. Y. P.) . . 53 
 Epilogue in Oxford (F. Y. P.) . . . 91 
 Notes -95 
 
PROLOGUE IN BERLIN. 
 
 I BAVE read, or was told, that on the ^th January last, the centenary 
 of Jacob Grimm's birthday, orders were given /or the teachers in every 
 school throughout Germany to tell their scholars somewhat of him. 
 May I, though a little behindhand, add my mite to the pile, by telling 
 of a brief interview I had with Jacob Grimm in Midsummer, 1859, 
 on my first visit to Germany. I tell what I have to tell from memory, 
 looking back twenty-six years, for I have never been in the habit of 
 taking notes or keeping a diary. 
 
 Starting from Copenhagen I landed at Stettin, stayed there but a 
 few hours, and left the same day for Berlin. I knew no one in Berlin, 
 nor had I any introductions ; and, though I could read German, I 
 had never spoken two words. ' Sie sind ein Wiener,' somebody said to 
 me, wondering who I could be, and not knowing what I was saying. 
 My first day at Berlin I spent in seeing the Museums ; and on the 
 second T went to Potsdam. The third and last I gave to Museums 
 again; when at noon the thought of calling on Jacob Grimm came 
 into my head, a bold resolve, as this was my third day of German 
 speaking. 
 
 So, at 12 — I o'clock, I found my way to Link-sirasse (to what 
 number I have now forgotten) ; it was a big row of tall houses, let in 
 fiats, and facing open fields at that time. I went upstairs to the first 
 floor on the left hand, if I remember right, and there on a brass plate 
 was engraved — 
 
 JACOB GRIMM 
 
 UND 
 
 WILHELM GRIMM. 
 
 I rang the bell, and a manservant came to the door ; I told him. 
 my errand ; and having no printed card (things I have never used in 
 my life) I wrote my name on a piece oj paper and gave it him. He 
 did not seem to understand me very well, as was no wonder, and I 
 doubt if my dirty clothes and boots— for I had been wandering about 
 sight-seeing since the early morning — reassured him. However, he 
 went in, and coming back after a little while took me in and, opening 
 
 B 
 
% PROLOGUE IN BERLIN. 
 
 a door on the left hand, set me face to face with Jacob •Grimm in 'his 
 own study. A plain bright room, in the middle a strong talk, Grimm's 
 chair close to it with its hack to the window, books in shelves all round, 
 and half-open folios lying about, one on the floor leaning against the 
 leg of the table, just as one sees them in the pictures of old Italian 
 scholars^ rooms. Of other furniture, the chief was a low bench-like 
 couch or sofa without back or head-rest, on the left on entering the 
 room. Grimm was standing when we first met, and he did not sit demon 
 all the while I stayed, but he asked me to sit down on the couch, and stood 
 and talked to me. He spoke in a friendly way, enquiring foremost 
 about people, first of my countrymen. I remember his asking after 
 Mr. Jon Sigurdsson, wanting to know whether he was married, whether 
 he had any children. Then he asked after others, then after several 
 Danes, and lastly, hearing that T had been in Norway, after some 
 Norsemen. I noticed his ready memory for names. Finally he turned 
 to me and said — ' Sie haben schone dinge gethan,' which I did not at 
 the moment quite understand, but afterward gathered that he meant my 
 Timatal {an Essay on the Chronology of the Icelandic Sagas). He 
 went on to ask me what I was now doing. I told him I had been 
 editing Sagas, and spoke of the Biskopa Sbgur {Lives of the old Bishops 
 of Iceland), which I had finished. But here I had nearly come to grief, 
 for I took out of viy pocket a little MS. ' This', I said, ' I have nozv in 
 hand, and am going to have it printed at Leipzig ' {where it afterwards 
 duly appeared as Forn-S'dgur, a transcript of old texts), and gave it 
 him. He took it, and holding it up, stooped his head to it, till it -was 
 near his eyes; he did not bend his body, nor contract his chest; and so 
 standing half sideways to me, half facing the door, he turned over the 
 leaves, reading a few lines. I can still see him as he stood there ; for 
 of course I watched him closely as he read. I could soon see that 
 there was something in it that displeased him. My manuscript was 
 written in the Raskian spelling {then used by Icelanders, as if there 
 had never been a Grimm), not even distinguishing belivcefi ' a ' and ' ce,' 
 
 a point on which Grimm insisted. He gave me back my MS. ' / 
 
 will read it when it is printed, it will be easier then! After a pause 
 he said, ' T see that there are some differences bcluvcn you Icelanders 
 and the Norwegians {Munch the historian and Uiiger had been the 
 first to adopt Grimm's spelling). I answered that I did not know, 
 that it was a trifling matter; but after a while, having talked on 
 other things, he returned to it again, though when I gave the same. 
 
PROLOGUE IN BERLIN. 3 
 
 answer he kindly and good-naturedly let the subject drop. It would 
 have been ill for me to bandy grammar with Jacob Grimm : besides, I 
 could only speak German ivord by word. Looking pleased again, he 
 now turned to his book-shelves (were I back in the room I could point 
 out the exact spot) and deftly picked out a small pamphlet to show me. 
 I noticed the quickness of his hand and eye ; he picked out the thin 
 little book as neatly as a printer picks up a type. He crossed the room, 
 and, from different shelves took out one or two more in the same 
 accurate way : it seemed to amuse him. I think I noticed too that he. 
 seemed to open every book as if at random^, and yet to light upon the 
 right place. 
 
 Then he asked me if I would take a glass of wine. ' I am thirsty,' 
 said I, ' and would like to have some water with it! Upon which he 
 rang the bell, and the servant came in. And after a while a young 
 lady (^Jacob's niece, I should think) with a tray, and on it claret and 
 water. T asked facob Grimm to help me, and as he poured out the 
 water and the ivine into a tumbler, I noticed his hand shook a little ; 
 but, as in Iceland, it is always the hostess that helps one, and I knew 
 that he was a bachelor living with his brother, 1 fancied that it was 
 because he was not used to do such a thing, and therefore did it 
 awkwardly, for I could, young as I was, see that there was something 
 childlike in his nature. 
 
 My own feeling all the while towards him was a strange mixture 
 of shyness and curiosity. After saying a few kind things to me, when 
 T rose to go, after staying about twenty minutes in all, he went with 
 me to the door and bid me good-bye, sending his greetings to Maurer 
 in Munich whom I was about to visit, — and I am sure sat down 
 again to his Lexicon directly, and was deep in work in a moment. 
 The interruption, instead of disturbing, seemed rather to please him 
 and rest him. 
 
 Of Grimm's appearance I have a lively recollection. His head 
 was large and' carried a little bent forward, as is often seen in men 
 of thought. His hair was thick and straight, but turned to a silvery 
 hue ; no trace of baldness ; lips, cheeks and chin close-shaven. His face 
 was somewhat of the Roman type, serious but kindly, not smiling or 
 laughing as he spoke, and, not varying much in expression. He did 
 
 ' In a similar way I remember Munch' s ^otver of opening a big book at 
 almost the right page and, tliat hit on, of pouncing a,t once upon the right 
 line and -word. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PROLOGUE IN BERLIN. 
 
 not wear spectacles, though he was a little short-sighted, as I noticed 
 when he read my papers. He stood holt upright, and moved briskly 
 and easily, and altogether showed none of the wasting of age. His 
 voice was clear, pitched a little high I noticed, which (as I learnt 
 afterwards) came from a slight deafness ; I thought he spoke so that 
 1 might understand him letter ; his articulation was so clear and 
 distinct that I was- easily able to make out every word he said. There 
 was no condescension in his voice or ways ; he did not speak a word 
 about himself, or give a hint as to his own work, or touch on any 
 literary subject whatever, beyond those I have noted above. He said 
 nothing of the ordinary commonplace about Iceland {geysers, Hecla, 
 etc.), indeed he never mentioned it at all. 
 
 Everything about the man was healthy. Though he had risen from 
 his work as. I came in, his hair and dress were tidy and smooth, and 
 there was no weariness in his look, voice, or bearing. He did not, I 
 think, wear a dressing-gown, but a plain frock-coat. There was tio 
 smell of tobacco about the room, nor any pipe or cigars to be seen (dear 
 as they are to the typical German professor). As in his Grammar 
 and Mythology, so in all his belongings I noticed that the sense of 
 order was strongly manifested. Every book on his shelves seemed to 
 be in its right place. All his surroundings seemed scrupulously clean 
 and neat. His room was not over-hot or close, but sweet and fresh. 
 
 Of the engraved portraits I have seen of facob Grimm, the best one 
 is that in the frontispiece of the Dictionary, though even that does not 
 quite give the man as I saw him. I have a faded photograph, given to 
 me in 1862, which is better : the best, however, is one of the same year 
 belonging to Dr. E. B. Tylor, of Oxford. But in this the man shows 
 signs of a shaken frame, which he certainly did not when I saw him 
 in 1859. One can see in it the effect of the death of Wilhelm and 
 that terrible incubus of the Worterbuch, now weighing upon him alone. 
 When I was in Berlin, Wilhelm was still -alive, but I did not see him; 
 perhaps he was not at home, or else facob would probably have taken me 
 in to see him. Thus I missed the pleasure of seeing the two brothers 
 together ; and I never had another chance, for Wilhelm died December 
 16, the same year : facob died September 20, 1863, coming 79. 
 
 Thus on my first visit to Germany, and only visit to Berlin, I had 
 the singular good for tune, as I count it, to be face to face with facob 
 Grimm for a few moments. G. V. 
 
I. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 Qui inuictifuere uiri, pater opiime Olumfi, 
 hos egoviet uici. 
 
 In looking at the long bede-roll of the heroes of Teutonic Song 
 and Legend, Sigfred, Ermanaric, Theodric of Verona, Hygelac 
 the Goth, Gundahari the Burgundian, ^Ifwine the Lombard, 
 Charles the Great and his marquis Hruodland, Lodbrok, ^Elfraed 
 of Wessex, Harold fairhair, down to Olaf Tryggwason, one 
 cannot but be struck by the fact that in every case but one 
 we have contemporary accounts, which not only give the 
 means of clearing the legendary deposit crystallized by imagin- 
 ation about these great men, but also help to discover by 
 what facts of character and achievement the hero was able to 
 impress his greatness upon the mind of his own age. Of 
 one single name, however, most famous of all, most widely 
 known, most deeply stamped upon the Teuton imagination, we 
 seem to have no historical record — Sigfred. Of all the others, 
 as the annexed table will show, we have a double record, one 
 popular, fanciful, imaginative, the other plain, often bald, but his- 
 torical. For instance, a few lines of Ammianus, the con- 
 temporary of Ermanaric, give the facts, which Jordanes, Saxo and 
 the Eddie Lays preserve in poetical dress concerning that mighty 
 King of the Goths. A dozen words of Eginhard prove that the 
 Roland who died at Roncesvaux is no poetic myth. The brief 
 sentence of Bishop Gregory of Tours confirms the legendary tale 
 of the old English Epic of Beowulf, and reveals Chochilaicus in 
 the flesh, a real king fighting and dying in a raid against the 
 Frisones — ■ 
 
 Hero. History. Legend. 
 
 Ermanaric. Ammianus. Jordanes, Saxo, Eddie Lay. 
 
 Attila. Jordanes, Priscus, Eddie Lays. 
 
 Hygelac. Gregory. Beowulf. 
 
 Theodric. Excerpt. Vales. Eddie Lays. 
 
 uElfwine [Alboin]. Paul the Deacon, etc. Widsith. 
 
 Charles the Great. Eginhard, etc. Chansons de geste. 
 
6 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 Throughout one finds that epic poetry is built up upon a firm 
 rock-foundation of fact, unshakeable and steadfast. May we not 
 legitimately extend the inference to Sigfred's case ? 
 
 Again, if we turn to the four chief classic historians that tell of 
 early Teutonic History — Velleius Patercultrs, Tacitus, Dio, Strabo, 
 we are confronted by a singular and startling fact, that Arminius 
 THE Cheruscan — the man, but for whose heroism and skill Germany 
 would not now be Germany, nor England England ; the general 
 who stemmed once and for ever the full tide of Roman conquest in 
 the hey-day of the early empire — that this hero of heroes seems to 
 be the one man passed over, forgotten, unknown to the lips and 
 hearts of his own people. Is this credible ? Tacitus witnesses that 
 in his day at least it was not so : caniiurque adhuc Barbaras apttd 
 gentes. 
 
 Is there not, after all, a simple solution to this double difficulty ? 
 Are not Sigfred and Arminius one and the same ? With the train 
 of reasoning that has led us to this somewhat startling conclusion 
 we will now deal. 
 
 In a late number of Germania ' Mr. L. Smith, in a closely argued 
 and carefully wrought out paper, proved that the numerous attempts, 
 from J. Grimm upward and downward, to identify the name of the 
 Liberator with any Teutonic name has failed, and had gone upon 
 a wholly wrong track — that Arminius is, in fact, a Roman gentile 
 name that has been recognized in Roman Inscriptions. 
 
 Velleius Paterculus, whose vivid, if brief, delineation of the defeat 
 of Varus, was written within nine years of the Conqueror's death, 
 strongly confirms this view. Says he, — Tu7n iuvem's genere nobilis, 
 manu fortis, sensu celer, ultra barbarum prompius ingenio, nomine 
 Arminius, Sigimeriprincipis gentis eius [Cheruscorum] filius, ardorem 
 animiuultu oculisque preferens, adsiduus militiae nostrae prioris comes, 
 [cuvi] iure etiam ciuitatis Romanae ius equestris consecutus gradus, 
 segniiia ducis in occasionem scekris usus est. Lib. II. c. ii8; cf 
 Tac. Ann. ii. lo, ut qui Romanis in castris dudor popularium 
 meruisset. 
 
 Here are the facts of Arminius' youth spent under a training of 
 
 Roman military discipline, his rank, birth, patronymic, and tribe. 
 
 Tacitus supplies his exact age at the end of his victorious career ; 
 
 Septem et triginia anms uitae, duodecim potentiae expleuit. Arminius, 
 
 ' The first draught of this was written in Sept. 18S3. 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 therefore, was born b.c. i6, crushed VarCis a.d. 9, and died a.d. 21, 
 the same age within a year as that at which the second Dehverer 
 of Germany, Gustavus Adolphus, closed his course. 
 
 Arminius' intimate association with the Roman army in early 
 life, which may have covered as much as ten years, will, amply 
 account for his being mentioned by the Roman historians only 
 under the name he had borne while in their service. On the other 
 hand, the songs of his people would celebrate him only under his 
 o-\\n Teutonic name. If, like Segestes his father-in-law, a dim 
 Augusta ciuitate donaius, he had attained Equestrian rank only as 
 a full-grown man, he would, like him, probably have come down to 
 us only under his native name. 
 
 Have we any data in the Roman writers, which may help us to 
 identify Arminius' native name ? 
 
 The following pedigree of the royal house of the Cheruscans 
 the ancients have preserved for us. 
 
 X 
 
 I 
 X 
 
 Segimer Inguiomer Segestes 
 
 [Veljeius] [Tac] [Tac, Str., Veil.] 
 
 Segimer ' 
 [Dion, Tac, Strabo] 
 
 Arminius, 
 
 ^ [ ]elda 
 
 [Strabo] 
 
 Thaumelicos 
 [Strabo]. 
 
 Planus [Tac] 
 
 n. d. of Catumer, 
 
 K. of Chatti. 
 
 Italicus 
 [Tacitus]. 
 
 Segimund [. . . .]elda 
 [Str., Tac] [Strabo] 
 m, Arminius. 
 
 Segisdag, 
 
 m. Ramis 
 
 [Rand . . . ?] 
 
 d. of [. . . .]mir, 
 
 K. of the Chatti 
 
 [Strabo]. 
 
 According to the early custom of Teutonic nomenclature (such 
 as we find it for example in the houses of Theodric the Goth, 
 Oswald the Northumbrian, Gundahari the Burgundian) Arminius' 
 name would therefore te a compound of Segi — and why not Segi- 
 fredus ''■t • 
 
 ' There were two Segimers, (i) Arminius' father, mentioned by Velleius only ; 
 (2) Segestes' brother, Segisday's father, Arminius' lieutenant on the Varus day 
 (jAp/iivios Km ^lytur/pos, Dio, Bk. Ivi. ch. 19). Though the historians are par- 
 ticular in noticing in each case the relation, if a close one, to Arminius, there is 
 no hint of Segestes being his uncle ; nor is it likely that Arminius and his 
 wife were first cousins ; nor can Dio's Segimer be Arminius' father, for he is a 
 subordinate person ('A. ' Kal' 2-). 
 
 ' Of the twin-forms, Segis- and Segi-, the former seems to be used before 
 t, d, Seges-te-s (qs. Seges-theow) but Segimund. 
 
8 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 And is there not found in Teutonic poetry the very name of 
 the royal clan or gens of the Cherusci? In the Thulor (a 13th 
 century Gradus ad Parnassum') is a list of synonyms for ' King ' 
 gleaned from old Pindaric odes or encomia upon various Scan- 
 dinavian princes. Among them are these — 
 
 QtSlingr [Ethel-ing], West Saxon royal gens. 
 
 audlingr [Ead-ling], English royal gens. 
 
 bragningr [Brag-ning]. 
 
 budlungr [Beadu-ling]. 
 
 dgglingr [Day-ling], Danish royal gens. 
 
 hildingr [Hild-ingr], Prankish royal gens. 
 
 lofSungr [Leof-ding]. 
 
 hniflungr [Hnef-ling]. 
 
 maeringr [Maer-ing], Prankish royal gens. 
 
 scigldungr [Shield-ing], Danish royal gens. 
 
 mildingr [Mild-ing], English royal gens ? 
 
 scilfingr [Shelf-ing], Swedish royal gens. 
 
 ynglingr [Yngwi-ling], Swedish royal gens. 
 
 ylfingr [Wolf-ing]. 
 Beowulf s Lay supplies other names of the same type, openly 
 treating them as patronymic or clan-names : — 
 
 bronding [Brand-ing], Gothic gens. 
 
 helming [Helm-ing], cf. O. N. hilmir. 
 
 wiccing [Wicg-ing], Heath-bard clan. 
 And last, not least, Jordanes yields — 
 
 Amalungs [Amal-ungs], Gothic royal gens. 
 May we not rightly add to the list a well-known northern 
 synonym for king and explain its origin as ? — 
 
 siclingr [Sige-ling], Cheruscan royal gens^. 
 • Hence by gens Arminius would be Sigeling, as Ethelward the 
 Patrician was Etheling. » 
 
 In the fragmentary Hyndlu-liod, a genealogical poem composed 
 for a member of the Horda-Kari family of Hordaland and after- 
 Wards of Orkney (set side by side with the early paraphrase 
 of its pure text preserved in Flatey-book, and reconstructed by 
 
 ' Corp. Poet. ii. 424, 11. 21-33. 
 
 " siding (Thulor, 1. 29) stands for Sigling = Sigeling. Cf. Corp. Poet. ii. 
 519 V. Cf. wig- wicg- wiccing. 
 
/, SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 9 
 
 the author in the Corpus Poeticum'), such royal titles as those 
 cited in the Thulor are openly and clearly used as patronymic clan- 
 names. So that in the Old English chronicles with their -(Escings 
 ■ and Ethelings, in the Norwegian Kings' Lives with their Skioldungs 
 and Ynglings, and in this curious Lay of Hyndla''', the title- 
 deed of Ohthere heimske, we seem to hear the last echoes of a 
 clan or gens nomenclature which no doubt dates back to an early 
 'totem-stage' of Teutonic development. 
 
 Leaving personal and clan-names, let us look to his tribal title, 
 Arminius the Cheruscan. This is in consonance with true Teutonic 
 use, which survived in such denominations as der Friedlaender, 
 der Pappenheimer, down to der Dessauer (known from Carlyle's 
 Frederic). No doubt in the lost lays Tacitus tells of, Arminius 
 was the Cheruscan par excellence. 
 
 In the Eddie Lamentation Lays (Corp. Poet. Bk. V), the unnamed 
 author of which had access (as we have shown elsewhere) to 
 High and Low German poems and traditions, Sigfred is marked 
 out by a curious and unique epithet — Hunsci, e.g. : — 
 Long Brunhild Lay, line 16 Hunscr conungr. 
 
 „ 33 conungr enn hunsci. 
 
 „ 75 enn hunsci herbaldr. 
 
 „ 264 enn hunsca. 
 „ 265 enom hunsca. 
 Greenland Atlamal, line 362. dautSr vartS enn hunsci. 
 In all of whiph it is an epithet to Sigfred. As an epithet to others 
 besides we find it in the — 
 
 Old Gudrun Lay, line 84. hunscar meyiar. 
 More doubtful uses are — 
 
 Old Gudrun Lay, line 50. recca huna. [read, hunsca?]. 
 Gudrunar kuiSa, „ 102. hunscrar theocSar. 
 In all these instances the -sc inflexive form is to be noted. 
 
 Now to call Sigfred a Hun is absurd; the word, therefore, 
 upon any hypothesis, stands for some lost tribal name — is it not 
 Cheruscus, Heorsci ? All but two letters are identical. The word 
 we want must begin with H, for this letter is needed to complete 
 the alliteration in many of the instances given above. A Northern 
 German singer would get some kind of sense out of Hunsci ; for the 
 
 'Exciirs. IV to second volume, p. 515. 
 
 " Better Hynla = Hunila ; no relation with Hund (hound) we now think, 
 
10 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 great Hyn hero, Attila, was a famous figure in the Epic Lays he 
 knew, but the tribe of Cherusci had already in Tacitus' time been 
 melting away into swift decay, having produced its great man, and 
 done its duty and fulfilled its service to Teuton history. There- 
 fore, save as a traditional epithet or synonym to Sigfred, its very 
 name would long ago have perished, and be utterly foreign to a 
 Scandinavian or even a German ear, 
 
 G. Storm's ingenious note on Susat [Soest] and the Hunaland 
 [Westphalia] of the Wilkina Saga, will yield no slight confirmatory 
 evidence to this strange confusion. For, how could Huns come to 
 dwell in the old Cheruscan land, save by such error as this ? It is 
 in fact the same misnomer, Heorsc- for Hunsc-, over again. 
 
 While on this subject one cannot pass over Tacitus' words, 
 loni aequique Cherusci, nunc inertes ac stulti uocantur — a snatch, one 
 may well believe, from an old Teutonic camp-song, to which we 
 can even restore its original German words: 'horscr*' is exactly 
 bonus aeguusque, while ' heimscr' is iners stullusque. Horscr, too, 
 would alliterate most happily with Heorscr (Cheruscus), to which 
 it must have been of old the standing epithet (like the gallant 
 Grame, light Lindsay, gay Gordon of the Border ballads). The 
 apt opposition of ' horscr ' and ' heimscr ' in satire is attested by the 
 early Norwegian poem. Guest's Wisdom, where we find — 
 
 Heimsca or horscom goerir haolda sono sa-enn matci munr 
 and 
 
 Opt fa a horscan, es a heimscan ne fa, lost-fagrir litir. 
 
 This word-play has, we believe, kept ' horscr ' alive in the war of 
 words, and saved its noble meaning unsullied ; for it is the word 
 which rightly describes perfect hero or heroine, the true Teuton 
 term for which the English have borrowed the word ' gentle ' from 
 their Romance neighbours. 
 
 And thus, both personal and tribal name seem to come home to 
 Arminius. As to Arminius' wife, Tacitus has not preserved her name, 
 but Strabo once names her. But, unfortunately, Strabo has reached 
 us in a form derived from a single uncial IMS. — otnni genere errorum 
 inquinatissimus, as the much-troubled editor, Dr. Kramer, stigmatizes 
 it—hence his proper names are in terribl}' corrupt state. He calls 
 her eOYSNEAAA ; but this word is evidently incorrect, indeed 
 
 ' See Diet. p. 279-80. 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 1 1 
 
 impossible ; the last part, ' -elda,' being the only bit we can trust, 
 for this shows that the final element was '-hilda.' Here is a 
 curious coincidence. Both the women tradition has mixed up 
 with Sigfred's life, have names in ' -hild,' Brun-hild and Grim-hild. 
 We can scarcely doubt that Strabo's mutilated word was originally 
 one of these, most probably ' Grimhilda.' Thousn- is impossible, 
 and sn is not a likely combination, nor could there (for Strabo 
 is copying Latin) have been any ' Th ' in the Latin inscriptions 
 that were inscribed above the captives in their car. girmelda or 
 GERMILDA are likely original -forms. At all events, the scribe's 
 mistakes have not obliterated the traces of the important -hild 
 ending; and we have a further coincidence here between the 
 Arminius of history and the Sigfred of tradition. 
 
 From these questions of expression, it will be well now to look 
 to the Eddie Lays (which, it is to be remembered, are the oldest 
 bits left us of traditional Teuton history), and see how far their 
 view of Sigfred agrees with the plain matter of fact statements of 
 Velleius, Strabo, and Tacitus, contemporary Roman authorities 
 respecting Arminius. 
 
 To begin at the beginning, the name of 'Unborn' is given by some 
 of the older Lays to Sigfred, and it is explained by what may be a 
 mythical story, that, like young Macduff the avenger, he was from 
 his mother's womb untimely ript. Yet, doubt as we may this 
 tale, the surname must surely witness to an historic fact. Arminius' 
 father was certainly not alive during his son's- career; he is only 
 spoken of as a step in his pedigree. It is his mother, not his father, 
 that Arminius speaks of when he reproaches his brother,^. How 
 else can we account for, the boy's reception into a Roman gens, 
 and the long years of education passed in full Roman training 
 in a Roman camp ? Sigfred was probably posthumous, and this 
 would be the sense of unborn here. That his father perished by 
 violence tradition declares ; and history, though silent on this head, 
 is by no means contradictory. 
 
 The striking scene in which the brothers Arminius and Flauus 
 are brought face to face on the banks of Weser, talking across the 
 stream, reads to us as if Tacitus had got hold of some Teutonic 
 lay, taken down, one might fancy, from the lips of some veteran who 
 had served east of Rhine, so closely does it coincide in spirit and 
 ' Tac. Ann. ii. lo, matrem precuin sociam. 
 
13 '/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 incident with the ' flytings ' of the Eddie Lays. The beginning of 
 their parley recalls the Waldhere poem. ' Where did you lose your 
 eye? What did you get for it?' The increasing scorn on one 
 side, and wrath on the other, as the bitter reproaches and taunts of 
 Arminius stung the Romanized Flauus till paullatim inde ad iurgia 
 prolapsi, quominus pugnam conserereni ne flumine qui'dem inter- 
 lecto cohibebaniur, ni Steriinius adcurrens plenum irae armaque et 
 equum poscenkm Flauum aitinuisset ; cernebaiur contra miniiabun- 
 dus Arminius proeliumque denuniians, nam pier aque Latino sermone 
 interiaciebat ut qui Romanis in castris ductor popularium meru- 
 isset. [Ann. ii. 9, 10.] One can hardly help remembering as one 
 reads the words, the Lay (late, it is true, but vivid and powerful in 
 its way) where Gudrun and Brunhild quarrel as they wade in the 
 Rhine, waist-deep, bandying words that bring death to Sigfred and 
 many heroes more ^. One remembers, too, that Flauus, like 
 Hagena, is one-eyed ; and here again tradition has preserved a fact 
 mixed up with other and mythic matter. 
 
 That Sigfred won a bride by force of arms and bravery one is 
 told in the Lays with much mythic adornment ; and Tacitus says 
 that Arminius carried off his wife from her unwilling kinsmen. The 
 feuds thence arising, it is even probable from stray hints, were 
 eventually the cause of his death. So in the Lays it is through his 
 wife that the doom, long averted, at length comes upon the hero. 
 
 Minor details which coincide, though severally little worth, by 
 their cumulative testimony, help one to a conclusion. When one 
 reads in the Lays of Sigfred's beauty, noble bearing and piercing 
 glance, which the late Flatey-book still repeats in the Norna-Gest 
 episode, though of course one knows that a hero should be handsome, 
 it is still interesting to find Velleius (who most likely had seen the 
 man) noticing expressly Arminius' speaking eyes and animated 
 face ". 
 
 Again, Sigemund was a famous exile, as Beowulf s Lay tells us, 
 and there is a Sigimund, Segestes' son, a real live person mentioned 
 by Tacitus (Ann. i. 57) and Strabo, who seems to have been an 
 hostage while young in Roman hands. 
 
 Even the Wolsung gift of immunity from poison recalls the story 
 Tacitus (Ann. ii., last chapter) says he fgund in the writings and 
 record of the time -that Angand . . . [the textual Adgandestrii is 
 ' Corp. Poet. i. 394, ii. J36-37. . Ibij, j j^g^ ;; ^^^ 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 13 
 
 surely corrupt] chief of the Chatti, sent to the Senate offering to 
 poison Arminius, an oifer scornfully rejected by Tiberius. 
 
 The wars with Sigi-geir and Sigi-here, mentioned in the Lays 
 of the Codex- Regius-Lacuna ', paraphrased and so preserved in 
 the prose Wolsung Saga, are surely the last echoes of the historic 
 fact that Arminius had troubles with his kinsmen, some of whom 
 were in the Roman interest. Why else should the Sigelings be' 
 made to fall out among themselves '^ ? 
 
 The Rornan says that Arminius died young at the height of his 
 fame, cut off, ' dolo propinquorum,' by his kinsmen's craft. The 
 young Sigfred, as everyone knows, was murdered by his brother-in- 
 lav>' and sworn allies. [Corp. Poet. i. 397-98.] 
 
 Sigfred in the Lays leaves a son behind him, a posthumous 
 child, born to a heritage of woe only, and to an untimely death. 
 And here again the Roman historian confirms tradition with just 
 such difference of incident as we should expect, when in words, 
 strangely sympathetic for an enemy, he speaks of Arminius' son. 
 Educatus Ravennae puer, Tacitus says, quo mox ludihrio con- 
 flidatus sit in tempore memordbo ; but the promised details are 
 lost with the books that contained the Reign of Caius '- On the 
 day of the Triumph the boy, Strabo tells us, was TpUrris. With this 
 compare Edda i. 364 (paraphrased from one of the lost Lacuna 
 Lays we suppose), ' There fell Sigfred and his three-year-old son, 
 named Sig-mund, whom they slew *.' In the old Lay of Gudrun 
 the dying Sigfred says : — 
 
 a ec til ungan erfi-nytja, 
 
 cannat hann firrasc suic or fraend-gavtfi. 
 
 As we mend the corrupt original : — 
 
 I have a son and heir ; but over-young he is, 
 
 He cannot escape treason from his Icinsmen's house. 
 
 True it is that in some later versions of the Sigfred tradition, he 
 is made to leave a posthumous daughter, not a son. But we see 
 in this merely an attempt to link the Sigfred cycle with the 
 Ermanaric cycle, and luckily Jordanes, the Gothic-Roman historian, 
 has preserved mention of the historic Swanhild the Rosmon ; while 
 
 > Corp. Poet. i. 398, ii. 534. 
 
 " The two names occur together in the Old English heroic pedigrees. 
 ' Arrainii uxor (in her captivity) uirilis sexus stirpem edidit. — -Tac. 
 ' Corp. Poet. i. 392, ii. 534. 
 
14 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 even Saxo has not mixed up Gudruna uenefica, who urges her sons 
 to revenge, with Sigfred's wife, though this is at last done in the Eddie 
 Hamtheow Lay. Later still there is an attempt made to link the 
 Sigfred and Ragnar cycles by-means of an Aslaug, who is made to 
 be Sigfred's daughter. But the Aslaug tale is an old story, told in 
 many forms, and has obviously nothing to do with the Wolsung 
 cycle. It is a poet's desire to connect all his heroes together, to 
 bring all his figures ' into one plane,' as Mr. Carlyle says, and make 
 of all past and present history an impressive group with the latest 
 hero as centre thereof. 
 
 But it is with the most striking of the pageants described by Strabo 
 and Tacitus that the Northern Lays are most intimately connected, 
 namely the Triumph of Germanicus. Tacitus has his eyes so fixed 
 upon his own hero, in Ann. ii. 41 — where he shows him passing in his 
 car of glory with his five children— that he does not turn to look at 
 the captives in his train ; but he has not forgotten them entirely, for 
 elsewhere he sets before us, in his noble way, the captive wife of 
 Arminius as she looked when first taken by the Romans, betrayed 
 by her treacherous kinsmen, out of hatred to her hero husband. 
 Inerant feminae nohiles, inter quas uxor Arviinii, eademque filia 
 Segestis, mariti magis quam parentis animo, neque euicia in lacrimas, 
 neqtie uoce supplex, compressis intra sinum manibus, grauidum 
 uterum intuens.' [Tac. Ann. i. 58.] But it was not, as we know, the 
 fruit of her womb, but the kinsman Goth that was to avenge her 
 wrongs on the proud city. 
 
 Strabo it is that describes the captives' car (\ii. 4), in words 
 written before the news of Arminius' death, a.d. 21, had reached 
 him, and therefore within, at most, a few years of the 26th May, 
 A.D. 17, the date of the triumph, as Tacitus records it, no doubt from 
 the official Acta. Strabo may well indeed have witnessed the 
 triumph with his own eyes, for he knows the captives' names and 
 records them, and one would like to think that he took them 
 from the tablets, which, according to Roman wont, were raised 
 above each group of captives that was borne along in the con- 
 queror's train. 
 
 There were, says he, Segimond, son of Segestes leader of the 
 Kheruskoi, and his sister the wife of Armenius . . . named 
 [Thousnjelda [corrupt as noted], and their three-years-old son 
 Thoumelikos [a non-Teutonic name ; born in captivity, he would 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. \$ 
 
 get some such nickname]. Moreover there were Segi-thakos *, 
 son of Segi-meros, the captain of the Kheruskoi, and his wife . . . 
 daughter of . . . the captain of the Khatti, and Deudorix the 
 Sugamber sister's son of Melon, and Segestes the father-in-law of 
 Armenios . . . [the traitor whose treason crippled Armenios' power], 
 and Libes [one would read Gribes or Gripes, the Northern Gripir^] 
 priest of the Khatti . . . , and people from the vanquished tribes — 
 Khaulkoi, Kampsanoi, Brukteroi, Usipes, Kheruskoi, Khattoi, 
 Khatt-uarioi, Landes, Tubattioi [the muster-roll of the tribes that 
 the Romans had come across or who fought with Armenios in his 
 league against Rome]. 
 
 The day that saw this procession of prisoners pass through the 
 streets of Rome was, we take it, the birthday of the poems that have 
 handed down Sigfred in tradition. And we may even get some 
 confirmation of this from the poems of far later day that have 
 reached us. 
 
 Old Northern poetry is by no means of a sentimental cast, 
 and it is an extraordinary phenomenon that there is, among the 
 Eddie Lays, a whole group of poems of so marked a diction and 
 character, that we long ago separated them from the rest and 
 dubbed them (for they are anonymous) the Lamentation Lays '. 
 
 The/ramework in which these Lamentations are set is peculiar. 
 Either Gudrun, Sigfred's mourning widow, is made to recount the 
 sad tale of her woes, their recital forming the body of the poem * — 
 in a second type, a company of mourning ladies, who have known 
 captivity and widowhood, are vying with each in unfolding their sad 
 histories, all giving way, however, to the surpassing sorrows of 
 Gudrun ' — or, in a third type of Lay, we have Gudrun and Theo- 
 dric in exile, telling each other how they had been buffeted by fate's 
 hardest blows". There is yet another type, in which the lamenting 
 lady is Brunhild (Bk, V, § 2). Now there is absolutely no frame- 
 work at all like these in any poems but those of this single group; 
 though there are many Lays that deal with tragedies and the Fall of 
 Princes, ' sad stories of the deaths of kings ' being the subject of the 
 
 ' ^eaiOaKos in Strabo's corrupt text ; we prefer Segisdag (like Svipdag) to 
 Segithank ; for tAani (Norman Tancred) is seldom used as second element. 
 
 ^ Gripi of the Eddie Lay (C. P. i. 285) seems to be a priest, for Sigfred 
 comes to him to inquire about his future fate. 
 
 3 See Corp. Poet. i. Ixv. * lb. i. 329. ■' lb. i. 324, ii. 531. 
 
 ' lb. ii. 531, i. 315. 
 
1 6 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 bulk of them. And does not the true explanation of this pecu- 
 liarity appear in Strabo's words ? He tells of captive ladies sitting 
 together in the car of humihation. He speaks of Arminios' wife 
 and Deudorix [Theodric] as together in the conqueror's train. 
 Many a Teuton mercenary must have seen them pass ; we have 
 only to fancy one poetic mind among the prisoners or their sym- 
 pathetic beholders, and the fire would flash from the flint of fact 
 into the flame of poetry. It is not hard to believe that Lays such 
 as Tacitus speaks to as sung in his time, must have been provoked 
 by the sight which moved Strabo in the midst of his carefially com- 
 pressed scientific work to digress into full description. 
 
 The striking coincidence which has mixed up Theodric the East- 
 Goth with Theodric the Sugamber, and made the lord of Verona 
 one with the earlier captive of Ravenna, a confusion which popular 
 poetry would of course have raised between them, must not be 
 passed over. This earliest Theodric was no mean person ; he is a 
 chief of that fierce untameable race, which Horace and the Romans 
 of his day speak of with a kind of shuddering dread : feroces and 
 caede gaudenles, are the epithets the Augustan poet uses (Odes, 
 Bk. iv, written, as Professor Nettleship shows, about b.c. 15, when 
 the struggle with them was fresh news at Rome); and Ovid 
 (Am. i. 14), and later Martial (i. 3), uses Sugamber as a national 
 name, as we might say German. 
 
 In fact in the Theodric of Bern of later medieval tradition (such 
 as we find him in Wilkina Saga) there are mixed up a mythic 
 Theodric (upon whom we believe Professor Rhys will be able to 
 throw fresh hght), as well as two historical Theodrics of different 
 dates, tribes, and histories. The name was too much for the popular 
 historian : no doubt the Roman ballad-monger only knew one Scipio. 
 
 It is curious that the Excerptum Valesianum makes Theodric the 
 Ostrogoth ' son of Walamir,' while the Lamentation Lays and later 
 tradition only knew their Theodric as son of Theodmere\ This 
 too is susceptible of explanation. The Monumentum Ancyranum, 
 accessible to all in Mommsen's recent edition, supplies it. Where 
 Augustus speaks of the kings who came as suitors to him, ' sup- 
 plices ad me confugerunt,' he mentions a king of the Warcomanni 
 
 1 See Corp. Poet. i. 322, I. n ; Jordanes gives the traditional pedigree, and 
 it is possible he may be right. If so we have a pair of names, father and son, in 
 each pedigree. 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. XJ 
 
 and Suebi named — and here follows a blank in both texts, Greek 
 and Latin, with space in the Greek for thirteen letters, in the Latin 
 for nineteen. 
 
 MANQN I P02 nP02 EME HAPeON, etc. 
 
 while the parallel Latin runs 
 
 MANORVM SVEBORVM | ] HORVM. 
 
 These blanks just overlap, and from one we get help to fill the 
 other. We therefore, with all assurance, read in the first 
 
 MANQN 20YHBQN ^ POS HPOS EME HAPeON, 
 
 and in the other 
 
 MANORVM SVEBORVM RVS AD ME REX PARtJhORVM, 
 
 leaving a space of six letters in the Greek, five in the Latin, 
 -ros being all that remains of the King's name. We have to 
 start with — ia) a knowledge of the exact number of letters the name 
 took in both texts, eight in the Latin, nine in the Greek transcript : 
 {b) a certainty that tlie word we seek was a compound name of two 
 elements of the ordinary German type, the letters being too many 
 for a single monosyllable name : [c) the fact that the final letter 
 {^auslaui) of the second element was P. Let us take first the 
 latter element of the compound, which we can easily supply ; our 
 -mere gives it. We may therefore write in -MEP02 or -MAP02, and 
 gain two letters more. The only competitor, -here, -hart, it cannot 
 be, for, that would have given -PI02 or -PEIOS, and in that case not 
 p but I would be the first of om- three remaining letters. 
 
 But what is the first element of the compound, which must give 
 four letters in Greek and three in Latin ? Let us turn to Tacitus, 
 Germ. ch. 42, as Mommsen does, and there in a passage (drawn 
 from this very Monumentum in all probability, though not dkectly) 
 is a Marcoman king tvdrus. Now setting aside the ending -rus, 
 whence, by some accident (such as being at the end of a line 
 in the single archetype), two letters have fallen out, we may read 
 and restore Tud-merus. Tud-, as first element, is exactly what we 
 want ; being toy A- in Greek, tvd- in Latin. And thus we fill the 
 remaining blanks with 
 
 TOYAME or TOYAMA 
 
 and 
 
 TVDME or TVDMA. 
 
 ' Mommsen's transcript has here, by a slip of pen or printer, 8 dots instead 
 of but 6 (13-7 = 6). 
 
 C 
 
1 8 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 And here we have a king Theodmar or Theodmere, the very tra- 
 ditional name of Theodric's father, reigning over the Marcmen and 
 Suebi, at a time precisely fitting our chronological requirements. 
 It is this Theodmar that is given in the Eddie Song as the father 
 of Theodric, Tacitus says ' Down to a time within our own 
 knowledge, the Marcmen and Quads [who here take the place of 
 the Suebi] have had kings of their own race, the princely race of 
 Maroboduus and Tud . . rus.' Now this implies the kinship of 
 these two, and we are not surprised at the common element 
 ' -mere ' occurring in both, once as prefix, once as aflix. 
 
 Thus we now know the names of three successive kings of the 
 Swebian League, (i) Ariovistus, called 'rex Sueborum' by Nepos 
 his contemporary, (2) Theodmar, (3) Maroboduus. 
 
 It is worth digressing a moment here to notice the curious way 
 in which Teutonic names have reached us. We can distinguish 
 four stages : — 
 
 The first through the Celtic tongues ; e. g. Ariouistus, Germani 
 and other names, which reach us through Caesar. These names 
 come from an age when the Romans first knew the Teutons 
 through their Celtic neighbours. 
 
 The second from direct Roman sources in the poor Roman 
 orthography with its inadequate vowel-system. Such are all names 
 from the Drusus and Germanicus campaigns, and the following 
 times down through the Augustan Historians to the first thirty 
 books of Ammianus. Whether the authors of this time be Latin 
 or Greek makes no difference, the Greek gets his names from 
 Roman sources. He simply copies Latin inscriptions. Hence, 
 though Strabo had a good alphabetic system, which he could use, 
 he has never heard the actual Teuton words he sets down, and just 
 transliterates the Latin. For instance the Greek e would express 
 Teuton J), but as the Latins had only t to use for it, Strabo will 
 use a T, not his own e. So Dion's Xapio- (Book Ixvii. ch. i.) is simply 
 a transliteration of Latin Chario- : for it does not follow that the old 
 Teuton aspirate was the same as x. Strabo's and Dion's Seytcrr^r 
 is Latin Segestes ; though l^yi^Btvi would do better. 
 
 The Ihird stage is when Teuton names came through Greek 
 sources. It begins with the Teutoni- Gothic inroad on the Lower 
 Danube, and is the system followed by Ammianus (himself a Greek) 
 m his XXXIst Book, and all his successors, Procopios and the 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. I$ 
 
 rest. In them we have an adequate process of transliteration, and 
 a correcter representation. Such names as Alatheus (Amm. xxxi), 
 Theoderic, Theodegotha (Excerpt. Vales.), and many more, show 
 by what route they came. 
 
 A fourth stage is reached when we have Teutonic writers like 
 Jordanes and Paul and Bede writing their own native names ; when 
 at last we reach Charters in English and in Gothic, written by 
 Englishmen and Goths. 
 
 Even the transliteration of Teutonic names must be dealt with 
 historically if we would enable philology to be profitably applied to it. 
 
 Reverting for the last time to Strabo and his muster-roll of the 
 captives in the prisoners' car, we may still glean a few indications 
 of the persistency of history in tradition. We have spoken above 
 of Libes and Theodoric, let us turn to the women's names. — 
 For ' Ramis,' the name given to one of the captive ladies, one 
 would fain read ' Randis,' and identify its bearer with the Gold- 
 raond of the Lamentation Lays (C. P. i. 325, 1. 43). The name 
 is only found there in Northern poetry, and it is striking enough 
 to be preserved in popular song, especially as it is made to 
 alliterate with Grimhild. As we find no names in 'Gold-,' her 
 real name may have been Randwih, or the like. 
 
 It would not be right to pass over one difficulty. How is it that 
 we have not the name of Sigfred's wife rightly given in the Northern 
 Lays (for Strabo's ' Thousnelda,' as aforesaid, is to our mind a 
 scribe's mis-writing for ' Grimhilda'), while the German poems have 
 always preserved the right name ? Probably it was that confusion 
 with the Ermanaric cycle, noticed above, which mixed up the sor- 
 rowing mother of Swanhild with the woeful widow of Sigfred. 
 There is trace of the true name in the 'Grimhild' of l.he Lamentation 
 Lays, who is made a poisoness and witchwife like Saxo's Gudrun. 
 In a future edition of the Lamentation Lays, one would almost 
 be tempted to interchange Gudrun and Grimhild, and restore 
 Sigfred's wife her right name. 
 
 Such is a brief resume of the reasons which have led the 
 author to identify the Sigfred of tradition with the Arminius of 
 history. Separately none (save perhaps that of Cheruscus=Heorscr) 
 might be conclusive ; but taken together, it is submitted that they 
 make up a fair case, and one worth careful consideration. It is 
 
 c 2 
 
30 /. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. 
 
 impossible to answer in advance every objection that may be raised 
 to the view here set forth ; but there is one which one may foresee 
 and encounter at once. ' Why is it that Lays, which speak of Sig- 
 fred's death, and love, and birth, utter no word of his great victory ? 
 Should we not expect such an event to be made much of, if your 
 hypothesis be true?' Our answer must be, that it is not the 
 fame of Sigfred's victory (which, great as it was, cannot have 
 appeared to his contemporaries so important as it does to us, who 
 know its consequences) that would strike the popular poet; it 
 would be his ' tragedy,' that irony of fate, which never fails to call 
 forth the popular sympathy : for, the Muse of Song is rather the 
 Child of Pity than of Pride. It is not of the victor of Austerlitz, 
 or of Jena or of Marengo, that the poets have chosen to sing, 
 but of the exile of St. Helena, the ' desolator desolate ' : to them 
 the parting of Napoleon and Josephine is a finer motive for song 
 than that marriage with Marie-Louise, which, in his own idea, put 
 the apex on his glory. The sudden fall, the treachery of' kins- 
 men and comrades, the woe of the widow (twice widowed, first by 
 captivity, secondly by death) — these are the themes that were sung 
 by the poets who had seen the triumph of Germanicus, and sought 
 to perpetuate the fame of Sigfred. 
 
 History — bald, prosaic, half-blind history — does not, it is true, 
 look at great deeds as the poets do; and Gothe's words are only 
 true as far as the pedestrian muse goes : — 
 
 'Allein die Thr'inen, die unendlichen 
 Der Uberbliebnen, der verlassnen Frau 
 Zahlt keine Nachwelt, und der Dichter schweigt 
 Von Tausend durch-geweinten Tag und Nachten.' 
 
 But among those who looked to song and story for the history of 
 the past, the fame of ' King Hannibal ' (as an Icelandic story-book 
 calls him) and Duke Hector long eclipsed the glories of Scipio 
 and Achilleus. 
 
 The acceptance of our hypothesis would have some serious 
 effects : it would do away with a mass of sentimentalities that has 
 been poured out about ' Hermann,' ' Herman Schlacht,' in verse 
 and art. German patriotism must either go back to the real flesh 
 and blood man, as he was known to and described by chivalrous 
 enemies ; or, if she prefer to take a popular traditional view, she may 
 in the future look up to the hero of the Nibelungen Lied and the 
 
/. SIGFRED-ARMINIUS. %i 
 
 Eddie Lays as something more than a German Rama or Cuculain, 
 as a real national hero with a place in history and legend beside 
 Leonidas or Alexander. 
 
 Holding, as the author does, that such heroes of tradition as 
 Sigfred must have a human basis, it has been no irksome toil to 
 him to dig down to the foundations on which poetry has built 
 so lofty and lasting an edifice, and to have endeavoured to prove 
 that the Eddie Heroic Lays are historical, Fact and Fiction crossing 
 in them like warp and woof in a piece of tapestry. Sigfred takes 
 his proper place at the head of a long line of heroic kings 
 and leaders, who culminate in Charles the Great. Surely too it is 
 a distinct gain to be able to fix within certain limits of time and 
 space the origin of an epic cycle, so momentous to our race as are 
 the Lays of Sigfred. 
 
II. THE DETAILS OF THE DEFEAT 
 OF VARUS. 
 
 Superhiter contemptim conterit kgiones. 
 
 The defeat of Varus is an acknowledged turning-point of the 
 world's history; yet precisely how it came about has never been 
 very clearly set forth. In the course of re-reading lately the 
 classical historians who have treated of Arminius and the German 
 wars, the author was struck by certain expressions that seemed 
 to point to a peculiar mode of warfare being practised in early 
 Germany, which he was familiar with from notices in Scandi- 
 navian history. It is with this, as not altogether ungermane to the 
 subject of the first pages of this little pamphlet, that he now pro- 
 poses briefly to deal. 
 
 For a description of the defeat of Varus we must rely on Dio's 
 and Velleius' (for Florus is good for little) accounts, which, vague 
 as they are, yet give enough detail, when compared with Dio's earlier 
 account of Drusus' narrow escape, with Caesar's own veiy full 
 and clear description (twelve chapters long) of his dangerous and 
 hard-fought encounter with the Neruii, and with Livy's brief but 
 helpful narrative of L. Postumius' overthrow by the Boii in the Silua 
 Litana, B.C. 216, to put one on the right track. The conviction 
 gains upon one as one reads that on all these occasions the 
 Romans were met by the same tactics, which failed twice and 
 twice succeeded. They seemed to have failed against Caesar 
 simply because the Romans were so strong in numbers, Caesar 
 practically acknowledging that his four legions were almost hope- 
 lessly entangled in a position from which nothing but the opportune 
 succour of two fresh legions could have saved them. 
 
 There are luckily, both in the Icelandic Kings' Lives and the 
 later history of Sweden, passages which give some account 
 of Teutonic wood-warfare (called broti, fella broid), and explain, 
 from the side which Roman historians naturally could not take, 
 the exact strategy which was employed to check Caesar and Drusus, 
 and crush Postumius and Varus. 
 
//. DETAILS OF THE DEFEAT OF VARUS. 23 
 
 The classic accounts in Dio (Bk. liv. ch. 33 and Ivi. chs. 18 sqq.) 
 are well known; it is only necessary to quote here a few lines 
 from Livy xxiii. 24, which may be then set side by side with those 
 we shall cite from Scandinavian authorities. ' Silua erat uasta 
 — Litanam Galli uocabant — , qua exercitum traductunis erat. Eius 
 siluae dextra laeuaque circa uiam Galli arbores ita inciderunt, ut 
 immotae starent, momento leui impulsae occiderent. Legiones 
 duas Romanas habebat Postumius sociumque ab supero mari 
 tantum conscripserat, ut uiginti quinque milia armatorum in 
 agros hostium induxerit. Galli oram extremae siluae cum cir- 
 cumsedissent, ubi intrauit agmen saltum, tum extremas arborum 
 succisarum impellunt. Quae alia in aliam instabilem per se ac 
 male haerentem incidentes ancipiti strage arma uiros equos obrue- 
 runt, ut uix decem homines efFugerent.' 
 
 The best Icelandic passage comes from ' King Hacon's Life,' 
 written in Norway forty years after the events therein described, 
 which took place January 1225^: — 
 
 ' After this there came men to the King [Hacon] telling him 
 that the Werms had felled the forest in front of him, hard by the 
 church that is called New-kirk. Then the king sent forward 
 an hundred horsemen and bowmen, and when they came to the 
 broti [abattis, a defence of felled trees] they found but a few men 
 holding it, and soon drove them away. Then they cut through 
 the broti with poleaxes. And all the while the king had watch 
 kept, lest any onslaught should be made upon the flanks. And the 
 most of those that rode in the van with the king got through the 
 broti quickly. But afterwards men led their horses over the broti to 
 the part where it was thinnest. News was brought to the rear- 
 guard that the king had got through the broti and was fighting 
 the Werms. Then the mass of the host rushed forward to the 
 broti, and there arose a great tumult as the sledges got broken. 
 [It was winter and there were many sledges.J And when the 
 king heard the noise, he and his men [the van] thought that they 
 [in the rear] must be engaged, and turned back as fast as possible, 
 and there had wellnigh been a great mishap before the men [of 
 the two divisions] recognised each other.' 
 
 No passage could show better the danger of a broti even to a host 
 that passed through it unopposed. 
 
 ' Following the Scalholt-'book Text in my Rolls' Series Edition. 
 
2,4- IT. THE DETAILS OF 
 
 In Magnus Eilingsson's Saga (Fms. vol. vii. year 1 1 74), we are 
 told:— 
 
 'The Birch-legs [a Norwegian party nickname, made famous 
 by King Swerri] fought three pitched battles and won the victory 
 in all; but at Groke-shaw they came nigh to a mishap; for the. 
 Franklins gathered a mighty array against them. But the Birch- 
 legs felled them a broti, and then ran off into the forest.' 
 
 In 1 1 78, as King Swerri's Life reports : ' Earl Cnut was minded to 
 go after him into Werm-land; but the Werms upset his plan, for they 
 said that he should never have journeyed a worse journey, and felled 
 a hroti for him in the forest ; and so he had to turn back withal.' 
 
 .In the same year Swerri came to the Dales of Sweden, where 
 the good folk had never seen a king, and did not know ' whether 
 he was a man or a beast.' ' And when he came to larn-bera-land 
 [Iron-bear-Iand, the present Dalecarlia] there was a great gathering 
 of men against him. They felled a iroti against him, and said 
 that they were not used to have kings passing through their land, 
 and that they would not have it now. Then the king rode forth 
 to them, and talked with them, and the end of their parley was, 
 that they let him go where he would, and gave him all the further- 
 ance they could.' 
 
 So far the older authorities. We now come to more modem 
 evidence. There is a great and ancient tract of forest, called 
 Twi-wid [Twi-wood or Twin-wood, the parting wood] between 
 Sweden and Goth-land, on the neck that parts the lakes Wenern 
 and Wettem, where there must have been many a fight in- olden 
 days of heathendom between Sweons (Swedes) and Goths. In 
 1470 Christiem the First tried to take the Swedes in the rear by 
 breaking through upon them here, but the Swedes felled a hroti 
 in Twi-wood and repulsed him. 
 
 But the last time this old stratagem is described is a notable 
 one. Christiem the Tyrant's disciplined army, led by a Danish 
 nobleman, in which there were excellent mercenaries, Swiss and 
 Scots besides the king's own trained men, invades Sweden, attacks 
 the Swedes by the same road in the winter of 1520 (that annus 
 terribilis which led, however, to the following annus liberationis for 
 the Swedes). It looked as if the young commonwealth must 
 perish. In the words of the Chronicler Olaus Petri', 'The 
 ' In Dr. Klemming's Edition. 
 
THE DEFEAT OF VARUS. 25 
 
 Swedes had made a hroH there for them. On Candlemas Eve 
 King Christiern's people attacked the broH, and gat great scathe 
 there. Yet, at the last they were led round the Iroti and so over- 
 powered the Swedes, and beat them from their broti! The events 
 which followed this memorable fight, and the death of the brave 
 young Swedish Regent Sten Sture, interesting and important to 
 European history as they are, we must not stop now to dwell on. 
 It is lucky that the interest raised by this episode of the war was 
 sufficient to cause a sketch of the broti to be made in Gustaf 
 Wasa's day, and there is an engraving of it in Vittensk. Hist. 
 Ant. Acad. Hand. iii. 1793. 
 
 The description annexed gives a cleai: account of the formation 
 of a broti. It is made in -a forest of big trees (mere scrub or wild 
 ground will not do) across a road or pass by which the enemy's 
 army is expected to come, by felling a line of trees so that they 
 make a rough abattis. 
 
 Ennius' vigorous lines might describe the opening scene — 
 
 Incidunt arbusta peralta, securibu' caedunt, 
 percellunt magnas quercus, exciditur ilex, 
 fraxinu' frangitar atque abies constemitur alta, 
 pinus proceras peruortunt. 
 
 This line is manned by artillery (bowmen or the like) in front, and 
 on either side of it long flanking lines of felled trees stretch away 
 at a slight angle to prevent the abattis being turned. Along each 
 side of the road leading to the broti itself, a line of trees parallel 
 to the road is either cut down or better half cut through, in such 
 fashion that a small number of skilled woodmen could bring them 
 down in a few minutes, exactly as Livy describes it above. These 
 lines are of course manned directly the van of the enemy advances 
 towards the broti, and the engagement begins. At the signal 
 agreed on the falling of these trees closes the trap. The invaders 
 must either push on — and even if they carry the first broti across 
 their path, probably be pulled up by a second and third — or they 
 must retreat in confusion back through a narrow gorge lined by the 
 enemy's picked soldiers, blocked by the felled trees on all sides, 
 and pursued by the men who had manned the broti. If the 
 defensive force were but - enough in number to keep the flank 
 and parallel lines, once the enemy had got well engaged be- 
 tween the %\d&-brotis, his defeat was almost certain. The corrals 
 
a6 //. THE DETAILS OF 
 
 used on a large scale for big game, as to-day in Africa, must 
 no doubt have suggested the stratagem. The Romans were lucky 
 to have escaped twice. Do not let us join Augustus in blaming 
 the unhappy Varus, who was probably no worse than any other 
 average Roman officer of experience. Suppose some Neruian 
 spear had stricken Caesar, or half an hour's delay or less prevented 
 the timely arrival of the two legions that succoured him, we should 
 be told that Caesar was but another Catiline, a successful dema- 
 gogue but an inexperienced foolhardy general, who rashly courted 
 the fate that deservedly befell him. 
 
 The Romans met two natural phenomena in their German wars 
 which disconcerted and appalled them,— the Ocean, with its 
 apparently aimless and unaccountable tides and tempests, and the 
 Forest, dreadful, difficult, Hercyniae Syluae roborum uastitas intada 
 aevis et congenita mundo, as Pliny ' happily puts it; a forest of hard- 
 wood timber that covered all middle Germany from Heluetia to the 
 Elbe, that ran out in branches to the plains of Lithuania — where its 
 last remnants, shrunken but still marvellous, are to be seen — a 
 deep, dark, pathless barrier, covering hill and dale, river-plain, and 
 mountain slope, interrupted only here and there by swamp and 
 marsh where the springs stagnated among the fallen tree-trunks — 
 
 Siluarum saltus, latebras lamasque lutosas ; 
 
 while beyond these ' close, thick, dense, bush-topped unbroken im- 
 passable forests of the West,' as the Irish tale-teller calls them', 
 as beyond Ocean, lay the Unknown, peopled, yet centuries after- 
 wards, to the medieval imagination with ' gorgons and hydras, and 
 chimaeras dire.' We who only read of the green leagues of un- 
 broken woodland in South America, and of the vast spaces cleared 
 within this century by the lumberman and the settler in North 
 America, can form little idea of the impression this great wood 
 made on the Roman mind, and the actual difficulties it pre- 
 sented to an advancing army; for the American woods were 
 not manned by Cherusci, or Chatti, or Marcomanni, we must re- 
 member. 
 
 The fame of Arminius is not lessened by the fact that he was 
 not the discoverer or inventor of the plan that led Varus to his 
 destruction, but rather increased by the knowledge that it was to 
 
 ■ Plin. xvi. ch. -a. ' Battle of Ventry, Meyer; Oxford, 1885, 1. 830. 
 
THE DEFEAT OF VARUS. a; 
 
 his genius and perseverance, in uniting the warriors of different tribes 
 into a war-league sufficient to man the positions he had chosen 
 and made use of, we owe the defeat that set a bound beyond which 
 the eagle indeed again advanced, but the legionary never more. 
 
 Chronology of Arminius' History. 
 A. u.c. 
 738. Arminius bora. (Tacitus, Ann. Bk. ii. 88.) 
 
 741. M. LoUius' defeat, ' clades Lolliana.' 
 
 742. Drusus' First Campaign on Lower Rhine (Holland and Frisland). 
 
 Fleet co-operating caught by storm. (Dion, liv. 32.) 
 
 743. Drusus" Second Campaign in Cheruscan-land, route given by Dion 
 
 (liv. 33) by way of Lower Rhine, crossing Lippe, then marching 
 through the Sugambri into the land of the Cherusci, where he 
 is nearly defeated in the ' broti.' Establishment of large camps, 
 .one on R. Lippe (Lipsborg) near the sources of the Ems, a few 
 miles north of Soest, and one on M. Taunus near present Wies- 
 baden. (Dion, liv. 33.) 
 
 744. Drusus" Third Campaign, given by Dion, by the Southern Route, 
 
 starting from Wiesbaden, north-eastwards through Chatti 
 (Hessen), and thence striking upwards into the Cheruscan-land, 
 crossing the Weser, towards the Swabi (on the Elbe). (Dion, 
 Iv. I, and Florus.) 
 
 745. Drusus' death (Dion, Iv. i). Ten years of peaceful Roman sway 
 
 begin. (Flor. il. 30, § 27-28.) 
 
 746. (? ommsen) Maelo the Sugamber king and Theodmere the Swebian 
 
 king seek refuge with Augustus, ad me supplices confugerunt 
 (Mon. Ancyr.) 
 
 747. Tiberius on the Rhine (Velleius). 
 
 748. Tiberius sent to Rhodes. 
 
 754. A. D. I. 
 
 755. Rising in Germany (Vellei. ii. 104). End of ten years of peace, 
 
 Arminius probably serving with the Romans. 
 
 757. Tiberius" First Campaign (in which Velleius serves) in the Cheruscan- 
 
 land, encamping for the winter, 757-8, at the sources of the Lippe 
 (Lipp-spring). (Vellei. ii. 105). 
 
 758. Tiberius" Second Campaign (in which Velleius serves), with co- 
 
 operation of fleet starting from the Rhine mouths and sailing 
 up the Elbe to meet the army (at Magdeburg ?). (Vellei. ii. 106, 
 Mon. Ancyr.) 
 
 759. Tiberius' Third Campaign against Maroboduus, frustrated by the 
 
 rising in Pannonia. (Vellei. ii. 109.) 
 759-761. Varus in Germany among the Cherusci. (Vellei. ii. 117, and Dion, 
 Ivi. 18.) 
 762. The Varus Catastrophe ; 17th, i8th, and 19th Legions with tiiree 
 wing squadrons and six cohorts were put to the sword. (Dion, Ivj. 
 J9-J3 ; Vellei. ii. 117-120 ; Flor. ii. 30.) 
 
28 //. DETAILS OF THE DEFEAT OF VARUS. 
 
 767. Augustus dies. Tiberius succeeds. Germanicus on the Rhine. 
 
 768. Germanicus First Campaign in rtvtngeoiVaras. Anninius' queen 
 
 and other noble Teuton ladies fall by treachery into the hands of 
 the Romans. (Tac. Ann. i. 58, 59.) Caecina at Teutoburg. Battle 
 with Anninius. (Tac. Ann. i. S9-61.) Thoumelicns bom in 
 captivity. 
 
 769. Germanicus' Second Campaign. Battle on the Weser. Wreck of the 
 
 Roman Armada. (Tac. Ann. ii. 18-25.) Tiberius recalls 
 Germanicus. 
 
 770. May 26. Germanicus'' triumph at Rome. (Tac. Ann. iL 41 ; Strabo, 
 
 vii. ch. 4. etc.) Livy dies, writing up to the last, but ending his 
 main work at the year 745. 
 770 or 771. Strabo writes Bk. VII of his Geography. 
 771-772. Arminius wages war with Maroboduus. (Tac. Ann. ii. 45, 46.) 
 
 772. Germanicus dies. (Tac. Ann. ii. 72.) 
 
 773. Maroboduus, defeated by Anninius, yields himself up to Tiberius 
 
 and becomes a Roman state-prisoner. Tiberius' oration in the 
 Senate (exstat oratio), whence Tacitus draws his account on the 
 Swebian king. (Tac. Ann. ii. 62, 63.) 
 
 774. Arminius treasonably slain by his kinsfolk, after twelve years' rule. 
 
 (Tac. Ann. u. 88.) 
 776. Pliny the Elder, the author of 'Bella Germaniae',' bom. 
 783. Paterculus writes his History. 
 791. Ludibrium, end of Thoumelicos'. Maroboduus dies? (Tac. Ann. 
 
 i- 58.) 
 851. Tacitus writes Germania. 
 c. 863. Tacitus compiles the first books of the Annals, using Pliny's work, 
 Teuton Camp-songs, Acta Senatns, and many other sources. 
 
 ' Pliny Ep. iii. 5; Tac. Ann. i. 69. Nominis umbra is, however, all that 
 remains of what must have been an important work. 
 
 ^ Thoumelicos is Tpienjs on May 26, 770, yet he cannot have been more than 
 two years and two or three months old, unless (which is not impossible) his 
 mother was captured in the autumn of 767. The fate of the boy, and the Itddi- 
 brium (whatever the details') strangely recall the story of Philip, eldest son 
 of William the Silent, as told by Motley. 
 
III. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 
 
 HlaMnir v6ro peir hsoWa oc hvUra skialda, 
 Vigra Vestrmnna oc Valscra suerda. 
 
 In the Corpus Poeticum arguments were brought forward to 
 show the western origin of certain groups of the Eddie songs. 
 At the time these were urged, it was rather with the northern 
 islands of the great British group that we were dealing, the 
 Hebrides, Orkneys, Man, and the Hke ; but it cannot be denied that 
 there are in one section of the Eddie Lays certain romantic sunny 
 characteristics, which seem alien to those northern latitudes ; and 
 we have lately hit upon an explanation, which, we hope, will 
 enable us to fix the geography of just this section. 
 
 In the preceding paper (I) it has been shown that traditions of 
 Old Saxony of the Cheruscans and Hesfeians have been trans- 
 planted into Northern Lays, snatches of old South Teutonic song 
 thus being preserved by Scandinavian poets of the Wickingtide. 
 How this was may be accounted for by the mixed crews and 
 wandering career of the great Wicking fleets, which plundered and 
 settled along the coasts from lom to Limerick. . The word ' Edda ' 
 of a Genealogic Lay, occurring precisely where in Old Teutonic 
 continental tradition we find Mother Earth, ' Erda,' has been noticed 
 in the Corpus Poeticum (ii. 514-15). 
 
 But we get traces of the more western wandering of the great 
 fleets in the phrases of Hoarbeard's Lay — 
 
 I was in Gaul warring, 
 
 and in the mention of 'the sons of Hlodwy' (Corp. Poet. i. 153, 
 1. 32), Hlodwih being a Frank name. 
 
 The group of poems, which of all others is most distinctly 
 southern in character, and marked off from the rest by peculiar 
 forms of thought and incident, is that which we have called, by 
 the name of the heroes it celebrates, the Helgi Lays. (Corp. Poet. 
 Bk. III.) Are there any traces by which we can fix their locale ? 
 
30 ///. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 
 
 We think so. In their ' Warinsey ' we see Guernsey. In Warins- 
 wick(p. 153,1. 42), Warinsfiord(p. 134, 1. 103), the first part of the 
 name is repeated and emphasized as it were. It has long been 
 known that the nomenclature of the Channel Islands is largely 
 Northern. The very shoals and rocks bear Norse names. That 
 Warinsey itself is merely a ' Normannization ' of an older local 
 name is very likely, but the termination ' -ey ' is distinctly Norse, 
 and the whole name as it stands is Northern in form. 
 
 The roll of islands in the great naval expeditions of the Wicking- 
 tide is immense. The Orkneys, from Man, from the Holms, from 
 Thanet, they used as their depots, their magazines, their advance 
 posts whence they could dash out when they pleased upon the 
 defenceless mainlands. It was from the Channel Islands, we doubt 
 not, that Normandy was conquered by the Northmen; as it was from 
 Sheppey, Thanet, and these same islands, that the earlier Wicking- 
 tide of the Saxons flowed upon Britain and Gaul. The Saxon 
 settlement at Bayeux is the clear result of these earlier Teutonic 
 armadas, the history of which is repeated in the Scandinavian 
 invasions. 
 
 The Warins-firth of the poems we should take to be the Sound 
 between the Islands, and Warins-wick to be the great gulf or 
 bay which lies between the Cotentin and the Brittany coast. In a 
 wider sense, Warins-firth might even stand for the whole Channel. 
 Channels are a characteristic feature of the British Isles. The 
 Northern Wicking, in lack of a better word, designated them by 
 fiords {firths) ; thus they call Petland's firth, i. e. the firth of Pictland, 
 Fri9areyiar-fiord or Fairhill-firth, i. e. the channel between Shetland 
 and Orkney. West-fiord is the channel between the northern and 
 southern group of the Orkneys ; Scotlands-fiord the Minch. So the 
 Channel appears in the Irish tales as the Sea of Wight, the Iccian 
 Sea. 
 
 Hata-fiord [Hate's firth] unidentified elsewhere, should probably 
 be looked for in this quarter. It may mean the narrow seas between 
 Dover and Calais. lorua-sound again is a suspicious-looking name, 
 rather too like the better known Niorua-sound [Gibraltar Straits] 
 to be quite safe. 
 
 The sudden furious gale described in the Lay (11. 80-122, 198- 
 207) would well befit the ' chops of the Channel,' as an old sailor 
 once told the writer, ' a sou'wester there is the worst of all gales.' 
 
///. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 31 
 
 The sudden storm that fell upon the invading fleet of the ' King 
 of the World ' in this very place in the Irish tale of the Battle 
 of Ventry, is curiously analogous to the storm in our Helgi 
 Layi. 
 
 The isle of Warinsey occurs only in these poems", there is no 
 other place bears the name; and this is noteworthy. There are 
 not wanting slight traces of what look to be other place-names 
 in the Channel Archipelago. Ships lie out in ' Sogn.' (1. 204). 
 Saigne Bay in Sark would be the natural identification (rather 
 than the river Seine). Twice too in corrupt lines we light on the 
 syllable 'Herm': 
 
 Me8 hevmdar hug her k6nnu8u [1. 122]. 
 and 
 
 Hui es hermdar litr a Hniflungum [1. 197]. 
 
 In neither line is there any right sense ; we suspect a place- 
 name to be hidden beneath, and should not be surprised if the 
 lines originally ran somewhat in this way : — Af HermSar haug 
 her konnudu, i.e. They mustered the fleet from the hummock 
 (howe) of Herm : and perhaps, though diffidently — Hui es Hermd 
 hult af Hniflungum, i.e. Why is (the isle of) Herm all alive with 
 men ? which would then be the speech of one in the fleet, spying 
 the host on shore. 
 
 The vivid picture in the Helgi Lays of the muster of the 
 mighty fleet, fragmentary as it is, admirably suits these islands, 
 which no doubt must have witnessed again and again in the 
 Wicking days great gatherings of heathen armadas about to set forth 
 to the Seine, the Thames, and the Shannon. No place in the 
 whole Western Geography is better fitted for such a purpose than 
 the sound, ' lorua-sound,' between Guernsey and the islets of Herm 
 and Sark. On the high hummocks above the present St. Peter's 
 port the kings may have stood and watched the vessels sail by in 
 order, precisely as in the poem. That such musters should form 
 an incident in a Wicking poem was but to be expected. 
 
 There is in the famous and beautiful scene at Swold in king 
 Olaf Tryggwason's Saga, told in Snorri's finest way' (a scene which 
 
 ^ There are many Northern sea-words in this part of the tale. K. Meyer 
 notes beirliiig, but there are also bord, as, stagh, tili [filjor], and others. 
 ' Helgi Lay, 1. 154. ^ See Icel. Reader, p. 164. 
 
32 ///. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 
 
 we cannot but feel is epic not historical), an echo of such a poem 
 as our Helgi Lay. Nay, it may even be that this scene was 
 taken from this very poem we have in so maimed a condition, 
 the adapter knowing the original in its complete form. In it 
 we are shown the three kings standing on an island and watching 
 their foeman's ships pass one by one, each more stately and 
 splendid than its foregoer, before the battle that they had plotted 
 and planned for. The lustre that is shed over King Trygg^vason 
 just before his tragic fate, the words of wonder and scorn that 
 are spoken, all these are epic material, drawn from an epic source, 
 and admirably fitted to the subject the historian was treating. 
 
 One interesting point may be noted in this connection. The 
 Islands off the Celtic lands were the haunt of the wise men and 
 women of the old, probably prse-aryan, druidic religion, the lair of 
 the medicine-men and witches, who are spoken of by the Roman 
 historians and in the Irish legends. There are many megalithic 
 remains in the Channel Islands. Heathendom died hard there; 
 not the British saints, not the Frankish emissaries of the great 
 Charles himself could have entirely uprooted the older belief. The 
 Kaiser had no fleet. We might expect to find in these Helgi Lays, 
 if anywhere, a mention or two of the strange superstitions, new 
 to the sturdy Northern pirates, who like the Elizabethan sailors 
 of a later day, half mocked, half believed in the tmhallowed rites 
 of the new nations they came across. 
 
 Thou wert a sibyl in Guernsey 
 Deceitful hag, setting lies together, 
 
 says Sinfitela in his flyting' — and the allusion would fit a half- 
 heathen witch-wife such as ' set lies together ' on the blasted heath 
 and lured Macbeth to murder and death. She would have sold 
 winds and given oracles to the Wickings, whom she would certainly 
 be as ready to deal with as with her Christian countrymen. 
 
 Mela, the Spanish-Roman geographer, writing twenty-five years 
 after Strabo, exactly at the time Claudius was in Britain *, gives a 
 passage which has, we believe, a very direct bearing upon the poems 
 of the Wicking-tide, and the connection of certain of these poems 
 with the coast of Gaul. 
 
 Insula Sena, he says, in Briitannico mari, Ostsmicis aduersa 
 • Helgi Lay, 154-55. " Mela, iii. 6 ; Dio, Ix. 23. 
 
///. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 33 
 
 litoribus, Gallict numinis oraculo insignis est, alius antisHtes,perpetua 
 uirginitate sanctae, numero nouem esse iradunlur. Barigenas (or 
 Bargenas) uocant, putantque ingeniis singularibus praeditas, mari 
 ac uenlos concUare carminibus, seque in quae uelint animalia uertere, 
 sanare quae apud alios insanabilia sunt, scire uentura et praedicare : 
 sed non nisi deditas nauigantibus, et in id tantum, ut se consukrent, 
 pro/ectis. 
 
 With this passage it is worth comparing several of the more 
 striking verses of the Helgi Lays, and of these poems which (for rea- 
 sons given elsewhere) we have ascribed to a ' Western Aristophanes,' 
 relating to mysterious half-human half-supernatural Walcyries, riding 
 through the air in groups of nine, acting as guardian angels to 
 sailors, who come to heal wounded wickings, and who have the 
 knowledge of dreams, the power of stilling as well as of raising 
 tempests. 
 
 In the Lay of Atli and Rimegerd (58-61), for instance, one notes 
 the lines, 
 
 Hina viltu heldr, Helgi, es re8 hafnir sco9a 
 
 fyrri nott 'med firom' 
 'margollin' mser mer {jotti afli bera, 
 
 her ste hon land af legi 
 
 oc festi sii y&am flota : 
 Hon ein J)vi veldr .... 
 
 which we may render, ' Thou wouldst rather have her, Helgi, who 
 was watching on the haven last night . . . maid, who overbore me ; 
 she landed here from the water, and moored your fleet. It is her 
 power alone withholds me from killing the king's crew.' And the 
 hero answers, 
 
 Vas su ein v^ttr es barg aa31ings scipom, 
 e&a foro J)ser fleiri saman? 
 
 ' Was it one being alone that took care of my ships, or were they 
 more together ? ' 
 
 j>rennar niundir meyja: {)6 reitS ein fyrir 
 
 hvit iind hialmi masr, 
 marir hristosc : st68 af msouom J)eirra 
 
 djogg i diupa dala 
 
 hagl i hava vi8o, 
 
 }>a8an coemr me3 aildom ar. 
 
 ' Three nines [groups of nine] of maids,' comes the answer, ' but 
 one rode foremost, a white maid enhelmed. When their steeds 
 
34 III- PLACE OF THE HELGI LA VS. 
 
 reared they shook from their manes dew into the deep dales, hail 
 upon the high woods, thence come fair seasons among men.' 
 
 The curious 'margoUin,' which we cannot explain in the old 
 Northern tongue, recalls the Celtic mur-gelt, a mermaid or sea- 
 being. 
 
 Again, in the Cara Lay, there is a Walcyrie flying to meet the 
 hero, and astonishing him by her knowledge. Helgi asks her how 
 she knows him. She answers — 
 
 Leit-ec {)ic um sinn fyrr a lang-scipom 
 t>a-es Jjii byg8ir . . . bl68ga stafiia, 
 oc lir-svalar unnir leco. 
 
 ' I saw thee time ago on the war-ships when thou . . . hadst thy 
 quarters at the bloody bows, and the ice-cold waves played about 
 thee.' 
 
 In the Sigrun Lay, after the great gale which is so finely 
 described, ' when the sister of Kolga [the wave] and the long keels 
 came together, it was as if the surf were breaking against the rocks,' 
 what time ' the fast following seas kept tryst upon the hulls, and 
 Eager's dreadful daughter strove to whelm the forestays of the 
 helm-horses [ships]. But battle-bold Sigrun from on high saved 
 them and their craft. By main strength the king's brine-steed was 
 wrested out of Ran's hands off Cliff-holt, and that night the fair- 
 found fleet rode safe once more in Unisvoe.' Again at the battle 
 ■SX Wolf-rock the Walcyrie comes to comfort her hero. ' And now 
 the Helmed Wight that watched over him came down from heaven.' 
 But she is not all-powerful, for Fate may break her spells. ' Thou 
 canst not give good hap in all things . . . thou being, and I think 
 that some of this is the Fates' doing [not thine].' 
 
 Here we have the romantic picture of these beings who were 
 guardians to the Wicking princes, saving them, healing them, 
 devoting themselves to them. There is a difficulty, as has been 
 said, in men taking true views of women. There are women-saints 
 to worship, so there are women to loathe — hags, and witches, and 
 ogresses. And much depends upon the spectator's point of view 
 whether a given feature looks fair or foul. So we must be prepared 
 in this Wicking-poetry to get the adverse view of such beings ; and 
 it is in Hoarbeard's Lay we find it. Here in the comic dialogue 
 between Woden and Thunder, Thunder tells how he ' smote the 
 
///. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 35 
 
 giant brides in Lear's-ey\ for they had wrought wickedness, cheat- 
 ing all people.'" ' That was a shameful deed of thine, Thor 
 (replies Hoarbeard), to beat women.' Thor says — 
 
 Vargynjor ^at voro en varla konor, 
 skelldo skip mitt es ec skorSat hafda, 
 oegSo mer iam-lurki, en ellto |>ialfa. 
 
 which one might render — 
 
 ' Nay, Bargenae they were '^ [for she-wolves does not give complete 
 sense], but hardly women. They battered my boat which I had 
 beached, they threatened me with the iron rod, and hunted my man 
 Delve.' One can see the comic rage of some northern privateer- 
 skipper of the 9th century, who, having paid dearly for a breeze, 
 did not get it, but on the contrary suffered from head-winds and 
 sharp gales, so that his boat was knocked about even in her dock, 
 makes up his mind to give the witches a good thrashing, and pay 
 them out for his losses and their ill-usage of him. 
 
 Such superstitions prevailed, as is well known, till very late in 
 Great Britain, in the debased form in which they occur in -Macbeth 
 and the Tempest in literature, and in fact in the well-known record 
 of the trials of the Fife witches. 
 
 That the doctrine of metempsychosis is mentioned in the Helgi 
 Lays, and furnishes the key to the plot of that trilogy, is certainly 
 not without significance'. Pythagoras' theory is not, as far as we 
 can tell, a Teutonic belief. It must have been borrowed from 
 some 'magus' or ' maga' of Gaul or Britain, where, as we know, 
 it was held as a basis for religious ideas. 
 
 ' The islands in those Lays are all, we suppose, to be looked for off the coast 
 of Brittany, and the Loire and Garonne. Could any of these be identified? 
 |)oUey, Brandey, Rad-ey, Hlessey, HeSinsey, &c. 
 
 " i.e. 'witches they were, not women.' In 'Vargynjor' we discern the 
 old word, given by Mela — catching (as is the wont of ' folk-etymologies ') 
 at the nearest word in sound in the Noise language. The word seems to 
 survive in the modem French baragouin= gibberish, see Ducange. A 14th 
 century Frenchman says, ' No baragouin am I, but as good a Christian as any 
 one of you.' And at the famous and fateful meeting of Pantagruel and 
 Panurge, the former, on hearing the latter's speech in good High Dutch, 
 answers — ' Mon ami, je n'entends poinct ce baragouin, pourtant si vous voulez 
 qu'on vous entende, parley aultre language.' Baraguena may indeed have been 
 Mela's original form; it suits both French baragouin and Norse Vargynja 
 best. 
 
 ' See Corp. Poet. ii. 528, where this belief is scorned;, the Norsemen did 
 not apparently believe in it. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ///,. PLACE OF THE HELGI LAYS. 
 
 That such an event as the Conquest of Normandy should 
 have left no trace in tradition would surely be strange ; if the 
 theory, here set forth briefly, be accepted, we have in some of the 
 most beautiful and characteristic of the Eddie Songs a romantic 
 record of the great fleets that held their tryst in the Channel 
 Islands, before Sigfred led them to the siege of Paris and Hrodulf 
 to the conquest of Neustria. 
 
 The place and circumstance alike recall the well-known lines 
 which one is happy to quote here as worthy peers to those of the 
 old northern Maker. 
 
 La flotte se deploie en bon ordre de marche, 
 £t, les vaisseaux gardant les espaces fixes, 
 Echiqnier de tillacs, de ponts, de mats dresses, 
 Ondnle sur les eanx comme tine immense claie: 
 Ces vaisseaux sont sacr^s, les flots leur font la haie, 
 Les courants pour aider ces nefs a d^barqner 
 Ont leur besogne a faire et n'y sauraient manqner; 
 Autour d'elles la vague avec amour deferle 
 L'ecueil se change en port, I'ecume tombe en perle. 
 
 Sont-ce des cormorans? Sont-ce des citadelles? 
 Les voiles font un vaste et sourd battement d'ailes. 
 L'eau gronde, et tout ce gronpe enorme vogue et fait 
 Et s'enfle et roule avec un prodigieux bruit'. 
 
 For since the Poet of the Helgi Lays watched that sound, dark 
 with the sails and hulls of the Wicking fleet, a thousand years 
 passed, and on the self-same spot where he must have stood, 
 another Poet took his stand and celebrated in song that will not 
 die the sea-girt rocks where he found a refuge in his self-chosen 
 exile from tyranny at home. 
 
 It is not every group of islands famous in history that has had 
 the good fortune to harbour two such singers as he of the Helgi 
 Lays and Victor Hugo. 
 
 G. V. 
 
 June lo, 1885. 
 ' La Rose de I'Infante. Cf. Helgi Lay, 11. 80-122, 198-207. In his very 
 Will the French poet acknowledges his debt to the Sea that sheltered and 
 mspired him. 
 
IV. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 
 
 Hgll sd peir Gotna oc hlitS-skialfay Danpar. 
 
 Unlike the epic poetry of Greece or France, the old Eddie Lays 
 cover a vast field both in time and space. In the Collection of 
 them are not only to be found the Lamentation Lays, that first rung 
 on the Rhine and Lippe, and represent the middle Teuton stock ; 
 but there are the Helgi Lays, far to the west, born on board 
 those Wicking fleets that carried the Northmen as far as Spain 
 and Africa ; while in the east the Lays of the Ermanaric and the 
 Aitila cycles point to the spot where, on the borders of Europe, 
 the first Gothic Empire rose. 
 
 It was while musing over an unintelligible line in the Hamtheow 
 Lay, after the paper on Arminius was written and in type, that the 
 writer got an emendation which, while making the line clear and 
 reasonable, at the same time coincides with other passages to show 
 that the first seat of the Gothic Empire of Ermanaric was not for- 
 gotten in the mouths of the epic poets of his race. 
 
 The line, in Corp. Poet. i. p. 56, runs : — 
 
 Hgll sa {)eir Gotna oc, hli8-scialfar diupa. 
 
 The curious word ' skialf ' was explained already in the dic- 
 tionary as 'shelf; hence ' hliS-skialf ' would mean 'the shelf ox 
 terrace of a hill-side (hlfS) '; ' diupa' (dfvpa R) is manifestly a place- 
 name. _ Change a couple of strokes, and the line reads — 
 
 Hgll sa feir Gotna oc hliS-scialfar Danpar'. 
 i. c. They saw the halls of the Goths and the terraced banks of Danpar 
 (i. e. the R. Dnieper). 
 
 And this ' Danpar ' is a legitimate form ; for in the Old iMy of 
 Atlila comes the passage — 
 
 wide Gnite-heath . .- ., and Danpar-steads 
 the famous forest men call Mirk-wood. 
 
 ' A scribe's error (not from the ear) : the a faint, looking like an /; n = u 
 ■and ar written in ope ; a- slight hook at the top is ofteii the sole distinction 
 between ar and a : hence for danpar the scribfe read divpa, meaning diupa 
 (deep) — the nearest word that gave some sort of sense. 
 
38 IV. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 
 
 Again, in the Lay of Hlod and Angantheow, it is said that Heidric 
 owns — 
 
 that famous Forest that hight Mirk-wood, 
 
 that holy Grave that stands in Goth-theod [Goth-land], 
 
 that famous Rock that stands in Danpar-steads. 
 
 In the Lay of Rig the prophetic bird (a crow in this instance) 
 says that 
 
 Dan and Danp own halls of price, 
 A prouder heritage than ye have. 
 
 Here the genealogist of the West has evidently interpreted the 
 river-names, which occurred in the old poems he knew, as heroic 
 names, and turned the Don and the Dnieper into mythic ancestors 
 of his Con the young, the first of kings. Don-stead and Dnieper- 
 stead were evidently the oldest place-names he knew; and in 
 giving them he was right, for they are among the most exact 
 notices of the earliest German Empire that tradition has preserved. 
 There is also, we believe, a confusion between these names and 
 the mythical heroes, Dan, Halfdan, etc., to whom the Danish 
 kings and nobles were traced by their Encomiasts. The name 
 Danp, used of a man, is never found save in this poem and in 
 Ari's paraphrase in Ynglinga, ch. 20, traced from it Danp 
 is no more a person of real tradition than Drott, in the same 
 genealogy ; both are mere inventions of the author of Rig's Lay. 
 
 Having read and translated the line as above, we find that it 
 refers to a place in the East of Europe on the ' Danpar ' where 
 the Goths had a capital, which ' Danpar ' we naturally identified 
 with Jordanes' 'Daniper' the modern 'Dnieper,' as Munch has 
 already noticed *. 
 
 But could the exact place be fixed? The indications of the poems 
 — themselves ruins and bits of broken-up songs — are but few. 
 
 • ' Quorum mansionem primam in Scythiae solo iuxta paludera Meotidem, 
 secundo in Mysia [Moesia] Thraciaque et Dacia, tertio supra mire Ponticum 
 rursus in Scythia legimus habitasse.' Jord. ch. 5. 
 
 And of the Huns who marched vrith them, he says — *eas partes Scythiae . . . 
 quas Danapri amnis fluenta praetermeant, qnam lingua sua [Gothic, probably, 
 though the passage looks as if it were ffunnish] Huniuar appellant." ch. 52. 
 
 'Daniper autem ortus grandi palude, quasi ex matre profunditnr.' ch. 5. 
 
 'A Borysthene amne quam accolae Daniprum uocant.' ch. 5. 
 
 Thus far Jordanes, sufficiently to identify Danaper and lie Danpar of the 
 Eddie Lays ; where, by the way, the word only occurs in a genitive position, as 
 if ar were a genitive case, whereas in fact it is radical — Danpar-stead, not 
 Danp-stead. 
 
IV. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 39 
 
 If a central ancient town on the Dnieper is to be found it is 
 certainly Kiyev. When I read the vivid description of M. Rdclus, 
 was delighted to find the very characteristics brought out which 
 my hypothesis required. 
 
 It is an old and holy place — and pilgrims, we may suppose, 
 journeyed to the ' Famous Rock ' and ' Grave ' of the poems as they 
 journey now to the relics. The hill, which the ' Lavra ' now occu- 
 pies, must always have been a notable spot — fit capital for Giferic 
 or Ermanaric. There are the terraced banks above the stream — exact 
 ' hli6-skialfar.' 'La terrasse qui se dresse de 100 a 130 metres au- 
 dessus du fleuve, sur les pentes des collines et la lisifere de terrains 
 qui s'^tend a leur base, est d' environ 50 kilometres carres . . . Chacun 
 des quartiers a sa physionomie particulifere. En bas Podol, voisine 
 du fleuve, est la ville du commerce et de 1' industrie ; elle occupe 
 dans une vaste ^chancrure du plateau, la partie mdridionale de la 
 plaine dans laquelle la Potchai'na vient s'unir au Dnepr, et que 
 domine au nord la colline de Vfchgorod, oil saint Vladimir avait son 
 harem. Au sud de Podol, le plateau, d^coup^ par trois profonds 
 ravins perpendiculaires a la direction du fleuve, se rapproche des 
 berges et ses escarpements finissent par se confondre avec elles. 
 Les ravins divisent ainsi la ville en quartiers distincts. De tous ces 
 promontoires qui se succfedent du nord au sud, le troisifeme se ter- 
 mine le plus fibrement au-dessus du fleuve et sur la pointe mSme se 
 dresse . . . I'^glise de St. Andr^ . . . ; puis au delk vient Petchersk, pro- 
 montoire meridional o£t s'^lbvent le monastbre et le groupe d'dglises 
 de la Lavra, considdrd comme le lieu saint par excellence de la 
 Russie, parce qu'il domine I'endroit oii furent baptises les premiers 
 Russes.' 
 
 And the geographer goes on to tell how this hill is an old and 
 holy burial-place, where are caverns which palaeolithic man already 
 inhabited, and which were enlarged by hermits, and finally became 
 sacred catacombs. He notes that this city — the Kioaba, or Sam- 
 batas of Constantine Born-to-the-purple, and the Man-Kerman of 
 the Tartars — is one of the cities of Europe which are marked out 
 beforehand by their position as the necessary centres of gravity of 
 history. Its excellent site ; its proximity to the three regions of 
 wood, blackland, and steppe ; its river ; the easy approach from 
 North, East or West, — all mark it as a fit spot for a market, a 
 sanctuary, a stronghold. It was long the centre of Early Russian 
 
40 /v. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 
 
 dominion, and was the rival of Constantinople ; and it was especially- 
 well suited to be the centre of such a congeries of kingdoms as 
 Emanaric ruled — a Napoleonic empire, built up of heterogeneous 
 materials ; and, in both cases, the cement binding them never had 
 time to set. Within this first Teutonic Empire were Tchuds 
 (Esthonians etc.), Slavs (as Munch shows), Scyths (if the text be 
 correct) as well as the Goths. This second Alexander, as he was 
 fitly called, held sway from the sandy lake-pitted shores of the Baltic 
 over the black lands (' uberes agri,' Ammianus calls them) of Russia, 
 down to the river deltas of the Black Sea coast, and from the 
 Carpathians (' Harvada-fiaoUom ' of our Lays) to the Eastern steppes. 
 
 The scanty evidence of the classic historians confirms the cen- 
 tring of Ermanaric's empire about the middle Dnieper. Procopios 
 says that the Goths came from beyond the Danube ; Ammianus 
 tells how they were driven westward by the pressure of Alans and 
 Huns, and how their first Empire was broken up ; while Jordanes 
 (drawing often from native sources), sketches the fortunes of the 
 Goths down to the foundation of their dominion by Giferic, who 
 plays Philip to his successor's Alexander. Jordanes then gives 
 a ' catalogus ' of the nations under Ermanaric's sway. 
 
 It is easy on such maps as those in R^clus' Geography (a 
 book which one never reads without admiration and gratitude) 
 to trace the steps of their journey. They must have come along the 
 route that crosses the neck between the Black and Baltic seas, while 
 Eygota-land (Isle of Gothland), and East and West Gotland mark 
 their northern starting-point. The Goths and their fellow tribes, 
 Wandals and the like, represent a South Eastern migration from 
 Scandinavia (which enables us to understand earlier and later move- 
 ments of the same character); as the Danes, Saxons, Swabians are the 
 living monuments of a South Western march, and the English and 
 Wicking setdements (like those of our days) of a Western exodus '- 
 
 The slight differences which may be seen between the forms and 
 accidence of Wulfila's Gothic as compared with those of the early 
 Runestones and the parent vocables which we can infer from 
 High, and Low German, show that the Gothic emigration could not 
 
 ' Granting that the Germans (as we hold) in no very remote time came out 
 of Scandinavia. In the following remarks we distinguish between Gi;//w (i.e. 
 Teutons east of the Hyrcanian Fotest) and Germans (Teutons west -and nbrth 
 of that same Forest). 
 
IV. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 41 
 
 have been very many centuries earlier than the English one, and 
 confirm the historians who make Giferic the first imperial ruler. 
 
 There are a few Gothic words which we can trace to this short- 
 lived empire of Ermanaric, found in the scanty stock which Wulfila 
 furnishes, such as the non-Greek p-words, all loan words : ' Ai{)ei,' 
 which has been repeatedly declared to be Teutonic because it is 
 found in Old High German and in the Old Northern Thulor — ' ei5a 
 heitir m66er' says the Thulor list (C.P. B. ii. 543); and once again 
 in the spurious epic poetry, manufactured by the help of these lists, 
 Corp. Poet. B. ii. 547, 1. 7 ; and, lastly, in Snorri's hyper-artificial 
 poem on the 'metres.' Naw these Thulor are of 12th century 
 manufacture ; they contain words of all origins, Basque, Fin, Slav, 
 Greek, Latin, English, French, as well as Old Northern ; they were 
 gradus lists for the use of those who composed verse in the com- 
 plex court-metres, and who needed the biggest obtainable variety of 
 synonyms for such simple words as mother , father , man, woman, etc. 
 Nowhere else in the whole range of Old Northern poetry or prose 
 (nor in any modern speech) can this word be found. It is probably 
 borrowed directly by some poet from the Baltic Tchuds, whence it 
 got into the Thulor, whence the two other poetasters drew their word. 
 Now turning to the Old High German, let us see how the word got 
 to be naturalized therein — though but for a while, for it soon died 
 out again, * fuotor-eidi ' (nurse) being the best example. 
 
 The two branches of the Teutonic stock — the Confederations on 
 the Rhine, and the Goths that passed through what is now Russia — 
 never met after they left the Scandinavian coasts, separated by 
 broad forests and marshes, till in the 5th century they touch hands, 
 wlien the Goths, being driven from the east over the Danube came 
 face to face with the German who had fought his way down through 
 the Black Forest and across the Bohemian hills and table-lands to 
 the Upper Danube. It was just as the High German tongue was 
 forming on this alien soil, that the Gothic stock of loan-words, 
 borrowed from Esths, Wends, and other foreign races with which 
 the Goths had been in contact, became accessible. In the natural 
 give-and-take between Goth and German, ' aijsei ' passed into ' eidi,' 
 and so this Tchudic word comes to be found in two Teuton 
 dialects. It is an interesting word, for it speaks to Gothic unions 
 with alien wives and concubines ; yet this process of intermarriage 
 could not have beefi going on very long, and one would- think the 
 
42 TV. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 
 
 emigration of the Goths from the North must have been com- 
 paratively recent; first, because (beside the considerations urged 
 above) what tradition there is, as weU as the words of lordams and 
 the genealogies he records, seem to imply this; and also because 
 Prokopios describes these Goths, whom he saw and knew, as of 
 pure type (white skin, light hair, tall, big, light eyes), just as Taatus 
 and Caesar speak of the unmixed tribes they met m the West. 
 
 The history of this one word ' ail)ei ' is a caution to the ety- 
 mologist ; for it alone is sufficient to prove the absolute necessity 
 of the historic method being used along ^^^th the analytic method; 
 if it is neglected the pure analysts aj;e apt to fall into error, and 
 follow false lights. 
 
 Of the Gothic poetry that Ermanaric's exploits inspired, a torso'^ 
 has reached us in the Hamtheow Lay, but it is enough to show that 
 the divine poet was not absent from Danpar-stead or the halls of 
 the Goths. And just as through the paraphrases of Paul the 
 deacon one can feel something of the fierce cruelty and generous 
 chivalry of the Lombard dukes and -kings, so in this most antique 
 poem one can dimly see something of the magnificence and pride 
 of life and masterful strength of this Gothic ^airiXeis. After hear- 
 ing this lay one can get near enough to the man to sympathise 
 with the grief which, like his noble successor Charies the Great, he 
 felt ere he died, in dreading that much of his work would be 
 undone, and in knowing that the very kingdom, for which he had 
 toiled and fought so many years, was in utmost imminence of 
 peril. 
 
 ' For instance, lines 95-98, on the centenarian king's last feast, once noble 
 ■words, now in ruin, how are we to restore them? I would now propose 
 to read — 
 
 H16 {)a lormunrekr, hendi drap a kampa 
 
 bmdde ske^ k bringn, b. ... at vini, 
 
 skok hann skgr iarpa, heajsa skialZ-hvitan, 
 
 let hann ser or hendi hvarfa ker gollit. 
 
 What b-word can be concealed underneath the impossible ' bav8va8iz' (bnin- 
 volvi rolling out'ibrows, frowning, — {)a mjelti konungr, ok varnokkatsva l)run- 
 volui, brun-olfi Cod. Holm. I.e. Flat. i. 182, cp. iii. 357) ? 'iarpa,' of the old 
 king's hair — how can that be right ? 
 
 The Lays of Attila and Hamtheow have been mixed up in the oral tradition ; 
 both are written together (separated only by the Greenland Lay) ; in cod. R. all 
 three were most probably taken down from the same person's mouth ; the lines 
 on the Rosmons (Atlakv. 70) can only belong to the Hamtheow Lay. Atlakv. 
 11. SO-53, one would also suspect to refer to 3ie brothers Hamtheow and Sarila 
 on their way to Ermanaric's hall. There is a great gap in that lay, just after 
 the brothers' parting from their mother. 
 
/v. PLACE OF THE HAMTHEOW LAY. 
 
 43 
 
 The following table will give a skeleton, as it were, of the earlier 
 Teutonic History as far as we can make it out with safety. The 
 names in Italics are those which have not come down to us in the 
 traditional vehicle of poetry or folk-tale. 
 
 West. 
 
 Central. 
 
 East. 
 
 
 
 Ariouistus -. fl. B.C.60 
 
 
 
 
 
 A.D. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sigfred ... d. 21 
 
 Giferk . . 
 Ermanaric 
 
 A.D. 
 fl. 300 
 fl-350 
 
 
 A. D. 
 
 Alaric . . . d. 410 
 
 
 
 Hengest . . 
 
 fl.430 
 
 
 
 
 Beowulf . . 
 
 fl.450 
 
 Theodric . . . d. 526 
 ^Ifwine (Alboin) d. 572 
 
 Attila . 
 
 fl.450 
 
 AnlafTretelgia fl. 675 
 
 
 
 
 Godfred . . 
 
 fl. 800 
 
 Charles the Created. 814 
 William of Orange fl. 830 
 
 Ruric . . . 
 
 fl. 860 
 
 I Lodbrok's sons fl. 870 
 
 
 
 
 Alfred . . 
 
 d. QOI 
 
 
 
 
 R0II0& Harold 
 
 
 
 
 fairhair . 
 
 3.925 
 
 
 
 
 Tryggwason . 
 
 d. looi 
 
 
 
 
 (S. Olaf . . 
 
 d. 1030 
 
 
 
 
 \ Gretti . . . 
 
 d. 1 03 1 
 
 
 
 
 ( Cnut . . . 
 
 d. 1035 
 
 
 
 
 "iuly 30, 1885. 
 
 G. V. 
 
V. TWO LATIN LAW-WORDS. 
 
 pat seal fi bceta en eigi Jlein rioda. — GriSa mdl. 
 
 Identities and parallelisms between those older Latin and older 
 North-Teutonic words which touch legal and constitutional ideas 
 seem to present a likely field of investigation. 
 
 Some years ago, Professor Bugge of Christiania pointed out the 
 identity of Lat. sons, in-sons and Icel. sann-r, G-sannr, and other 
 equations have been long known. 
 
 It is a law-word, perhaps of even more representative value, that 
 one would here deal vfiih.— fas, with its train of ne/ds, nefarius, etc. 
 The common etymology of these words from fari (to speak), and 
 their connection with infans, fama, etc., may be relegated to the 
 limbo of all those worn-out attempts to explain Latin entirely 
 from Latin, with which Lexicons have hitherto been too much 
 crowded. An explanation must be sought elsewhere. 
 
 There is, as far back at least as the time of which Tacitus had 
 knowledge, a legal division of injuries and wrongs among the 
 Teutons, of which we still find open traces in the English common- 
 law classification of treason, felonies, and misdemeanours. This 
 division is founded upon the way in which certain misdeeds were 
 considered as apart and diiferent from the rest, by not being 
 atoneable as others misdeeds were, but bootless as Beowulf puts it. 
 
 All the rest were bootable^ or to be atoned for by compensation 
 payed in chattels, so many catde as Tacitus has it. See the 
 articles ub6ta-mal, )lb6ta-verk, in the Dictionary (p. 658 b) for 
 instances of this phraseology in Icelandic. Now the Old Norse 
 word for compematwn paid is B(5T {gild is properly a payment 
 in which other men share and b}- which the payer benefits, rather 
 a cess or tax than a fne or compensation). This b6t is precisely 
 the word which is equivalent to the Latin fas. 
 
V. TWO LATIN LAW-WORDS. 45 
 
 As to the form — Lat.y, d and Icel. b, t correspond, as do Latin a, 
 and Teutonic 6 ; e. g. Icel. blot and Lat. *flad-men, later fld-men 
 (Bugge), is an exact parallel to our hot, */dd-s, later /oj. 
 
 And, this admitted, the real meaning of the fas series in Latin 
 .becomes clear: ne/ds is a deed 'boot-less,' 'fee-less,' as the Old 
 English said, and not a deed ' not-to-be-spoken-of.' The morality 
 which would admit such a meaning is of later growth, both in 
 Latium and in the North. So might St. Paul well speak to 
 .debased slave converts, but the ancient Law speaker or praetor 
 knew no such scruples, for they were not needed. 
 
 'facta nefantia ' is exactly equal to the O. N. ub6ta-verk, Diet. 
 658 b. 
 
 In nefandus, nefant- one may fancy that the d of the original form 
 still survives, and that nefandus stands for nefd{yi)dus, nefddnus: 
 the intrusive n is not unfrequent in Latin. There has been, as 
 in other cases between words of like scope, a confusion in the 
 popular mind between the two stems fa- and fad-. The old 
 Roman grammarians knew fasti, fama, fatum were from /a-, and 
 why not fas ? This folk-etymology was so plausible, that it has 
 hitherto prevailed without a sceptical voice raised against it. 
 
 Another word deserves brief mention. In the Northern KUIDJA 
 i. e. kvithja (not, as we once fancied, connected with kuefia), one 
 has the parallel to the Latin ueto which is for the older *gueto (as 
 in the parallels, uem'o and quvman). The forms agree and the 
 sense oi proclaiming a ban seems the earliest in both. 
 
 Such material as this is of course very fragmentary, but it is also 
 richer than might be supposed ; for the Scandinavians seem, like 
 the Romans, to have been singularly legal-minded. And it is not 
 impossible from the fragments that remain to reconstruct, after 
 the fashion of palaeontologists, the extinct forms of a long-dead 
 archaic society. 
 
 And among these few morsels are found words that point to 
 the existence of common legal ideas at a very remote period. 
 There are so many words in which Latin and Teuton coin- 
 cide closely, that one cannot help fancying that, after all, the 
 kindred of mind between these two Aryan peoples is a witness of 
 closer relationship than the difference in tongue would imply; 
 that, in short, if the Roman had Keltic affinities in tongue, he had 
 
46 V. TWO LATIN LAW-WORDS. 
 
 Teuton affinities in institutions, and that the archaic histories of 
 these three western branches of the Aryans must be treated together 
 if one would get full knowledge of the military, legal, and constitu- 
 tional peculiarities and development of each. 
 
 Note how conservative languages are in these matters of law. 
 Take in hand the article on kvt^ja in the Icel. Diet., and put it 
 beside veto in the Latin Lexicon, and one is astonished at the 
 resemblance, as it were but in twin dialects. And yet, how many 
 generations must be told to, get back to the times when the 
 ancestors of the Claudii and Julii and those of the Norse kings 
 lived within one Moot, under one law ? 
 
 A full list should be drawn up of equations between old Norse 
 and Latin law-terms. They agree either (a) both in sense and 
 form like the above instances, or (3) they are parallel in meaning, 
 as TsX. judicium, judex, and Old Norse, log-saga, logsogo-madr. 
 
 G. V. 
 
 Oct. i, 1885. 
 
VI. THE BALLAD OF SIR OGIE. 
 
 The World was very guilty of such a Ballet some three Ages since. 
 
 In the Notes to the Helgi Lays, in the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, 
 I. 502, we have printed the sixteenth-century Danish ballad 
 'Aage og Else.' (Grundtvig, No. 90.) A version was hardly 
 within the scope of the Corpus, nor was there time to make one 
 at the translator's disposal. He has since, however, tried to 
 English it, after Jamieson's example, in the manner of the Border 
 ballads. It is given here, in the hope that those who, like 
 Autolycus' customers, 'love a ballet,' will not be sorry to have 
 a fine one even though it be presented in somewhat rough and 
 ill-cut raiment. 
 
 1. There sat three maidens intil their hour. 
 
 And the twain o' them braidit the gold ; 
 The third she grat for her ain true-love 
 That lay i' the black black mould. 
 
 2. It was the gude Sir Ogie, 
 
 And he's ridden over the Leys, 
 To woo at the ladie Elsie, ' 
 
 That was sae fair to see. 
 
 3. He has wooed at the ladie Elsie, 
 
 That was sae fair to see; 
 All on their bridal-even 
 
 Dead at her feet drappit he. 
 
 4. Sae sair the ladie Elsie grat, 
 
 And wrang her hands the day. 
 That the gude Sir Ogie heard her 
 Sae deep in grave as he lay. 
 
48 VI. THE BALLAD OF SIR OGIE. 
 
 5. Sae sair the ladie Elsie grat, 
 
 And beat her hands the day, 
 
 That the gude Sir Ogie heard her 
 
 Sae deep in earth as he lay. 
 
 6. Up stood the gude Sir Ogie, 
 
 Wi' his kist upon his back, 
 And he 's taen his way til his true love's hour : 
 Wow, but his strength was slack. 
 
 7. He has rappit on the door wi' the lid o' his kist, 
 
 For he lack it the hilt o' his skene. 
 ' Stand up, stand up, thou proud Elsie, 
 And let thy true love in!' 
 
 8. Sae lang in her bed proud Elsie lay 
 
 And til herself said she — 
 ' Can this be the gude Sir Ogie, 
 That hither is come to me?' 
 
 9. Then up spak the ladie Elsie, 
 
 And the tear ran from her ee — 
 ' If ye may name the name of God 
 I let ye in to me.' 
 
 10. ' Stand up, stand up, thou proud Elsie, 
 
 And dup thy chamber door, 
 For I can name the name o' God 
 As weel as I coud afore.' 
 
 11. Then up stood the lady Elsie, 
 
 And the tear ran from her ee. 
 She open'd and let the dead man in, 
 Wi-in her bour to be. 
 
 12. She has taen her gold caim in her hand 
 
 And caimed his yellow hair. 
 
 And ilka hair she red on him 
 
 Doun fell the saut saut tear. 
 
 13. ' I bid ye speak. Sir Ogie, 
 
 Whom I loe best of a', 
 Hoo fares it in the grave wi' you 
 Beneath the clay sae cauld ? ' 
 
VI. THE BALLAD OF SIR OGIE. 49 
 
 14. 'O it fares wi' me all in the grave 
 
 Beneath the clay sae cauld, 
 As I were high in Paradise, 
 Therefore tak thou nae care ! ' 
 
 15. 'I bid ye speak, Sir Ogie, 
 
 Whom I loe best of a' : 
 May I follow ye intil this grave o' yours 
 Beneath the clay sae cauld ? ' 
 
 16. ' O, it fares wi' me all in the grave 
 
 Beneath the clay sae cauld 
 As I were in the pit o' Hell : 
 I rede thee sain thy sell. 
 
 17. For ilka tide thou greets for me 
 
 All in thy dowy mood, 
 My kist within is standing 
 Brimful o' the red life-blude. 
 
 18. And ever up, my head aboun, 
 
 The grass it grows sae green ; 
 And ever doun, my feet about, 
 The worms o' hell they twine. 
 
 19. And ilka tide thou lilts a lay 
 
 All in thy merry mood, 
 My grave is hung all round about, 
 Wi' the roses o' the wood. 
 
 20. The bonny grey cock sae loud he craws, 
 
 He craws until the day ; 
 And ilka lyke maun till the earth, 
 And I maun be away. 
 
 21. The bonny red cock sae loud he craws. 
 
 He craws until the day ; 
 And ilka dead man maun till the earth 
 And I maun be away. 
 
 22. The bonny black cock sae loud he craws. 
 
 He craws until the day. 
 And a' the ports are steekit soon, 
 And I maun be away.' 
 
 E 
 
50 VI. THE BALLAD OF SIR OGIE. 
 
 23. Up stood the gude Sir Ogie, 
 
 Wi his kist upon his back, 
 And he's taken his way til the wide kirk-yard, 
 Wow, but his strength was slack ! 
 
 24. Then up stood the ladie Elsie, 
 
 Richt steadfast was her mood, 
 And she's followed after her ain true-love 
 Through the midst o' the mirk mirk wood. 
 
 25. When she was come through the mirk mirk wood, 
 
 Until the kirk-yard wide, 
 The gude Sir Ogie's golden hair, 
 It withered all beside. 
 
 26. When she was come through the kirk-yard wide 
 
 Until the great kirk-door. 
 The gude Sir Ogie's rosy cheek 
 It withered all before. 
 
 27. The gude Sir Ogie, foot and hand, 
 
 Withered and fell away, 
 His hand but and his rosy cheek, 
 They mouldered into clay. 
 
 28. 'Hear my words, thou proud Elsie, 
 
 Whom I lo'e best of a', 
 I rede thee never mair to greet. 
 For thy true love ava. 
 
 29. Rise up, rise up, thou proud Elsie, 
 
 Rise up, and get thee hame ! 
 I rede thee never mair to greet. 
 For thy true love again. 
 
 30. Luke up until the heavens now. 
 
 Until the stars sae sma', 
 And tell me how the nicht wears on, 
 And when the day sal daw.' 
 
 31. She has lukit up til the heavens, 
 
 Until the stars sae sma', 
 And the dead man creepit from out her sicht 
 Doun into his grave sae law. 
 
VI. THE BALLAD OF StR OGIE. 51 
 
 32. Sae nimbly did the dead man creep 
 
 Doun, doun beneath the clay. 
 Sae heavily went proud Elsie, 
 Back til her hame again. 
 
 33. Sair sair did proud Elsie greet, 
 
 And sair to God did pray, 
 That she might win til anither licht 
 Within a year and day. 
 
 34. It was the ladie Elsie, 
 
 And sick in bed she lay, 
 But she lay dead upon her bier 
 Before the threttieth day. 
 
 In the 2nd line of the 7th verse one might read — 
 
 For naught else might he win. 
 
 But the incident of rapping with the dagger-hilt on the door is one 
 that suits the place and time, as well as the chappin at the chain 
 of Glenkindie. The obscure Danish word skind may be a loan- 
 word here and stand for the Gaelic scian, though it is needless 
 to say that skene does not occur in the Lowland Ballad speech. 
 
 It was the coincidences of this Ballad of Sir Ogie and our ' Clerk 
 Saunders ' with the lay of Helgi and Sigrun that made us draw 
 attention to it. Before leaving it, one notes that in his Popular 
 Ballads, 1806, vol. i. p. 193, Jamieson mentions a Ballad called 
 Peggy Baun, a silly ditty, he says, of a young vian, who returning 
 homeward from shooting with his gun, saw his sweetheart and shot 
 her for a siuan. This recalls the scene in the lost Helgi and Cara 
 Lay, which we know from the prose paraphrase in Hromund 
 Gripsson's Saga, where the hero loses his luck by striking the 
 Walcyrie that protects him, as she flies above him in swan-shape. 
 There is in the same book, vol. ii. p. 387, a Lowland parallel to 
 the famous lines in the one fragment of a lost Sigurdar Kuida. 
 C. P. B. i. 315. 
 
 lit gecc SigurSr ann-spilli frd 
 
 hoU-uinr lof3a, oc hnipnaSi 
 
 sua-at ganga nam gunnar fiisom 
 
 sundr of si3or sercr iarn-ofinn. 
 
 £ 2 
 
5a VJ. THE BALLAD OF SIR OGIE. 
 
 A passage which is repeated in the prose of Egil's Saga, when 
 the laced hose and fustian kirtle of the poet are riven upon him by 
 the swelling of his grief, the day they buried his son Beadwere. 
 
 The Aage-Ogie of this Ballad is nearer the original Holge than 
 the Icelandic form. 
 
 How well the Wheel becomes it. 
 
 I add here a few of the refrains of medieval Ballades or Dancing 
 Songs which have come down to us in Icelandic — Englished as 
 nearly as may be. (C. P. B. ii. 391). 
 
 Fair blooms the world, but its fairness grows old — 
 It is long since my joy was laid low in the mould. 
 
 I loved a man dearly, until we did part, 
 
 But now I must hide up my woe in my heart 
 
 I heard the fair songs from the Niflungs' house ring, 
 And I sleep not for joy of the songs that they sing. 
 
 All that is, must wither and fade away : 
 All flesh is dust, deck it howe'er ye may. 
 
 So fair sings the swan through the long summer day 
 *Tis the season, sweet lily, for dancing and play. 
 
 Loft out in the islands picks the puffin-bone : 
 Saemund in the highlands berries eats alone. 
 
 But ever I love her as dear as before ! 
 
 Thou art on the dark blue sea, but I am here at Drong: 
 I'm calling long, I'm calling for thee long! 
 
 The last is from the Faroes (C. P. B. ii. 392). 
 
 Faster let us tread the floor, and never spare our shoes ! 
 Where we drink the next year's Yule God alone can choose. 
 
 F.Y.P. 
 
VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW IN THE 
 EDDIC LAYS. 
 
 Tlic voice of the recorded law. 
 
 What scanty direct knowledge one can get of old heathen custom 
 or common law among the Scandinavian peoples must be gathered 
 from two main sources —first, the Eddie Lays, the product of the 
 Wicking-tide ; and secondly, the traditional lore embedded in the 
 works of Art. These may be supplemented by the Histories of 
 Adam and Saxo, and by the Icelandic Family Sagas (which last are 
 to be used with caution), as also by notices scattered here and there 
 in foreign chronicles. The comparative method, of course, helps 
 us to get a better idea of the whole condition of early Scandina- 
 vian law, by the evidence it supplies from the law of the other 
 Teutonic peoples. 
 
 It is not safe to build upon the later Icelandic law-books. In the first 
 place they gi\'e us Icelandic law not Scandinavian law ; they reflect 
 the peculiar characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the new Settle- 
 ment and the Land which it occupied. In the next place they 
 represent a distinctly later stage of legal development, and came 
 out of what we might call the legal epoch of Icelandic history 
 (1050-1135), when Christendom was wholly accepted, and when the 
 foreign influences it brought with it had deeply tinged the ideas 
 and ways of leading Icelanders. 
 
 With later Icelandic law proper, we hope some day to deal else- 
 where, and it is not proposed in the present little paper to touch on 
 the notices of the earlier law given by Ari, but simply to classify 
 roughly the material yielded by the Eddie Lays, and add a few 
 words upon the conclusions they appear to suggest. 
 
 The words and phrases here gathered together have, as might 
 have been expected, more to do with adjective than with sub- 
 stantive law, and fall mostly under those great heads oi procedure, 
 family, property, crime, and contract with which the XII Tables and 
 other early codes and custumals are chiefly taken up. 
 
54 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 I have not tried to force the classification into accordance with 
 modern law. 
 
 The worth of the evidence taken from these poems is even 
 greater than if it were gotten from archaic law-books, for they 
 often contain theoretic law, whereas here the allusions and inci- 
 dents supplied are drawn after the quick, taken from actual life, 
 and reflect the every-day practice of the time. 
 
 The different Lays, as might be ejJpected, are very unequal in 
 the amount of matter they yield. Of the older poems, the Guest's 
 Wisdom has a few valuable words, and the Old Play of the 
 Wolsungs several important allusions. Of the Western poems 
 Loka-senna and the Long Brunhild Lay, which are better pre- 
 served than most of the rest, supply much material of the later 
 poems. The matter-of-fact and prosaic Gripi Lay (which as the 
 editor of the C. P. B. suggests may even be Icelandic) is helpful, 
 but most rich of all is the" Greenland Lay of Attila, which one 
 might take to be the work of some early Greenland Law-Speaker 
 on as good evidence as persuades the commentators that Shak- 
 spere served his articles and spoiled sheepskin in his youth. Yng- 
 linga-tal is full of old law-words, and Egil once or twice has a 
 vivid allusion. The Thulor (11. 21-32, 113-222), compiled from 
 poems older than the twelfth centuiy at least, have preserved several 
 terms which would otherwise have perished with the verses from 
 which they are taken. 
 
 It must.be remembered that these Lays are not the product of 
 one single Scandinavian stock or tribe, but that they were com- 
 posed for and no doubt by men of very different origin. Throwends, 
 Reams, Danes, Swedes, Goths, Halogamen, Rugians, Neams must 
 all have listened to them; though, judging from the evidence 
 of Landndma-b6c, the bulk of their hearers would have come 
 from the west coast of Norway or the Wick. Hence one must 
 not be surprised to find many parallel phrases, or disappointed at 
 not being able in every case to draw a clear distinction between 
 the different terms used with like connotation. Each tribe or folk 
 had of course its own peculiar law-phraseology, though there was, 
 as we shall see, a general consensus in legal plan and idea over 
 all the Scandinavian area. 
 
 Certainly here if anywhere we must look for the earliest traces 
 of Teutonic law and polity. It is with a full knowledge of the 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 55 
 
 evidence which they furnish that we must supplement and develop 
 the brief rapid sketches of Caesar, Strabo, and Tacitus. 
 
 There can be no pretence of Roman influence on the tribes 
 whence the makers of these Lays came ; even the Irish and Old 
 English legal systems have left scarce a trace of their existence in 
 the whole of these Lays. Such conquering and colonizing hosts as 
 those from whose midst these Lays issued, do not take the law of 
 their subjects and prisoners, but impose their own on them. 
 The one division of law in which the influence of the conquered 
 race must have needs asserted itself — the land-law — is but little 
 touched on in these poems. 
 
 The Old English poems (wiih which I hope to deal elsewhere) 
 present the nearest parallel to these, in their preservation of 
 archaic law-terms and phrases and their pictures of early Teutonic 
 life and polity ; but I have thought it best to keep the two masses 
 of evidence separate, and have only a stray reference to them here 
 and there. With the same view of giving as far as possible the 
 plain facts, I have not filled up the blanks or gaps from Saxo or 
 the later Northern authorities. 
 
 There is some inequality between the sections into which I have 
 divided my material, but this is a natural inequality and gives a 
 rough index of their relative weight in the daily life of their 
 age. 
 
 I have used the ' Corpus Poeticum Boreale ' for the text and 
 numbering of the poems I quote from, as well as the abbreviations 
 for the titles of the poems (see C. P. B. ii. 659), and have marked 
 corrected texts with cor. In the Excursus on the Metaphors of 
 Old Northern poetry in vol. ii. pp. 445-86 of that work will be 
 found some illustrative matter which I have not repeated here, as 
 it is already accessible to English scholars. 
 
 The mosaic which may be put together out of these various 
 fragments is a striking one; it testifies to the long existence of 
 a, regular system of law, as far removed from mere savage customs 
 on the one hand as it is on the other from the Roman polity (by 
 which it was to be so powerfully aff"ected in England), a system 
 rough and simple to the first glance, but at the same time a 
 system capable of growth and adaptation to a wider and more 
 complex set of social phenomena — a system which after all is the 
 direct well-spring of that under which we live. 
 
56 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 The following is the arrangement adopted as the most practically 
 convenient : — 
 
 I. War-law — age for service, declaration of war, truce, hostage, 
 
 captive, booty, heralds. 
 II. Feud — causes of feud, settlement of feud, compensation, 
 arbiters. 
 
 III. Procedure — moot, court, pleading, ordeal, combat, punish- 
 
 ment. 
 
 IV. Crimes — greater or bootless and lesser. 
 V. Oaths — oath taking, perjury. 
 
 VI. Family — kinship, fosterage, sworn-brotherhood. 
 VII. Marriage — wooing, espousals, wedding, dowry, morning-gift, 
 marriage-ties, polygamy, polyandry, divorce, concubinage, 
 adultery. 
 VIII. Property — heritage, landed estate, slaves. 
 
 There was among the ancient Teutons, as in Old Rome, a 
 Law of War, that is, a body of customs which settled the 
 main questions a pretty permanent state of war was likely to 
 raise, and acted as ' inter-tribal ' or ' inter-national law.' The early 
 existence of many of its uses can be proved both by analogy and 
 directer evidence. See, for instance, the mention of the old regula- 
 tion as to the admission of a youth Xa the full status of warrior, in 
 the story paraphrased from a lost Elfwine Lay by Paul the Deacon, 
 which is discussed C. P. B. ii. 503-4, and vol. i. pp. li-liv. 
 
 In the North, especially in Denmark, there was a tradition that 
 many of the customs of this War-Law owe their origin to a king 
 whose eke-name Fr68i [Wise] has alone come down to us, and 
 the regulations for discipline and good order on board the Wicking 
 fleets were adorned with the sanction of his name. Professor 
 Steenstrup discusses this subject with his wonted ingenuity. 
 
 The citizen, looked at, as it were, from the outside of his own 
 state, was the free warrior of full age, the words for free-man and 
 warrior being identical; cf such common expressions as 'seggr,' 
 exactly as the same terms which apply to the Armed Nation in 
 the pitched field, may denote the Whole Congregation at the 
 moot, cf al-J)i65. Many of the ordinary regulations of daily life 
 were modified or affected by the importance of war. Thus among 
 
IN THE ED Die LAYS. 57 
 
 the Northern Teutons the coming of age appears to have been 
 fixed with reference to service in war as much as to puberty. 
 The same age as the Kentish gavel-cind custom has kept up the 
 remembrance of in England is mentioned in the Helgi Lays, 
 ' When the prince was fifteen winters old.' 
 
 J)a es fylcir . . . was fimtan uetra. Helg. I. 38. 
 Children younger than this were irresponsible beings left to the 
 care of their mothers or foster-parents, e.g. the children of 
 Gudrun, the children of Nidad, the child of Sigfred, in the Lays of 
 Gudrun, Weyland, and Attila. 
 
 The terror caused by the invasion of the Huns is shown in one 
 poem by the levy of the whole nation, the arriere-ban being called 
 out, and the age of service being lowered to twelve instead of four- 
 teen for men, and two instead of three for horses. 
 
 nel scolom iier HloeSr herlid bva 
 
 me9 tolf-uetra mengi oc tuee-uetrom fola. Hlod. 59-61. 
 
 The declaration of war took place as by the Roman fecial law, 
 by words of challenge and the casting of a spear. 
 
 oc lati sua 65inn flein fliuga sem ec fyr mssli. Hlod. 94. 
 
 Sometimes the time and place were fixed for a battle, and 
 a regular summons issued as if for a moot. The battle-place 
 or field was pitched or squared out with posts and lines, as the 
 court at a moot. Our prize-ring and the mediaeval wrestling-ring 
 and lists present traces of this custom. 
 
 By8-ec y5r at Dylgio oc at Dun-hei8i 
 
 orrosto undir losur-fioUom. Hlod. 91-2. 
 
 Mer hefir stillir . . . stefnt til eyrar 
 
 {)riggja natta scylac til pings coma. Helg. II. 55-6. cor. 
 
 In these instances the very phrases 'bi68a orrosto,' 'stefna,' 'eyri,' 
 which are later only applied to the private wager of battle between 
 two men at feud, are used of the regular conflict between two 
 tribes or races. 
 
 The same regulations, which afterward survived as to the judicial 
 
 combat, were held with regard to public war in old days, and the 
 
 Teuton like the Spartan used to take care to go to battle, as he 
 
 went to moot, combed, washed, and with a full belly. 
 
 cemSr oc {meginn seal coenna huerr 
 oc at morni mettr. W. PI. 61-2. 
 
 The word for the general state of peace was ' fri3 ' (connected, 
 
58 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 with ' friend ' and other words), a term which in our O. E. law came 
 to mean the nation's peace and later the king's peace, 
 sleit Fr68a-fri8 fianda a mille. Helg. I. 51. 
 In one passage it is used when we should expect ' gri6,' and it is 
 probably misread. 
 
 enn EUi gefr hanom engi friS. G. W. 181. 
 'Gri9' appears in its early meaning of a particular state of 
 peace, quarter, protection, a temporary or local cessation of hos- 
 
 tihties. 
 
 J>u Giuca arfa gri8om truSer. Grip. 188. cor. 
 
 Einherja gri9 J)U scalt allra hafa. Hakm. 46. 
 griS hann J>eim seldi of g69om hug 
 enn J)eir heto honom goUi i gegn. Ch. W. 85-6. 
 
 Another word, which like ' truce ' signified the peace secured by 
 the good faith of the two parties, is ' tryg8.' 
 
 nema {)U mic 1 tryg8 usltir. Harb. loi. 
 Cf. fa hie getnlwedon on twa healfe 
 
 fseste freo8u-wsere. Beowulf. 1096. 
 
 Truces, like permanent peaces, were made fast by oaths, see § v, 
 and by the giving of hostages. How early and prevalent this latter 
 use was is proved by the occurrence of ' gils ' or ' gisl ' in early 
 proper names', the Eadgils of Sweden; Gisl of Ynglingatal 20 
 (vol. ii. 655). Thor-gils, the Wicking prince in Ireland, seems to 
 be the first famous persons of the West in whose name it is found. 
 In the Burgundian house it occurs earlier, and it is found on the 
 fourteenth-century Swedish gravestones in the forms Thurgisl, Gisli. 
 The hostage, as it appears from the Cyne-wolf story, O. E. Chron. 
 A-D. 755, and allusions elsewhere, seems to have held the 
 status of an adopted member of the tribe into which he enters. 
 Thus Wolospa tells of Mimi and Nior8 acting for the Anses, 
 amongst whom they had come as hostages ; so \\'alter fights for 
 Attila, though he is a kind of hostage — 
 
 J>u vast austr he8an 
 
 sendr at gislingo go8om : 
 
 gisl urn sendr at go8om. Lokas 136, 141. 
 
 huart scyldo M . . afrad gialda 
 
 gislar seljasc e8r gildi eiga. Vsp. 80-1. 
 
 1 Grimnismal, 93, gives Gisl as the name of a hero's horse. (Cf. the use of 
 Arfi for ox, noted § viii.) Were horses as well as men given as hostages in old 
 (Jays? It would be in accordance with parallel uses elsewhere. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 59 
 
 The ' gest,' the stranger within the gates, whether an exile such 
 as Theodric at Attila's court, or a mere traveller or errant knight, 
 occupied much the same position as the ' gisl ' in older days, and 
 the word is found in very early Teutonic names. Later, in 
 Norway, it becomes almost a regular order or rank at the King's 
 court. 
 
 The word appears in the early poems in the sense of traveller. 
 See Guest's ' Wisdom, the Riddles of Gest-um-blindi.' The guest, like 
 the hostage, was expected to fight for and help his hosts, of which 
 use there are many instances in the Icelandic family Histories. 
 
 gloepr es gestz kuama ef i goerisc naccuaS. Atlam. no. 
 
 The ancient Teutons (like the Romans) had strict regulations 
 about booty and war-spoil, and there are traces of the disposal of 
 the whole booty into shares, which are dealt out by lot or choice. 
 The oldest word for booty, used by Bragi (C. P. B. ii. p. 8, 1. 44) 
 and the old Runestone of Rok (Sweden), is 'ual-rauf,' 'csedi-raptum' 
 as we might latinize it. 
 
 conimg drapom fyrstan kurom land t)a8ra. Atlam. 358. 
 
 For a person taken in war there is the compound 'her-numi,' 
 denoting the legal position of the captive (somewhat as dediticius 
 does), but, as in the older times prisoners were probably always 
 enslaved if not slain, the word ' haptr,' captiuus, is also in use. The 
 distinction between this and her-numi is given in an early poem. 
 
 eigi em ec haptr \iAX ec ufera her-nnmi. W. PI. 91. 
 .hapt oc her-numinn. O. W. PI. 87. 
 
 hapt sa ec liggia. Vsp. 50. cor. 
 
 . i Hagals Jiyjo 
 . . . man conungs 
 
 a3r hana H . . hgpto goer8i. Helg. III. 5, 13, 16. 
 
 haptr er mi i bgndom. Akv. no. 
 The captive woman is called by Horn-clofi, Ravensong, 89, 
 ' her-gaupa.' See as to the captivity of women C. P. B. ii. 473, 4. 
 
 The position of the Herald, ' sendimaSr,' ' bo5,' is apparently 
 sacred, but he is bound not to act treacherously or violently 
 toward them that receive him, for such conduct would forfeit his 
 safe-conduct and the 'gri6' that he enjoys. The most notable 
 scene in the poems on this head is that in which Wingi the false 
 herald betrays and is slain by Hagene in Atlamal. 
 
6o VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 II, 
 
 The distinction between Feud and War cannot be very 
 clearly drawn in theory. Nations or tribes may make war for 
 the same reasons that would cause a feud between two families. 
 War is in fact a public feud, and Feud a private war. This private 
 war has rules and customs of its own, and early Teutonic process 
 is largely concerned with suits and legal proceedings and arbitrations 
 arising round Feud. Feud gives birth to its own peculiar legis 
 actiones; and precisely the same phenomena are met with in the 
 Wicking poems of the Eddie Collection and in the early family 
 Histories of Iceland, as are to be read of in the early Arab poems 
 and traditions. The paramount duty of blood revenge ; the way in 
 which cruel feuds might sunder kinsfolk and friends ; the disastrous 
 effects of the continual bloodshed among the noblest of the com- 
 munity ; the plans by which the settlement of a feud was brought 
 about, — are all to be met with in perfection in Arabia and Iceland. 
 No where else, perhaps, are such heroic incidents woven about the 
 institution of Feud. Feud, like Slavery, has been a great civilizer 
 in its time, and the esprit de corps, the self-sacrifice, the sense of 
 duty which it fosters are important, nay, necessary constituents 
 in early societies. Neither in Arabia nor the North was Chris- 
 tianity very successful in putting down the Feud, and it nearly 
 perished in Iceland for lack of fuel, the great houses having been 
 destroyed by its long and bitter persistence. It is not svu-prising 
 that the literature of the Wicking-tide should be rich in allusions 
 to feud-hate. 
 
 The hatred of feud, the accursed wrath of the Psalmist, is ' heipt,' 
 mostly in plural : — 
 
 sacar oc heiptir hyggjat suefhgar uesa 
 
 n^ harm in heldr. W. PI. 313-4. 
 enn af {leim harmi rann heipt saman 
 
 raillim uirctar-uina. Ch. W. 55-6. 
 nam of Jieim heiptom huetjasc at uigi. L. B. L. 36; 
 mil-ninar scaltu cirnna ef {>u nilt at manngi {wr 
 
 heiptom gialdi harm. W. PI. 267. 
 
 Sacar, in the plural, \%feud (in the singular a law-case), recalling 
 the saca and gesacu of Beowulf. 
 
IN THE ED Die LAYS. 6 1 
 
 si5r J>u hefner J)6tt {leir sacar goeri. W. PI. 254. 
 ef J)u sacar deilir 
 
 ui5 h . . . hali. W. PI. 291. 
 Jiar Forseti byggiiir flestan dag 
 
 oc suoefir allar sacar. Grimn. 55, 56. 
 
 W. PI. 313 is cited above, and Atlam. 367 is corrupt. 
 
 Other words for the feud are 'wr6g,' the angry feeling arising from 
 oppugned honour, a term connected with 
 
 rgmm eru rog of risin. W. PI. 320. 
 nidja na-borna leidda na;r vrogi. Hamd. 54. 
 The word connected with ' fiend ' and kindred words (opposed to 
 friend, fri3, and the lilce) is ' fi6n.' 
 
 sa uecr fion meS firom. App. Ch. W. 4. 
 Strl3 or strife (cp. Lat, stlis) originally denotes a struggle of any 
 kind, from the hel-strf3 or death agony of Landnama-b6c, to mere 
 competition in a wrestling match, but it has the strongest sense in 
 
 the poems. 
 
 enn es uerra 
 niSja stria um nept. W. PI. 26. 
 
 The verb — 
 
 Atla {lottisk {)u striSa at Erps mordi. Hamd. 30. 
 striddi hon aett Bu91a. Atlam. 272. 
 ni8jom stri8 oexti. Atlam. 377. 
 Hatr, our hate, is connected with other terms of enmity and 
 warfare, as also the term hatendr [OE hettend or hetend, Beow. and 
 Brunanburgh Lay]. 
 
 hilars hatr uex me8 hildings sonom 
 {)at ma ec boeta bratt. Havam. 80. 
 
 The cause of feud, the insult or wrong that wahes the feud vx the 
 old phrase (for Feud, like War, is a gi-eat goddess [Eris] and can be 
 roused and lulled, and is spoken of as a person) is ' harm,' as will 
 be seen from the phrases already cited. In later days, both in 
 English and Icelandic, it has a passive sense, the distress caused by 
 any misfortune, but its earlier sense is the legal one of iniuria (see 
 Diet. s. V. 240). Theodwolf uses it of bodily hurt in Ynglinga-tal, 
 124. Note Beowulf's ' hearm-sca3a,' and the way in which in the 
 following phrase it is used of verbal insult, 
 no he mid hearme of hH9es nosan 
 gsestas gr^tte ac him to geanes rad 
 cwied J)£et wilcuman Wedera-leodum. Beow. 1893-5. 
 
6'2r VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 Another word, 'l^ti,' originally used as Tacitus used dehonesid- 
 
 mentum, stands for the wrong that brings forth feuds, usually bodily 
 
 wrong ; it has in the Christian poem a more refined sense of charge 
 
 of evil. 
 
 su lias J)eiin til lyta lagiS. Ch. W. 48. 
 
 ' Angr,' our anger, which originally denotes the struggle of pain, 
 the choking and stifling agony, has in these Eddie poems the sense 
 of a cruel wrong that causes bitter sorrow and hate. 
 
 enn Jieir angr ui9 {lic ecci goerBo. Helg. II. 41. 
 
 And this is the sense in which the Dirge may be called 'angr- 
 1166' (Helg. I. 341), the song of the affliction, but also the cry of 
 wrath against the slayer of the loved one. Note how long this 
 very archaic mixture of anger and sorrow prevails in Teutonic 
 England and France. It is hardly dead yet in part of Spain and 
 in Sardinia. Thus the contemporary Franciscan Laments for Louis 
 the Saint are full of abuse of Death ; Death is bitter, foul, traitorous, 
 abominable, cowardly, foolish, cruel, greedy, viler than a dog — 
 a most curious survival '- And there are even in sixteenth-century 
 English poems traces of the same feeling and expression. 
 
 The curious word ' nl6,' which in Old English is used precisely 
 as ' heiptir ' or ' wr6g,' comes in Old Northern to have the sense 
 rather of ' hearm,' particularly of verbal insult ; but a trace of its 
 older meaning survives in the reflexive ' nfSasc ' (see Diet. s. v. 455), 
 and in the derivative ' nf6ing,' which will be dealt with in § iv. 
 
 To the breaking of peace or of the ties of blood or friendship 
 [nexa, uincula, as the Romans put it) by the wrong that wakes the 
 feud, the words ' slfta,' ' briota,' and ' riiifa ' [slit, break, and rive) are 
 applied, and the vows and covenants which are violated are said 
 ' ganga \' to make off — to be sped, as we might say. 
 
 a gengosc eiSar, or5, oc soeri, 
 
 mal gll meginleg, es a metSal foro. Vsp. 82-3. 
 
 a9r uin-scap U . . 
 
 . . um sleit ui9 mic. Sonat. 85. 
 
 sleit ec \i. sdttir, at uoro sacar minni. Atlam. 25a. 
 
 . . . ues-{m aldregi 
 
 ' Mort plus ville que chien. Diex tabate et asomme 
 Quar ce qui nest pas tien prens-tu, ce est la somme. 
 Ahi, Mort refusee et de pute value 
 Tu nes pas alosee, dehait qui te salue. 
 
tN THE EDDIC LAYS. 6^ 
 
 fyrri at flaum-slitom. Less. Lodd. 34. 
 sleit Froda-fria. Helg. I. 51. 
 
 The/be is ' dolgr,' the person with whom one is at feud, a word 
 noi merely of abuse, as is proved by the Ala-dolgr of Ynglinga-tal, 
 108; though in the Christian poems one sees ' sgko-dolgar ' 
 (Chr. W. 99), oiigmally persons suable, take the meaning oicriminals. 
 The origin of the word is obscure. The compound ' doIg-viSir ' 
 occurs W. PL 285. Other words are ' and-scoti,' adversary, Havam. 
 58, Doom. 44; and ' fi^ndr,' a word which in English comes to 
 mean Ghostly Enemy, as ' dolgr ' sinks to Demon in Old Northern 
 books. ' Heipt-megir,' feud-man, is found in Havam. 57, and 
 Suipd. 35 ; the curious 'fifl-megir' in Vsp. 153 only. The Editor 
 suggests that it stands for ' frefel-megir,' cf. German 'vrever = 
 felon. 
 
 There are also particular words pointing out the enemy's special 
 relation to the person on whom the duty of blood-revenge lies. 
 These are ' bani,' ' ^ovos' and its compounds. The slayer of a 
 man is named after the person he has slain, 'Fafnis bani,' 'Hun- 
 ding's bani,' cf. Haddingja-scaSe (cf. "Apyfi^wTijs,' ' in-Trdi/oos ^eXXf- 
 po(f>6vTt]s,' and ' regi-cida,' ' pari-cida ') ; thus there are ' br6tSor-bani ' 
 and ' sonar-bani.' The ' fodor-bani ' does not appear in the poems, 
 but doubtless existed ; the very word ' hefnendr,' which expresses the 
 son who is bound to avenge his father, is proof that the father's 
 slaughter by an enemy was the most deadly wrong of all. Thus 
 the proverb ' the feud never falls while the son is alive,' L. B. L. 48, 
 is amply illustrated by such vows as that alluded to in the Doom 
 of Balder, 42-4, by the Icelandic Family Histories, such as 
 Faereyinga, and, finest instance of all, by the Vengeance of the Sons 
 of Ingemund the Old, now found inserted in the Landnama-b6c. 
 
 The actual doer of the deed is ' hand-bani ' ; the contriver of it 
 'rd8-bani,' Hym. 72; the man who' does the deed alone without 
 help or counsel is ' ein-bani.' 
 
 bana muntu mer brceSra boeta aldregi. Atlam. 258. 
 sins um brodor slaer hann hand-bana. Short Vsp. 46. 
 orms einbani. Hym. 85. 
 
 See also ' br6dor-bani,' Lokas. 69; W. PI. 309 ; Ch. W. 83-4; 
 and O. G L. 119 ; and note the whole beautiful passage in Sona- 
 torrec, ending with the words — 
 
64 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 Enn ec ecci eiga {lottomc 
 
 sacar-afl ui5 sonar-bana, 
 
 {mi-at al-{)i65 fyr angom uer8r 
 
 gamals Jj^gns gengi-leysi. 
 
 Mic hefir Marr myclo rsentan, 
 
 grimmt es fall frsenda at telja. Sonat. 37-42. cor. 
 
 Indeed the whole poem (hke the only one fit to be put beside 
 it, Durayd's Dirge over his brother Abdallah) is the best possible 
 example of the aspect in which the ancients looked on the subject. 
 
 As in Arabia, the sword might be bought off or borne, and it was 
 quite as honourable to accept the offered were-gild or blood-wite as 
 it was to exact revenge sword in hand. The institution of the 
 were-gild, the existence of a tariff at which the injuries done to 
 or slaughter of individuals of each rank of free-men were duly 
 appraised, was of course necessary to this way of ending a feud. 
 That such existed early in the North there seems evidence, but the 
 exact tariff is not known, for Gragis and the later authorities only 
 reckon in silver or wadmal, the currency of their day. The older 
 tariff was probably expressed in terms of beasts, cows, and slaves, 
 somewhat as in Ireland. 
 
 The compensation was sometimes a mere affair of setting off 
 slain man against slain man, and paying the excess when a man 
 more was slain on one side than the other. See Icelandic Sagas. 
 
 But often there were more complicated questions : — Was such 
 a slain man an outlaw or criminal to be paid for or not ? how far 
 back was the reckoning to go ? and so on ; and, as a matter of fact, 
 these questions appear, judging by later analogy, to have been 
 usually submitted by both sides to arbiters or daysmen, ' iafnendr ' 
 lit, eveners, men who set matters straight ^. 
 
 Sometimes however one party will not be satisfied with anything 
 but self-doom — to wit, that the other party should absolutely give 
 him the right of making his own award in the matter. It was then 
 said to be ' sialf-scapa ' (the ' sialf-dcemi,' of the Sagas), scapa being 
 the word used (cf leggja, to lay down) of shaping or creating the 
 judgment or doom, which was termed 'dcemi.' The ofiice is rather 
 akin to that of a judge than a jur}-man ; the facts are plain, but the 
 inference to be drawn is often hard to decide. 
 
 ' ' SwiSri,' one of Woden's names, Jacob Grimm suggests to be such a law 
 term, pacifier, • pacator.' Note that purification is necessary to appease the gods 
 after great crimes, even when atoned for legally, among Homer's Greeks. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 6^ 
 
 The word for a settlement, by self-doom, or, by others' award 
 is ' sastt,' which was imparted into O. E. as ' saht,' and survives in 
 N. Mid. Eng. to the fifteenth century. See Atlamal, 2g2, and 
 
 sem iafnendr nnno es occr nilja saetta. Harb. Ii6. 
 
 sattir letosc meSan'saman drucco. Ch. W. 87. 
 
 There is in the Thulor App. a curious phrase defining an old law- 
 word, 'li6nar heita {)eir menn es ganga um ssettir manna.' Cf.-Dict. 
 s- V. 395. The word occurs in Ynglinga-tal 14, where one would 
 read li6na b^-agi. 
 
 There are several words used for the compensation, but the 
 regular legal term seems to be ' b6t,' the O. E. hot and the ' boot ' 
 of our half-fossil phrase 'What boots it?' — a word discussed in 
 Paper V above. Another word, giaDld, ' gildi,' payment, is applied 
 to other kinds of payment besides the legal one ; its compound 
 i6-gia3ld means repayment. A third word is ' laun,' ' hand-laun,' 
 which survives in the O. E. lean, our loan, in a different sense. 
 In the Eddie poems it seems simply a synonym for ' bot.' 
 
 Boeta seal {ler {)at \& munda-batigi. Harb. 115. 
 \o hefir M . . . mer um fingnar 
 bglua boetr. Sonat. 88-9. 
 
 oc bofetir \tt sua baugi B . . Lokas. 46. 
 t)at ma ec bbeta bratt. Havam. 80. 
 
 Huer gigld fa gumna synir 
 
 ef t)eir liugasc or8om a. W. PI. 11, 12. cor. 
 Haf-{)u H . . heim harms at gigldom 
 bruSr baug-uari9 oc burir \\xivc. Helg. I. ■277-8. 
 
 {)at es or5 maelt at engi geti 
 
 sonar iS-gigld. Sonat. 78-9. 
 
 ill iS-gigId let-ec hana eptir hafa. Love Less. 27. 
 
 oc launa sua ly3om lygi. W. PI. 270. 
 
 huer hann af hraim-bua hand-laun um fecc 
 
 es hann beedi gallt bgm sin fyrir. Hym. 147-8. cor. 
 
 The classic passages in which an offer is made of Weregild or bot 
 are ( — of. Beowulf, 1080) 
 
 mani munec l)ic hugga, mjetom agjetom, 
 silfri snse-huito, sem {lu sialf uilir. Atlam. 249-50. 
 tolf hundraS gefec \ex manna (mana !), 
 tolf hundraS gefec \fi mara, 
 
 tolf hundraS gefec l)er scalca J)eirra es scigld bera, 
 manni gefec huerjom mart at 
 F 
 
66 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 [annat oedra] . . . 
 
 mey gefec huerjom manni at J>iggJ3-) 
 
 meyjo spenni-ec huerri men at halsi, 
 
 munec um })ic sitjanda silfri msela, 
 
 enn ganganda {>ik golli steypa, 
 
 sua a uega gUa uelti baugar, 
 
 J)ri8vmg God-{)i65ar, t)ui scaltu einn ra5a. Hlod. 40-50. 
 
 The refusal of compensation was an insult of a deadly kind (cf. 
 the famous story of Haward's vengeance in the Isfirdinga Saga). 
 
 Oln ne penning hafdir J)U {less aldregi 
 uan-rettiss, uesall. Lokas. 162-3. 
 
 The use of ell and penny in this latter citation instead of the 
 chattels of the earlier ones proves late date'. 
 
 III. 
 
 Of the details of Procedure there are not as many hints in 
 the poems as one would like to have, but such as there are, are in 
 full consonance with the idea that one would gather from the later 
 evidence. There is a Moot, the ' thing ' whereat all legal as well as 
 political business was done, precisely as in Tacitus' day, in public 
 before the whole congregation, 'al-^i65,' Sonat. 62, 74, in broad day- 
 light. But law cases were not judged by the Assembly, but by 
 a special Tribunal consisting no doubt of the king or officer that 
 spoke the law and his assessors. They sat in a full court on 
 judgment-seats in a ring, see Story of Starkad, C. P. B. i. 466, 467, 
 and their office was ' um sacar doema,' to deem 01 judge cases (Gripi, 
 115), according to the law. 
 
 The Moots were held at regular seasons, and the riding to the 
 Moot is a notable part of a man's public duty. As to battle so men 
 rode to moot, in their best clothes and fully armed, though the 
 court-stead itself, being hallowed, was a place of peace, and any 
 breach of peace there punished in the same way as if committed in 
 any other sanctuary. How the Moot-field and the Law-hill or 
 
 1 There is a curious word coupled with 'geld' in Beowulf— 'gamban.' This 
 is, I believe, one of the few words in O. N. (like gaman, as Prof. Kluge has 
 neatly shown) which retain the affix g — its second element, ombun, is met with 
 in O. N., it means tribute, wages, and the like. It was paid by tally, called 
 gamban-tein — 
 
 gaf hann mer gamban-tein. Harb. 63. 
 
 The tallies of our Exchequer were thus the survival of a very early mode of 
 receipt and audit of debt. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 67 
 
 Law-rock were hallowed we have no evidence, but from allusions in 
 old prose phrases one would imagine that the typical moot-field 
 would be a plain accessible to the range of country whence those 
 who flocked to it came, near some spot made sacred of old time by 
 a temple or a grave, or both, with good water and grazing ground 
 for the horses of the assembled multitude. There would be a 
 rock, hill, or great tumulus on which the judges sat and did 
 their law-work, in a circle of seats of turf or stone, inside an 
 enclosure marked off by stakes and ropes. From the rock or 
 hillock the Speaker of the Moot would address the congregation, 
 put matters to the vote (a vote taken by acclamation no doubt), and 
 recite the new laws which were to be considered by the assembly. 
 Here too no doubt the kings were chosen and proclaimed. There 
 are many moot-steads or thing-fields in the British Islands whence 
 the situation and character of such places can be studied. The 
 Eddie poems do not deal much with peaceful moots, the battle or 
 moot of War, as they put it, is more in consonance with their spirit. 
 But there is a glimpse of the procession of the judges to form the 
 court 'fara f d6ma ' (' d6mar fara lit ' of the Sagas), and in the Story 
 of Starcad the solemn court is seen sitting, each man on his seat, 
 one delivering his opinion or sentence after another in order. 
 
 The word 'm4r [cf. L.L. mallus, O.E. maj)elian] applies to any 
 public business conducted in speech ; the king's business is 'J)iodans 
 mal,' and it is a late use that confines the word to the law case or 
 causa of the individual. ' Mdl-uinr ' and ' for-mselendr ' are terms 
 difficult to prove the exact meaning of, but they would seem to 
 denote the patron or powerful neighbour or kinsman that takes up 
 a man's case and conducts it for him as for a client, maintaining him, 
 as the English lawyer would put it. Judging from Egil's poems 
 and the Icelandic authorities, the good 'mal-uinr' was not only 
 expected to uphold his client's cause with the tongue at court, but 
 also back him sword in hand if necessary. 
 
 The whole picture, which may be recovered in parts from the 
 Eddie Lays, is marvellously in agreement with that drawn by 
 Tacitus in the Germania, and that given by Ari in his Historical 
 
 works. 
 
 {(ueginn oc mettr ri8i maSr l)i°gi ^t 
 
 l)6tt hann se useddr til nel. G. W. 305-6- 
 hon sua goerr at {iii gair eigi 
 l)ings ne J)i65ans mala. Less. Lodd. 10. 
 F 2 
 
68 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 mic h^to . . . 
 
 |)r6r {)ingom at. Grimm. App. 42-3. 
 
 Grani rann af l)ingi. O. G. L. 9. 
 senn u6ro RAx allir a Jiiigi 
 oc Asynior allar a mali, 
 oc um {)at reSo ricir tiuar 
 hui useri . . . Doom 1-4. 
 
 Of the Dooms — the Court as distinct from the Moot — 
 
 J)a gengo R . . . 9II a roec-stola. Vsp. 20. 
 
 a t)ui tiogi es J)i6&ir scolo 
 
 i folia doma fara. W. PI. 240-1. 
 . . . ne um sacar doemir. Grip. 115. Cf. also Grimin. 55-56. 
 
 The ' mselendr ' are in question — 
 mal-uinr manna. Grott. 35. 
 ma8r es a mot um cosmr,* 
 
 oc a for-mselendr fa. G. W. 11 5-6. 
 Jia Jiat fi3r es at Jiingi coemr 
 
 at hann a for-maelendr fa. G. W. 193-4. 
 . . . Idja glys-mglom, 
 |)iaza J)ing-scilom. Biarkam. 18. 
 
 Various kinds of suits there were, but the mode of procedure 
 was probably the same in all. This part of the subject is neces- 
 sarily obscure to us, and it is not likely that, when with aU the 
 help of the whole Corpus luris the actual procedure of Justinian's 
 day is by no means clear to us, these Lays should give much 
 information. Plaintiff and defendant are said, ' deila sacar,' a 
 phrase which shows that the best description of the primitive 
 Teutonic law-suit would be 2. feud in court. 
 
 Of phrases denoting legis actiones : first is ' cue3ja,' to summons, 
 or better, to call on the defendant to perform some cut in law [whence 
 the term ' cu68,' a duty or demand or summons, is in later law 
 derived]. The word ' cui9r ' which stands for verdict, legal 
 declaration, is of high importance, for it implies a ' quest ' or 
 ' recognitio ' by sworn witnesses in our later authorities ; and there 
 is nothing to forbid the theory that even as early as these poems 
 some, jury of inquest was established in the North. The age of the 
 poem, the Old Play of the Wolsungs, and the truly archaic form 
 of the term ' heimis-qui8r ' occurring in it, is a strong though 
 isolated piece of evidence to this effect. 
 
 ' We suggest i mot um, for, me8 mgrgom. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 69 
 
 Of zxiyjury of presentment or the like, if such there were, nought 
 remains to tell. 
 
 A court must h&full to give judgment. W. PI. 241. 
 
 To deny is ' synja ' ; to acknowledge an act ' Ifsa. ' ; to set up a 
 false plea ' dylja ' ; to upset a decision or an adversary s claim 
 ' quiSja,' Lat. ' ueto.' 
 
 The strict observance of time in archaic law is noted here also, 
 the man who missed his day was treated as a wilful defaulter, 
 ' t)ing-logi.' 
 
 The plea or declaration or doom of the judge is ' or8,' which 
 stands for any ' legis uerbum,' cf. ' ban-or8,' etc. 
 
 To decide a point of law is 'leggia log,' to lay down the law, as 
 we have it still in familiar speech. 
 
 Of a suit for weregild the old summons is given — 
 
 cugddo sidan Sigmundar bur 
 
 au8s oc hringa Handings synir, 
 
 J)ni at {jeir atto igfri at gialda 
 
 fiar-nam micit oc fgSor dau3a. 
 
 Letad buSlungr botir uppi 
 
 ne ni8ja in heldr nef-gigld fa. Helg. I. 41-46. 
 
 Other passages dealing' with procedure in court are — 
 
 Uagom or scogi {lannz wildom sycnan ; 
 
 comta-l>u af J)ui Jiingi . . . 
 
 at J)U sgc soettir ne sloecSir a8ra, 
 
 uildir aualt usegja enn iisetci halda. 
 
 cyrt um {lui lata. Atlam. 365-9. 
 
 enn slics scylde synja aldri 
 
 ma8r fyr annan \sx es muno8 deilir. Oddr. 88-9. 
 
 cann-ec slics synja. Atlam. 247, see also Ord. 28. 
 
 feginn ertu, Atli, ferr ]?u uig lysa. Atlam. 243. 
 
 dylja mun Jic eigi dottir G . . . Atlam. 328. 
 
 ne {leir dyljendr ugdo. Akv. 5. cor. 
 
 dule8 ertu Hyndla. Hyndl. 24 and Rimeg. 32. 
 
 que8cat-ec dul. Yng. 35. 
 
 si61a ec" com snemma ec callaSi 
 
 til domualdz dura 
 bing-logi . . . ec heitinn ware. Ch. W. 118-9. cor. 
 Ur8ar-or8i cuiSjar engi maSr. Swip. 237. 
 era l)at hceft at heyrom scyli 
 
 cui8ja Fafnir fiar. W. PI. 39-40. n. cor. 
 
 cf. l)«r l°g log8o. Vsp. 51-2, 
 
70 VII. TRACES OF OLD LA W 
 
 The person upon whom the burden of prdof fell, must prove his 
 innocence according to the prescribed method, and as in other 
 Teutonic law systems, the oath seems to have played a great part 
 here. With its forms we deal later on. 
 
 But the ordeal and \k\& judgment of battle was enjoined iii some 
 cases, though we do not know the details. The old poet advises 
 the suitor or defendant to appeal to the sword rather than run the 
 risk of having foul charges brought against one, and expresses a 
 doubtless well-founded distrust of the verdict of a jury of inquest — 
 
 Ef l)U sacar deilir 
 
 ni8 heimsca hali 
 berjasc es betra en bregSasc se 
 
 illom orS-stgfom. W. PI. 291-4. 
 
 The ordeal described is one in which a woman is accused of 
 adultery and offers to purge herself, the ordeal proying her inno- 
 cent, her accuser (also a woman) is put to the same proof and 
 fails. The oath as in later times is taken before the ordeal. The 
 lady has the right of denying the charge by champion, but has no 
 champion to bring forward. The ordeal is public. 
 
 \ti munec allz {less eiSa uinna, 
 
 at inom' huita helga steini 
 
 at ec ui8 JjioSmars son J)attci attac 
 
 es ugr8 ne uerr uinna cnatti. Ord. 9-12. 
 
 sner5i mundi Hogni slics harms reca, 
 
 nu uerSec sialf fyr mic synja lyta. Ord. 27-8- 
 
 sentu at Saxa Sunn-manna gram 
 
 hann cann helga huer nellanda. Ord. 21-2. 
 
 siau hundred seggja i sal gengo 
 
 aSr cuan conungs i cetil toeci. Ord. 23-4. 
 
 bra hon til botz bigrtom lofa 
 
 oc hon upp um toe iarcna-steina 
 
 ' Sg mi, seggir, sycn em ec ordin 
 
 heilagliga, hue sia huerr uelli.' Ord. 29-32. 
 
 Sd-at ma5r armlict huerr es Jiat saat 
 
 hue tar a H . . . [the accuser] hendr suiSnoao. Ord. 37-38. 
 
 Of another early legis actio, wager of battle, or ' duellum,' a late 
 example only occurs, resembling cases given in Landnama-b6c, 
 
 a holm J)eir gengo fyr i8 horsca uif 
 oc fengo baSir bana. Ch. W. 59-60, 
 
 the place of fight, a holm or eyre, where the combatants are in 
 
IN THE ED Die LAYS. 71 
 
 view, but cut off from interference; this passage also gives the 
 usual term between summons and trial — 
 
 mer hefir stillir . . . stefnt til eyrar 
 
 Jjriggia natta scylac til Jiings coma. Helg., II, 56. 
 
 The lines in Havamal, ' ef ec skal til orrosto leiSa lang-uini/ 
 may possibly refer to the wager or ordeal by battle. The words 
 for fixing and calling a moot and a battle are the same, ' heyja ' or 
 ' leggia ' or ' stefna til ' ; both meetings are to decide moot questions. 
 Even the ordinary pitched battle between hosts is regai-ded as a 
 legal mode of decision, as the phrases ' ual- stefna,' 'hior-stefna,' 
 ' hior-thing,' 'brimis d6mar,' cf Helg. I. 76, 49, 216, 147, 207, 
 and the ' bryn-thing' of the W. W. L. 85, would show. Cf C. P. B. 
 ii. 483, and the fine article on the Wager of Battle in the Chansons 
 de Geste in Z. f. Rom. Phil. 1885, by M. Pfeffer. 
 
 The classification of wounds is necessary in early systems of law 
 where compensation must be adjusted according to it. The deadly 
 wound or mortal wound is ' ben,' used chiefly in the plural ' benjar.' 
 The verb ' benja ' is once used. 
 
 seal engi ma8r angr-li68 kue5a 
 
 J)6tt mer a briosti benjar liti. Helg. II. 341-2. 
 
 kendi bratt benja, bandz qiia8 hann Jigrf renga. Atlam. 325. 
 
 broSor minn hefir })U benjaSan. W. PI. 158. 
 
 'Und' is a wound that can be healed, and 'sdr,' sore, usually 
 a cut wound. 
 
 sseir brce3r {linom blodokt sar, 
 
 undir dreyrgar knaettir yfir binda. L. B. L. 129-30. 
 
 With this branch of the subject that of punishment is closely 
 connected. Tacitus, who notices the division of crimes among the 
 early Teutons, speaks of flagrant crimes being exposed by hanging 
 the culprit, disgusting ones hidden away by drowning the offender. 
 
 But here the reasons he gives are his own, and they are far too 
 late in sentiment to be true : the real reason surely is that such 
 criminals, if men, were sent to Woden, if women were given to Ran 
 or Hell, the men were sent to the gallows, the women to the pit or 
 fen. The pit and gallows stood on the west of the moot-places 
 or the prince's hall ready for use. The execution of such offenders 
 by sacratio originally was regarded, we should suppose, as purging 
 the nation of any guilt or sin that might be imputed to it for their 
 offences. 
 
72 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 The gallows were horse-shaped, not of the modem conven- 
 tional signpost-shape, hence the metaphors of ' riding the gallows,' 
 ' riding to Woden,' and the like. 
 
 uargr hangir fyr uestan dyrr. Grimn. 35. 
 narg-tre uind-cgld nestan bcejar 
 oc systor-son saran a meiSi. Hamd. 81-2. 
 ef ec se a tre uppi 
 
 uafa uirgil-na. Havam. 96-?. 
 ec hecc Vinga-meiM a 
 
 geiri undaSr oc gefinn 63ni. Havam. 9-11. 
 ella he8an bi8it me3an ec hcegg y3r galga. Atlam. 134. 
 The custom of first wounding the criminal with the spear, mark- 
 ing him to Woden, was evidently observed at this time, as it occurs 
 in the story of Starkad, C. P. B. i. 467. 
 
 The woman's execution, which Tacitus tells us was also meted 
 out to cowards or unnatural criminals, who were counted as 
 women, is thus described. 
 
 Leiddo {la mey i myri fiila: 
 
 sua uarS G . . . sycn sinna harma. Ord. 39-40. 
 
 There occurs also notice of what looks like an archaic form 
 of execution, adopted where the criminal or foe was slain in 
 revenge, possibly a devotion to the dead man who was to be 
 revenged — the bloody eagle marked on the back by the sword, 
 a process described by later sagas, but clearly without any know- 
 ledge of its original meaning. 
 
 nu es bloSogr gm bitrom higmi 
 
 bana Sigmimdar a baci nstinn. W. W. L. 39-40. 
 
 The witch or wizard (as in later days the heretic) was to be 
 burnt or stoned, nor earth nor water could receive even the body 
 of such a criminal. To kindle such a fire is ' sl4 eldi um : cf. 
 Hyndla Lay, where the witch is threatened with fire, the appro- 
 priate pimishment for her peculiar crime. 
 
 brend muntu a bali oc bariS gri6ti adr. Atlam. 312. 
 This burning would also prevent haunting, as the decollation 
 and placing of the severed head at the thigh of the body prevents 
 it. Cf. Grettis Saga in the Story of Glam ^ 
 
 " The latter practice has survived till our own day in Corsica, though, as far 
 as I could ascertain in the case I know, vrithout any knowledge of its early 
 meaning. Note the famous case in Glendower's day of the mutilation of slain 
 Enghshmen by the Welsh women. Cf the article in American Toum. Philol. 
 1885, on 'Armpitting.' 
 
IN THE ED Die LAYS. 73 
 
 The convicted criminal might be, as in nearly all nations at an 
 early stage, banished or put out of law, and the same word is used 
 for him as for the convicted and executed criminal, 'uargr,' the wolf 
 (the wolf's-head of our early law), the nobler exile ' wraecca ' seems to 
 be legally one driven abroad, but not convicted, as ' ilyma ' was the 
 mere fugitive. The outlaw lives in the wood, gaining his living as 
 a bandito, hated and feared and pitied. 
 
 ef {>u userir uargr a tiiSom dti. Helg. I. 268. 
 nac8ir Jieir urdo or nssmdir huiuetna 
 
 oc runno sem uargar til ui8ar. Chr. W. 39-40. 
 at uidi wrecasc. G. W. 34. 
 hui es per, stillir, stsecct or landi? Helg. II. 48. 
 mic hefir micil glospr meiri sittan. Helg. II. 50. 
 tiagom or scogi Jiannz uildom sycnan. Atlam. 360. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of Crimes there were, as was aforesaid, two great categories, 
 the deadly crimes which were unatonable, and those which might 
 be compensated for. Thus in the Law of Cnut, § 64, hiis-bryce 
 and bsernet and open J)yf8 and »bere mor9 and hlaford-suice 
 sefter woruld-lage is botleas. To this list of deadly crimes, 
 naming house-breaking, ^rson or fire-raising, open theft (ran), 
 and clear murder and treason to one's lord, the Northmen seem 
 to have added unnatural crime (arg-scap), witchcraft, blasphemy, 
 and oath-breach, all of which are spoken of with special loathing 
 and detestation. The offence of cowardice and of slaying those 
 near-of-kin, the Roman pari-cidium, was also bootless (as Beowulf 
 shows, 2441) ^ 
 
 The innocent man is ' saclauss ' sackless, and the gmlly man is 
 ' sgco-dolgr,' Ch. W. 91, 99. The convict is 'uarg,' the wolf; cf. 
 ■ the Age of Felony, uarg-old of the Woluspa poet, 112. 
 
 The word ' sycn ' refers rightly to the man who has purged his 
 guilt by fulfilling his outlawry, by ordeal, or ' orrosta,' earnest, wager 
 
 • Brother slaying brother is of course bootless, quite irrespective of the hein- 
 ousness of the offence which considers even an innocent fratricide as a great 
 crime ; for by the very theory, upon which were-gild was paid to the next of kin 
 by the slayer, brother could not pay for brother. 
 
 wses {>ani yldestan unged6felice 
 
 msegesdaedum mor8or-bed streS . . . 
 
 J)8et wses feoh-16as gefeoht. 
 The Homeric Greeks make the same account of kin-killing. 
 
74 VII. TRACES OF OLD LA W 
 
 of battle, or getting restored to his legal status. It differs from 
 ' 6sannr ' insons, the man who is declared by verdict of sworn men 
 no offender. 
 
 The fierce punishment which greater criminals meet in the pit 
 of the World of Hell, according to the author of the Woluspd, 
 touches the following, though the text is fragmentary : — perjurer, 
 'mein-suari,' Vsp. 173, 'uara-uargr,' W. PI. 259, Vsp. 176 ; murderer, 
 'mor8-uargr,' Vsp. 173; hidden murder, 'folg-m'g,' Vsp. 74 ; adulterer 
 in secret, ' sa-es glepr annars eyra-runo,' Vsp. 174 ; coward, 'nfding,' 
 Vsp. 180; witch, ' fordseda,' Vsp. 175, also W. PI. 271, Lokas. 128, 
 but the text is fragmentary, and there was doubtless a full table 
 in the original. There is also a fragmentary list to be culled out 
 of the Old Wolsung Play, where only the man-sworn, the inces- 
 ' tuous, the murderer are now mentioned. 
 
 These gi-eat crimes seem to have been termed ' gloep.' 
 
 nu hefir-J>u enn aucit . . . 
 
 greipt gloep storaii. Atlam. 310-11. 
 
 mic hefir miclo glcepr meiri sottan. Helg. II. 50. 
 
 Taking them one by one, and first treason, ' suic' This offence 
 covers all breaches of pecuUar trust, in which a crime is com- 
 mitted against a person one is bound to by such ties as friendship, 
 affinity, kinship, service : our mediaeval English high-treason and 
 petty-treason will include most of these offences. 
 
 illt es uin uela. Atlam. 332. 
 
 of fik uela oinir. Grimu. 138. 
 
 munc uin-Jjiofr uer6a heitinn. Egil. 49. 
 
 oc laun-snic inn lom-gedi. Yng. 165. 
 
 {ju uer8r, siclingr, fyr suicom annars 
 
 mundu Grim-hildar gialda raSa. Grip. 129-30. 
 
 Drottins-suica es Digfulinn hlsegdo. Ditty 43. 
 
 udndr munc heitinn 
 
 S . . . mea seggjom at sogoro. Grip. 157-8. 
 
 Murder — that is, secret-killing, or slaying by night or by wicked 
 means — is ' morS ' [Lat. mors]. 
 
 SynS bans suall, sofanda myrSi. Ch. W. 23. 
 
 menn . . . es myr8ir ro 
 
 allz fyr cengar sacar. Sol. 168-9. 
 
 The word for slaughter is ' ufg,' and this is perhaps the older 
 
IN THE EDDIC LA YS. 75 
 
 word, for besides mere manslaughter or killing in fight, it is com- 
 pounded with folg-, mor3-, and the like. 
 
 A base offender is called ' argr,' a highly offensive word (cf. Paul 
 Diaconus and Loka-senna /awziw) — 
 
 mic muno sesir argan calla 
 
 ef ec bindasc Isetc brudar-lini. {irym. 6^, 79. 
 
 a quotation which illustrates the Jewish prohibition of men wearing 
 women's clothes. 
 
 Robbery with violence is ' vin.' 
 
 menn . . . es marga hgf8o 
 fe oc figrui rcent. Sol. 125-6. 
 
 The later Christian poems treat all forms of robbing one's neigh- 
 bour as spiritually criminal. : 
 
 menu . . . es ingrgom hlutom 
 uilto urn annars eign. Sol. 121-2. 
 
 Brenno-uargr, the fire-raiser, does not Occur in the poems, 
 and the guip-uisar conor of Solarliod, 99, is the only additional 
 legal reference to witches, for whose names see C. P. B. i. 468. 
 
 Blasphemy, ' godga,' is found in connection with Hialte's famous 
 nf6, where the word geyja occurs : Ditty 58 ; god-uargr is used, 
 C. P. B. ii. 80, 1. 25. 
 
 Slander, a minor offence, seems to have two aspects, one the older, 
 in which a satire is believed to have by the power of the poet a real 
 effect, by which means this crime is hateful, and approaches witch- 
 craft [Lat. incantatio] in its effects, the ceremonies of the ni8-stang 
 and the horse's scull are part of this aspect of slander, and are 
 very archaic. See C. P. B. i. 419; ii. 572. The Irish belief in the 
 poets that could rhyme men and beasts to death, was kept up till 
 late in Iceland. See C. P. B. ii. 415, No. 54. 
 
 The other view of the matter is that connected especially with 
 satiric love-poems ' man-song.' It is a common incident in the 
 Icelandic Family Sagas for a man to be bound in honour to 
 revenge himself to the death upon his satirist. False reports and 
 treacherous misstatements approach this aspect of the offence and 
 bring it near to perjury. 
 
 hropi oc rogi ef Jju eyss a holl regin. Lokas. 15. 
 fla-rad tunga uard honom at figr-lagi 
 oc {)eygi of sanna sjc. Ch. W. 141-2. 
 
76 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 menn . . . er mart hafa 
 
 orS 4 annan logit. Sol. 137-8. 
 
 Another passage, which, though terribly mangled in the MS., 
 yet preserves an interesting word if the Editor's conjecture be 
 accepted, and no other reading seems to me at all satisfactory — 
 
 Jiat raidec Ji^r . . . at Jjii l)ingi a 
 
 deilit uiS heimsca hali : 
 l)uiat 6-sui8r ma8r Isetr 6-cne8ins 
 
 or8 . . . viti. W. PI. 260-4. cor. 
 
 This term ' o-kue6ins-ord ' in the Guta-lag, c. 39, is given as 
 meaning legal and punishable libel or insult, iniuria uerbi. Words 
 not to be used to a man are four — thief, murderer, robber, incendiary ; 
 but to a woman five — thief, murderess, adulteress, witch, and incen- 
 diary. In later Danish 'oquems-ord' occurs a mere corruption 
 of the older form, thus — ' 6-cue8ins-ord,' ' o-quens-ord,' ' o-quems- 
 ord,' with a folk-etymology, unseemly or uncomely speech. 
 
 To carry off a woman is not in itself a crime at all, though it is 
 (as Thucydides, and no d9ubt many before him, very justly observed) 
 a most fruitful source for a feud between families, or even a war 
 between nations. But incest, ' sifja-slit,' and the seduction of a 
 kinsman's wife is a grave offence, as is adultery in a woman, which 
 is indeed a species of treason to the Teutonic legal mind, and to 
 be punished with death : cf. the case of Gudrun cited above under 
 Ordeal, and quotations below, pp. 85, 86. 
 
 V. 
 The subject of Perjury is but connected with Oaths, and may 
 best be treated in connection with it. For the general subject 
 of Oaths and Vows of the heathen time among the Old Northern 
 folk, see C. P. B. i. 422. To give an oath is ' selja ei8a'; to take 
 it, ' uinna ei8a ' ; to swear an oath, ' suerja ei8a ' ; to maintain or 
 respect it, is ' J)yrma eiSom,' to uphold it is ' halda eiSom.' 
 
 eiSa scaltu mer £8r alia uinna 
 
 at scips borSi oc at scialdar rgnd 
 
 at mars boegi oc at raaekis egg. Weyl. 133-5. 
 
 Baug-ei8 68inn hyggec unnit hafa. Love. Less. 55. 
 
 15 muno8 alia ei6a uinna. Grip. 121. 
 
 mer hefir S . . . selda ei8a 
 
 ei8a selda alia logna 
 
 fa uselti hann mic es hann [u . . .] scylde 
 
 allra ei8a eiun fuU-trui. Sh. Br. L. 3-6. 
 
IN THE ED Die I AYS. 77 
 
 toe wi& tryg8om tueggja broedra, 
 
 seldosc eiSa elion-frcecnir. L. B. L. 3, 4. 
 
 Jiat raed-ec Jier . . . at {iii eiS ne suerir 
 
 nema {lann-es saSr se. W. PI. 256-7. 
 . . . sem {)ii wi6 G. Alter 
 eiSa opt urn suar&a oc arofa neiiida 
 at sol inni sn8r-hgllo oc at Sigtyss berge 
 hglcui liuil-beSjar oc at hringi UUar. Akv. 1 17-120. cor. 
 Hue h . . . hafSi fyrri 
 
 eiSom haldit ui8 inn unga gram. Sh. Br. L. 71-5. 
 l)ic scyli allir ei8ar bita 
 tieir es H . . . h . . . hafSir unna 
 at eno liosa leiptrar uatni 
 oc at ursuglom Unuar-steini. Helg. I. 257. 
 sor J)a Uingi, ser red hann litt eira, 
 eigi hann Igtnar ef hann at ySr lygi 
 
 galgi gcer-uallan ef hann a gii5 hygSe. Atlam. in-113. 
 I)yrm8a ec sifjom sugraom eiSom. L. Br. L. ij2. 
 mun engi ma8r o6rom [ei6om] Jiyrma. Vsp. 
 J)yrma veom. Hacm. 55 [showing the bearing of the word]. 
 
 The ' ar6fa ' of the citation are. the witnesses named to the oath 
 taken in legal formalities. 
 
 The subject of Vows rather belongs to Religion than Law, but 
 Wager, in its aspect of an early contract, is noticed. 
 
 hgf6i uedja uid scolom . . . 
 gestr um ge8-speci. Vdf{). 71-2. 
 
 The perjurer is 'uara-uargr,' 'uar-liiigr,' Arinb. 50. for. ; and perjury 
 is 'uarlygi,' Atlam. 338; ' udrom,' 'uarg-dropa,' W. PI. 308. Of 
 other origin but like meaning are the rofi- series, ' gri9a-rofi,' 
 W. PI. 258 ; ' eiS-rofi,' Sh. Br. L. 64. There is a curious proverb 
 on treachery and perjury, the bearing of which is plain, but the 
 exact meaning to me obscure : it occurs in two forms. 
 
 grimmar limar ganga af griSa-rofi, 
 
 armr es uara-uargr. W. PI. 258-9, 
 6sa8ra or3a es a annan lygr 
 
 of lengi leiSa limar. W. PI. 15. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Of the Family somewhat was said in the Corpus Poeticum 
 (vol. ii. 472), but there are some additions to be made to the 
 citations there placed in a different connection. 
 
7« VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 The main word lox family is 'sett' ought, the family in its 
 aspect of a mass of rights and property possibly, A kinsman is 
 ' settingi,' Grip. 37. ' settar-scioldr,' Egil Sonat. 56, is a poetical 
 expression- for son, scion, of. ' sett-conr.' The near of kin are 
 ' ha)fod-ni8/ as Ord. 20. 
 
 sleit marr bgnd minnar EEttar 
 snaran {}att af sialfom mer. Sonat. 31-2. 
 {)uiat sett min a enda stenzc. Sonat. 17. 
 HfiS einir i5 patta settar minnar. Hamd. 17. 
 
 The chief words in the poems for kinship by blood are : — 
 
 grandmother, ' amma,' Hym. 27, Righ^. 62. 
 
 father, ' fadir,' passim. 
 
 mother, ' m69ir,' Grip. 12. 
 
 mother s brother, ' m6dor-br65ir,' Grip. 23, cf. Tacitus Germ. 
 
 brother, 'br68ir,' 'hlj^ri,' Lac. Lay, vol. i. 315, 1. 13, barmi, 
 Thul. 211; brother german, ' hnit-br63ir,' Hym. 91. 
 
 son, ' sonr,' 'nidjar,' Akv. 36, Atlam. 377, Yng. 18; '163,' 
 Treg, 25 ; 'maogr,' Hym. 27 ; ' burr,' Grott. 82 ; ' afspring,' Yng. 
 60 ; ' frasndr,' Yng. 58 ; and of the son as heir ' erfi-nytja,' L. B. L. 
 102 ; ' erfi-u3ord,'-Treg. 25 ; ' lang-fe3gar,' Yng. 142. corr. (son after 
 father); ' lang-ni8jar,' vol. i. 79, 1. 25. 
 
 sister, 'sy stir, 'passim; ' iodfs,' Yng. 37; 'di's,' Yng. 52 ; 'nipti,' 
 Helg. I. 253; mother's sister's son, ' systrungr,' Atlam. 196, Vsp. 
 109; brother and sister, ' systkin,' Atlam. 354. 
 
 daughter, ' ddttir,' passim ; ' bnidir,' Harb. 105 ; ' mser,' Yng. 
 40 ; brother's sister or niece, ' br6Sor-m8er,' Yng. 1 50. The words 
 for this relationship, as for sister, are often merely terms signifying 
 young woman. 
 
 Affinity is 'maegS,' Atlam. 189; and kinsman-in-law, whether 
 son-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, is ^magr,' a word even 
 used for son, the primitive idea being probably that of strengthening 
 (cp. 'eflSisc hann ui8 Eymund,' Hyndl.)' an early political section. 
 Another even stronger word for a relative by affinity is ' hleyti,' 
 which recalls the Latin consors. 
 
 ' The true meaning of the msegft seems to be the kindred, but in the bulk of 
 the passages in the Eddie Lays which use this term, the kindred of a man to 
 his mother's family is implied ; the paternal family being unnoticed owing to 
 the circumstances of the case. The best discussion of the legal force of the 
 term is to be found in ' Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law," Boston, 1882, in a chapter 
 
IN THE ED Die LAYS. 79 
 
 mun ec uia {)A G . . . goeraa hleyti 
 oc G . . . ganga at eiga. Grip, 133-4. 
 broeSra-hleyti. Sonat. 66. corr. 
 Hue mun at yn6i eptir uer8a 
 mseg8 med mgnnum. Grip. 173-4. 
 msega gat-ec micla. Atlam. 189. 
 Sib, 'sifjar,' is a third word for affinity; its derivation is 'sifjungr,' 
 Atlam. 304; Thul. 218. 
 
 nrano synir Giuca a sifjungi mer 
 eggjar rioda. Grip. 199, 200. 
 
 . . . barna-sifjar duga 
 
 oc allra osc-maga. Lokas. 62-3. 
 
 Other words denoting" affinity are : — 
 
 sister's husband, ' systur-uerr,' L. Brun. Lay, 107. 
 
 daughter-in-law, ' snor,' Treg. 45. 
 
 mother-in-law, ' suaera,' Atlam. 347. 
 
 brother-in-law, ' suarr,' Thorod. Eirics Drapa, 29. 
 
 Fosterage, so prominent in Ireland, and of much importance in 
 
 Norway and Iceland, appears in the later poems, as in the Icelandic 
 
 FamUy Histories. 
 
 enn dyrr conungr 
 . . . man Heimir foedir. Grip. 107-8. 
 
 Fostra Heimiss. Grip. 114, 124. 
 
 fostr-man mitt oc fa5emi. L. B. L. 268. 
 
 Sworn-brother-hood (C. P. B. i. 423). Beside the classic passage 
 
 by Ernest Young, where the Sachsen-spiegel is employed to illustrate the 
 allusions in the Old English law, according to the following system : — 
 
 r ., I 1. head, man and wife. 
 
 ^ ■ ■ ' ( 2. neck, full brothers and sisters. 
 
 I. shoulder-joint, full brother's and sister's children, half 
 
 sifja or msegS - 
 
 brothers and sisters, 
 elbow. 
 
 3. wrist. 
 
 4. mid-finger, ist joint. 
 
 5. „ 2nd joint. 
 
 6. „ 3rd joint. 
 ^7. ,, nail. 
 
 and the rights of succession vs. Descendants : \. sons; 2. daughters; 3. grand- 
 children, etc. Kinsfolk upon failure of issue succeeding thus: i. father; 
 2. mother ; 3. brother ; 4. sisters. 
 
 The only succession suit, clearly noticed in the Eddie Lays, is the suit for 
 the Hoard after Fafhi has slain his father, when, according to the corrected 
 text of the W. PI., the sisters egg on Regin to claim his share of the inherit- 
 ance, according to law. The ancient, obscure word 'heyrom' (Diet. 261 b) 
 seems here to be concealed under the corrupt ' hiorui. 
 
8o VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 in Brunhild's Lay, describing the blending of the two sworn brethren's 
 blood, is the footstep, a ceremony, the exact significance of which is 
 dark to us. There are several notices of this tie, which is more 
 fully noticed by Are and the composers of the Histories of the 
 early days of the Settlement. 
 
 mantu Jiat . . . es vi8 i ar-daga. 
 
 blendom bl68i i spor. Lokas. 34. cor. 
 sifjom es \k. blandit huerr es segja rse8r 
 
 einom allan hug. G. W. 125-6. 
 mantatta, G ... til goerua {lat 
 
 es it bl68i i spor ba8ir renndot. Sh. Biun. L. 66. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Marriage. On this head there is pretty full evidence in the 
 poems, and nearly every legal aspect of the status is touched on. 
 There is in Thrymskvida an excellent description of the bridal dress 
 and of the bridal feast, while in the Atlamal (which is the most full 
 of legal information of all the poems) and in Aluismal there is 
 a complete notice of the wooing and bringing home of the bride. 
 
 To take in order the various acts. — The asking or bidding of 
 the bride at her father or guardian's hands ' bidja ' ; his promise, 
 ' heit,' heitasc ; the vows of betrothal, ' selja udrar,' ' veitasc (bindasc) 
 uirar,' C.P. ii. 527 ; the espousal, 'fastna'; the paying of the bride- 
 price to the guardian, ' mundi caupa ' ; the bride's portion or dowry, 
 ' meiSmar ' — such are the preliminary steps to marriage, after which 
 the bride is spoken of as given to the husband, who takes her ^- 
 
 bi8ja B. til handa Gminari. Grip. 139. 
 
 ef ec seal mserrar mejjar . . . bi8ja. Grip. 143. cor. 
 
 Jia nas oss . . . synjat Suafniss dottor 
 
 hringom gceddrar es uer liafa nildom. Helg. II. 20-1. 
 
 J)eim hetomc Jia {liid-konungi. L . . Br. L. 160. 
 
 hefir minn faSir meyjo sinni 
 
 grimmom heitit Granmars syni. Helg. I. 71-2. 
 
 mund gallt ec masrri, mei8ma figld Jiiggja, 
 
 fraela Jiria tigo, {jyjar siau goSar, 
 
 scemS uas-at slico, silfr uas Jio meira. Atlam. 341-3. 
 
 ' The Landnama-boc uses ' taca cono ' correctly of the marriage by capture, 
 and this is, we doubt not, the earlier and truer use ; cf. Horaclofi's Ravensong 86. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 8 1 
 
 golli ceypta leztu Gymiss d6ttor 
 
 oc seldir t)itt sua suerfl. Lolcas. 168-9. 
 tiar hefir dyrr connngr dottor alna 
 ta munda, Sigur9r, mundi caupa. W. W. L. 65-6. 
 uas ec Hga-broddi i her fgstnoa 
 enn ec iofor {)ann eiga uilcac, 
 {)6 siamc, fylcir, frgnda reiSe 
 hefi ec mins fgSur mimd-rad broliS : 
 
 hafa-cuazc hon H . . . z {lau hel scyldi. Vols. kv. 7-13. new cor. 
 mundu faslna ^er . . . fostro Heimiss. Grip. 156. 
 mey budo honom oc meiSma figld. L. B. L. 5-6. 
 tu scalt . . . gerst um lata 
 mino landi oc mer sialfri. L. B. L. 37-8. 
 buSo {)eir Atla bauga rau8a 
 broSor minom, boetr osmar, 
 baud hann enn uiS mer bii fimtan, 
 hliS-farm Grana, ef hann hafa uildi ; 
 enn Atli . . . kuazc eigi uilja 
 mund aldregi at megi Giuca. Ord. 76, 81. cor. 
 unz mic Giiici golli reifSi 
 golli reifSi, gaf SigurSi. O. G. L. 34. 
 
 at ossett minni scalattu \s.t iS unga man hafa 
 oc J)at-giafor3 geta. Alvm. 23-4. 
 
 f)au Helgi oc Suaua ueittoz iiarar. Lost part of Helgi III. See Corp. 
 P. B. ii. 527. 
 
 maca-ec vig-risnom varar selja. O. G. L. 97. 
 
 Leyf3 uastu eccja, leto st6r-ra8a, 
 
 uarSa nan-lygi es [uarar bundom]. 
 
 fortu heim hingat fylgSi oss herr manna ; 
 
 margs was allz somi manna tiginna, 
 
 naut woro cerin, nutum af storom. Atlam. 334-8. cor. 
 
 The power of the guardian over the woman in ward is shown, — 
 
 oc mer Atli {lat einni sag8e 
 
 at huarci lezc hafor lun deila 
 
 goll ne iaySir, nema ec gefasc letac, 
 
 oc engi hlut au3ins fiar, 
 
 {)a es mer iod-ungri eiga seldi 
 
 oc mer iod-ungri aura tal3e. L. B. L. 143-8. 
 
 hann scaltu eiga unz {jic aldr uidr 
 
 uerlaus uesa, nema \<x uilir Jienna. O. G. L. 102-3. 
 
 The Lays of the Codex-Regius Lacuna in the Wolsunga Saga 
 paraphrase have an interesting passage in which the guardian 
 declares that it was never heard of that a man should oflfer his 
 
 G 
 
82- VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 daughter before she was asked for, but that he will even do this for 
 Sigfred, so much does he desire the match between them. 
 
 The succeeding steps seem to be fetching the bride home, which, 
 as the Lay of Righ shows, was properly performed by driving her 
 in a chariot (possibly an archaic survival of the capture-marriage). 
 Then there came the bridal (brdd-Iaup) a feast', at which the bride, 
 according to Thryms-kui8a, seems to have given gifts of affection, 
 ' briid-f^,* to her husband's kinswomen. Mention is also made of 
 the solemn making of the bridal-bed; and there seems to have been 
 a ceremony at which the bride made a vow of fidelity. A kind 
 of sacratio of the bride is performed in Thryms-kui6a by placing 
 the hammer of Thor on the bride's lap : possibly the teraph 
 of the family was normally used for this purpose (there are indica- 
 tions pointing that way). These ceremonies, especially the bridal 
 feast (as is seen from an important passage in Landndma-b6c), 
 constitute the marriage ; the husband is said to walk to own the wife 
 ' ganga at eiga'; the wife to walk with the husband ' ganga med,' or, as 
 the usage was for all married women to wear a head-gear of linen, 
 ' ganga und Ifni,' to go under the linen ; the pair were now husband 
 and wife ' uer oc uasrd.' There seems to be a hint of a morning-gift 
 by the husband to the wife in a passage of the Brunhild's Lay. 
 
 Utom si'ga saman satt-raal occor 
 
 \€c mer meirr i mun mei8mar piggja 
 
 bauga rau8a burar Sigmundar, 
 
 ne ec annars mannz aura uildac. L. B. L. 154-7. 
 
 The bridal-feast was often provided by the wife's father; the 
 higher in rank and riches of the two, husband or guardian, seems 
 at the tirne of the settlement of Iceland, c. 900, to have given the 
 feast. 
 
 The chief passages relating to the actual marriage are 
 
 ba3o hennar, oc heim oco, 
 
 gifto larli, gecc hon irnd lini. Rig. is^-iSo. 
 
 heim oco Jia H., gifto Carli. Rig. S4-6. 
 
 rrran-ec iii9 f^ Gunnar goerua hleyti, 
 
 oc Gudruno ganga at eiga. Grip. 134-5. 
 
 ' Tiis wbtd bride-running clearly points to the capture-marriage : the bride- 
 racing of the Esths, as witnessed by Wulfstan, will illustrate its earlier aspect. 
 The Northmen seem to have disused the practice ; and the word alone survives 
 to prove its former existence. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LA YS. 83 
 
 eiga gecc Almveig. Hyndl. 
 
 Becci breidi 1 Nu seal bru8r meS mer 
 
 heim i sinni snuasc. Alvm. 1-2. cor. 
 mey frum-unga fal h'ann megi Giiica. L. B. L. 17. 
 saman muno bludlaup bjeSi druccin. 
 S. oc G. i sglom Giiica. Grip. 169-70. 
 inn com in aldna Igtna systir 
 hin es bniS-fear biSja J>or8i, 
 lattu Jier af hondom hringa ran3a 
 ef J)u oe81asc uill astir minar, 
 astir minar, alia hylli : 
 drap hann ina gldno Igtna systor 
 bin es bnia-fiar of beSit haf8i ; 
 hon scell um hlaut fyrir scillinga, 
 
 oc hoegg bamars fyr hringa figld. Thrym. 117-21, 130-4. 
 ganga rae8 ueri. O. G. L. 88. 
 ganga me8 Ingolfi. ' Ditty. 23. 
 uas ec J)remr uerom uegin at hiisi. Treg. 10. 
 
 enn um aptan 
 {)a es Gunnari gcerdag reccjo. Oddr. 44-5. 
 leggit MioUni i meyjar kne ! 
 nigit ocr saman uarar hende. Thrym. 124-5. 
 
 The single passage in which the wife vows everlasting fidelity 
 is: — 
 
 mselt haf8a-ec fat 1 Munar-heimi 
 
 Jia es mer Helgi . . . hringa ualdi, 
 
 mundiga-ec lostig at li8inn fylci 
 
 {■gfor ocunnan armi uerja. Helg. II. 91-4. 
 
 To the use of ' uer ' and ' usord ' the following notices speak : — 
 
 ugr8 ne uerr. Ord. 12. 
 eigot J)2er uardir uera. Riddl. 72. 
 {)at er nalitit J)6tt ser iiar8ir uers fai. Lokas. 132-3. 
 uarda. Thrym. 54. 
 
 frum-uer. O. G. L. 81. L. B, L. 242. 
 Friggjar-uerr. Sonat. 7. 
 mey ne mannz cono. Havam. 120. 
 The words ' uergiorn/ Thrjms Lay 54, and ' uerfang,' L. B. L. 
 338, are also found in the Poems. 
 
 {la es breiddo uit bloejo eina. Oddr. 93. 
 breiddo bloejor, oc bii goer8o. Rig. 88. 
 Hann uarSi mey uarmri blosjo. Oddr. 22. 
 J)a es uit a be8 bjedi stigom. Treg. 48. cor. 
 G 2 
 
84 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 Gecc e(f a be9 
 
 Jiri&ja sinni J)i6d-conungi. Treg. 23. 
 
 oc hana Sigroedr sueipr i ripti. L. B. L. 32. 
 
 Wedded love is termed ' astir,' the plural, as so often, being used 
 when the word is to be generalized. 
 
 oc iofor ungan astom leiSir. Helgi II. 90. 
 ef fu cedlasc uill astir minar. Thrym. 120. 
 
 The bridal nights are termed 'h;^-n8etr' (Skim. 176); and the 
 superstitions connected with them have been noticed in the 
 Corpus Poet. Bor. in connection with this Lay. 
 
 hue um J)reyjac Jiriar ; 
 
 opt mer manaSr minni {)6tti, 
 
 an sia half hy'nbtt. Skim. 175-6. 
 
 The distinctive marks of the married woman were, the veiled head, 
 to which the ' sf6ar slceSor' of the Rigs Lay may have reference ; the 
 long gown, ' kuen-uddir of kne falla,' in Thrymsk. 65 ; and lAe keys, 
 id. 64 (which are so frequently found in English interments), are 
 also mentioned in the Rigs Lay. 
 
 To set up housekeeping, used of the married couple was 'gcera bd,' 
 Rig. 88 ; ' bioggo or un8o,' 82 ; and the husband is ' hiisgumi,' Rig. 
 103; 'b6ndi,' 91, 'bilandi'; the wife 'hiis-cona,' Rig. 105, 'kudn,' 
 Gudr. kv. 35. 
 
 Polygamy is once mentioned in connection with some other 
 archaic traditions. 
 
 tio ero hagligar HigruarSz cohor. Helg. II. 13. 
 
 Polyandry is looked on as disgraceful. When, in the Lacuna Lay, 
 Sigfred seems to propose it as the solution of a difficulty, Brunhild 
 refuses with scorn to have two husbands alive at once. And in 
 Loka-senna, a charge of polyandry is brought as an insult, even 
 though it was of archaic type, a woman living ^^^th three brothers ; 
 the tradition that it had once existed being shown by the fact that 
 it is there attributed to Wodin and his brothers. 
 
 hefir se uer-gigm uesi3 : 
 es Jia W . . oc W . . letz f>u W . . s broeftr 
 bd9a { baSm um tecit. Lokas. 105-7. ^<»'- 
 
 The disposal of a woman by will is apparently possible to some 
 extent. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 85 
 
 ta nam at msela mal i9 efsta 
 
 . . . K . . . a5r hann sylti : 
 
 mic ba8 hann goe&a golli rau8o 
 
 oc su8r gefa syni Grimhildar. Oddr. 54-8. 
 
 How Divorce was effected we know not, but the woman, it 
 seems, could for certain grounds leave her husband; while the 
 husband could put away the wife at will, her dowry following her — 
 at least, where she was not to blame. The term for the woman 
 was ' ganga fra,' to walk ai^qy ; for man ' hafna,' to put away. 
 
 at fri conungom cuanir gengi. L. B. L. 58. cp. Laxd. Saga, p. 66. 
 
 fyrr scalec mino fignii lata 
 
 an Jieirar meyjar meiSmom tyna. L. B. L. 61-3. 
 
 hafnaSi Holm-Rygjom oc Hoer5a meyjom. Horn-clofi. 89, and Cormac. 
 The marriageable age for women was twelve. 
 
 uas ec uetra tolf, ef {)ic uita lystir, 
 
 sua at ec oengom gram ei8a seldac. L. B. L. 31 1-2. 
 
 The concubine, whom a man might have in addition to his wife 
 or as a substitute for a wife, is ' friSla,' Hym. 114: a paramour, 
 gallant, friSill, 33, cor. Children born out of wedlock, and acknow- 
 ledged by the father, have a defined position, though they are not 
 equal to the children by a wife ; but this seems to be owing mostly 
 to the mothers of such children being captives or slaves. The 
 position of such an one is noticed in the Tale of Gudrun, where the 
 captive princess speaks of her position in her captqr's household, 
 hated by the mistress, and loved by the master. 
 
 The bastard is 'hrisi,' Konungatal, 165, ' horn-ungr,' Hlod. 53: 
 the outlaw's son is ' uarg-dropi,' W. PI. 308, and has no rights. 
 The classic passages are 
 
 Her es HteSr comiim Heidrecs arf-J)egi 
 broSir Jiinn inn bed-scami. Hlod. 17-18. 
 
 J)etta es Jjiggjauda J)yjar bami : 
 
 {)a hornnngr a haugi sat 
 
 es gSlingr arfi scipti. Hlod. 51-4. 
 
 Adultery was called ' h6rdom ' ; the paramour is ' h6rr.' 
 
 annars kuan teyg8o J)er aldregi 
 
 eyra-runo at. Less. Lodd. 14, 15'- 
 
 • The words ' eyra-nina' and 'mal-uinir' we should now take as equal to the 
 finer Middle English sense of leman, and not as we took it in the Corpus (ii, 
 475) in the later degraded sense. The words are too pretty to be so misused. 
 
86 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 huerr hefir l)inn h6rr uesiS. Lokas. 123. 
 . . . hordomr micill. Vsp. 109. 
 
 The offence of Incest was ' sifja-slit.' W. PI. 21 1-3, cor. 
 
 mono systnmgar sifjom spilla. Vsp. 108 '. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Property of the household con^sts in — 
 
 1. Land: ' 63al,' ' bii,' ' Isond ' [plural form in this sense]. 
 
 2. Chattels : ' arfr,' which, like an equivalent, originally meant 
 cattle, as the names, ' arfi, arfuni,' for oxen, amongst other things, 
 seem to show. 
 
 3. Slaves : ' ambdttir ' ; ' l)^jar,' ' man ' ; bondmaids, ' J)rselar,' 
 ' ufl-megir.' 
 
 The heritage was what the dead man left, ' leifar ' or patrimony, 
 "foSr-munir." See C. P. B. i. 470 for note on this curious word. 
 
 To succeed or inherit is ' oeSlasc,' Rig. 183 ; and the dead man's 
 Will apparently does not touch ethel-rights. 
 
 ' Drecca erfi,' to hold the arval, was a necessary ceremony, and 
 it was then that the inheritance was entered upon and the heir took 
 his father's place, succeeding to his rights and duties. The dirge 
 over the dead is ' angrliod,' Helg. I. 341 : on which see remarks 
 above. 
 
 With regard to inheritance the chief passages are — 
 
 uarga-leifar. O. G. L. 36. 
 
 Ignd es mer leifSi G. . . Atlam. 345. 
 
 {lui bregSr l)U mer ... at til fiarri siac 
 
 minom feSr-munom. W. PI. 89-90. 
 |>6tt misst hafim muna oc landa. Helg. I. 340. 
 A D . . oc D . . dyrar hallir, 
 o^8ra 68al an 6r hafiS. Rig. 191-2. 
 
 til I's 68al-torfo : ala mun hon ser i6d, erfi-ngrdo. L. B. L. 247-9. 
 sinna heim-haga. Havam. 89. 
 erfi-iigr5o, lonacrs sono. Tregr. 25-26. 
 
 The curious ' erfi-uaardr ' seems to refer to the heir as the care-taker 
 of the heritage. Lat. hseres ; cf. land-u£ord, used of a king. 
 
 . ' If the reading be right, marriage of first cousins on the mother side was 
 regarded as incestuous. 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 87 
 
 oexti hon gl-dryccjor at erfa brcear sina. Atlam. 269. 
 
 goert hefir Jjii {)itt erfi. Atlam. 311. 
 tar dracc Angantyr erfi Hei8recs. Hlod. 12. 
 at l)u erfi at 9II oss dryccir. Ham9. 60. 
 Br68or cueSja {jii scalt brASliga 
 
 arfs oc 68al-haga. W. PI. 37-38. cor. 
 gamalla oxna ngfn hefic gerla fregit, 
 
 . . . Arfr oc Arfuni. Fragm. C. P. B. i. p. 78. 
 trau8r ert-3u 
 arf at ueita einga-barni. Wak. 63-4. 
 
 hafa uilec halft allt {lat es HeiSrecr alti, 
 
 cii oc calfi, cnern {liotandi, 
 
 [al, oc] af oddi [. . . scatti], 
 
 {lyjo oc prseli, oc Jieirra bami, 
 
 hris {)at i5 m^ra . . . ; 
 
 grgf J)a ena helgo . . . ; 
 
 stein J)ann inn mEera . . .; 
 
 halfar ber-borgir [her uo3ir] . . . ; 
 
 Ignd oc lySa, oc liosa bauga. Hlod. 24, 32. 
 
 ' Aldau8a-arfr,' escheat, is property left without heir; in Mod. 
 Danish Law ' dane-fse.' 
 
 enu HroSmarr seal hringom raSa, 
 
 {leim-es dtto . . . orir niSjar, 
 
 sa s^sc fylcir fest at lifi 
 
 hyggsc aldau3a-arfi at ra8a. Helg. II. 41-5 (cp. Note, p. 493). 
 
 There is, owing to the special circumstances under which most 
 of the poems were composed and transmitted, singularly little 
 evidence as to the tenure and condition of Land. ' Bu ' is used like 
 'tun,' as equivalent to \!asfamilia, cf. Beda. 
 
 r^d hann einn at J)at atjan buom. , Rig. 151. 
 
 attag at fullo fimm tiin saman, 
 
 enn ec {lui aldri un3ac ra8e. Hialm D. 29-30. 
 
 The chief details as to cultivation are derived from Rigs Lay, 
 which gives a picture of foreign slave or serf labourers, free 
 yeomen, and big land-owners, lords of many mansiones or bu. 
 
 There are in the Song of Saws a few words, which prove cultiva- 
 tion of grains, ' acr,' S. of S. 25, 27; rye and bear are mentioned 
 in Alvismal ^. 
 
 * The use of scarecrows seems to be alluded to in the Guest's Wisdom, 
 105-6— 
 
 uaSir minar gaf-ec uelli at 
 tueimr tre-mgnnom. 
 
88 
 
 VII. TRACES OF OLD LAW 
 
 acri ar-sanom. S. of S. 25. 
 ax vii8 figl-cyngi. — 36. 
 haul! ui8 hy-rogi. • — 37. 
 
 1\it/ree household servants seem to be generally called ' inndr6tt,' 
 
 Love Less. 23, Hornclofi, 26 ; ' sal-dr6tt,' Love Less. 28 ; • sal-J)i6d,' 
 
 Volkv. 89; 'sal-dr6tt,' Love Less. 28; ' deigja,' Lokas. 228. Our 
 
 Mid. Eng. deye is the maid-servant on the farm, but most of the 
 
 words meaning labourers, workmen, refer to slaves. 
 
 segita meyjom ne sal-JiioSom. Volkv. 89. 
 
 mal es uil-mggom at uinna erfiSe. Biarkamal. 2. 
 
 The class of words in -megir is worth noticing separately. 
 
 drott-megir. Atlam. 5. 
 
 uil-megir. Skim. 144. Less, of L. 96. 
 
 osc-megir. Lokas. 63. 
 
 hr68-megir. Frag. Bk. vi. No. 37. 
 
 Compare the words 
 
 Hod-megir. Hak. 17. 
 sess-megir. Havam. 74. 
 her-megir. Helg. IIL 20. 
 
 An instance of slaves being part of a lady" s portion is in Brunhild's 
 Lay. 
 
 mlnar tyjar fimm menjom ggfgar [fimm ambottir, in the paraphrase] 
 
 Atta {)i6nar eJIom g68ir, 
 
 fostr-man mitt, oc faBerni 
 
 \a.\. es Budli gaf barni sino. L. B. L. 266-9. 
 
 The following list comprises most of the more notable legal 
 terms touched on above, and may be handy for those who would 
 compare the old Northern law-terms with those of kindred nations. 
 The references are not fuller as most of them \vill]^be found in 
 the Dictionary. 
 
 af-springr, 78. 
 aldau5a-arfr, 87. 
 al \\hh, 66. 
 ambdttir, 86. 
 amma, 78. 
 angr, 62. 
 angr-li69, 62, 86. 
 arfi, 86. 
 
 argr, 75- 
 argscapr, 73. 
 
 ardfi, 77. 
 astir, 84. 
 EEtt, 78. 
 
 settar-scigldr, 78. 
 sett-conr, 78. 
 settingi, 78. 
 sett-uig, 95. 
 
 bani, 63. 
 banorS, 69. 
 
 barmi, 78. 
 ben, benjar, 71. 
 bl65-grn, 72. 
 bo8, 59. 
 
 b6t, boetr,bo;ta,65 . 
 brenno-vargr, 75. 
 briita, 62. 
 br66ir, 78. 
 br63or-bani, 63. 
 br66or-mEer, 78. 
 
 bru8ar-lin, 82. 
 bru8-fe, 82. 
 briiS-kaup, 
 bru8-laup, 82. 
 bu, 84, 87. 
 buandi, 84. 
 burr, 78. 
 
 caupa, 80. 
 cudn, 84, 
 
IN THE EDDIC LAYS. 
 
 89 
 
 cueSja, 86. 
 cuen-vd8irj 84. 
 cui8r, 68. 
 cug5, 68. 
 
 deigja, 87. 
 deila, 68. 
 dis, 78. 
 dolgr, 63. 
 dolg-viSir, 63. 
 d6mr,dcemi,64,67. 
 doema sacar, 66. 
 dottir, 78. 
 drottin-svic, 74. 
 dul, 69. 
 dylja, 69. 
 dyljendr, 69. 
 
 ei8r, 76. 
 ei8-rofi, 77. 
 ein-bani, 63. 
 erfi, 86. 
 erfi-nyti, 78. 
 erfi-ugrdr, 78, 86. 
 eyra-riina, 74. 
 eyrr,-7o. 
 
 faair, 78. 
 fastna, 80. 
 fiandr, 63. 
 fifl-megir, 63. 
 fion, 61. 
 flaum-slit, 63. 
 fo8or-bani, 63. 
 fo8or-munir, 86. 
 folg-, 74. 
 folg-uig, 74. 
 for-daeSa, 74. 
 for-seti, 95. 
 fostra, 79. 
 fostr-man, 79. 
 frsendr, 78. 
 frsend-uig, 95. 
 IriSill, 85. 
 frj81a, 85. 
 
 galgi, 72. 
 gamban, 66, fn. 
 gamban-tein, id. 
 ganga eiga, 82. 
 ganga fra, 85. 
 ganga me8, 82. 
 ganga und lini, 82. 
 gestr, 59. 
 geyja, 75. 
 
 gildi, 65. 
 gigld, 65. 
 gisl, 58. 
 gisling, 58. 
 glepja, 74. 
 go6-ga, 75. 
 go8-uargr, 75. 
 gri8, 58, 77. 
 griSa-rof, 77. 
 
 hafna, 85. 
 hand-bani, 63. 
 hand-laun, 65. 
 hapta, 59, 
 haptr, 59. 
 hamir, 60. 
 hefna, 63. 
 heftiendr, 63. 
 heimis-cui8r, 68. 
 heiptir, 60. 
 heipt-megir, 63. 
 lieit, 80. 
 heitasc, 80. 
 her-gaupa, 59. 
 her-numi, 59. 
 heyja, 78. 
 heyrom, 79,^. 
 hlyri, 78. 
 hnit-br68ir, 78. 
 hgfo8-ni8jar, 78. 
 hgfimdr, 95. 
 holmr (ganga a), 
 
 70. 
 hornungr, 85. 
 horr, 85. 
 h6r-d6mr, 85. 
 hrisi, 85. 
 hus-cona, 84. 
 hus-gumi, 84. 
 hy-nastr, 84. 
 
 iafnendr, 65. 
 i8-gigld, 65. 
 inn-drott, 88. 
 i68, 78. 
 iodis, 78. 
 
 k . . . , see c. 
 
 lang-feSgar, 
 lang-ni8jar, 78. 
 laun, 65. 
 laun-suic, 74. 
 laun-Jiing, 
 leggja Igg, 69. 
 
 leifar, 86. 
 lin, see ganga. 
 lionar, 65. 
 l?g. pass, 
 lysa, 69. 
 lyti, 63. 
 
 magr, 78. 
 mal, 67. 
 mal-uinr, 67. 
 man, 79, 86. 
 man-sgngr, 75. 
 inffig8, 78. 
 mssr, 78. 
 mei8mar, 80. 
 main, 95. 
 mein-suari, 74. 
 migto8r, 95. 
 m68ir, 78. 
 m68or-br68ir, 78. 
 mggr, 78. 
 mor8, 74. 
 mor8-uargr, 74. 
 mot, 66. 
 mundr, 80. 
 mund-ra6, 81. 
 
 nef-gigld, 69. 
 ni8, 62. 
 niSjar, 78. 
 nitSingr, 62, 74. 
 nipt, 78. 
 
 ocueSins-ofS, 76. 
 68al, 86. 
 oe81asc, 86. 
 or8, 69. 
 orrosta, 57. 
 6-sannr, 74. ' 
 
 ra8-bani, 63. 
 ran, rsena, 75. 
 riiifa, 62. 
 roec-stolar, 95. 
 -rofi, -rof, 77' 
 rdg, see wrog. 
 
 sacar, 60, 61. 
 saclauss, 73. 
 sal-drott, 88. 
 sal-l)i68, 88. 
 sannr {sons), 44. 
 sar, 71. 
 salt, sAttr, 65. 
 scapa, 64. 
 selja, 76, 80. 
 
 ssett, 65. 
 sendi-ma8r, 59. 
 sialf-doemi, 64. 
 sialf-scapa, 64. 
 sifiar, 79. 
 sifja-slit, 76, 86. 
 sla eldi, 72. 
 slita, 58, 63. 
 snor, 79. 
 sgco-dolgr, 73. 
 sonar-bani, 63. 
 sonr, 78. 
 
 stefna (noun), 71. 
 stefna (verb), 57, 
 
 71- 
 stria, 61. 
 suarr, 79. 
 suaera, 79. 
 suerja, 76. 
 suic, 74. 
 suidrir, 64 note. 
 sycn, 73. 
 synja, 69. 
 systir, 78. 
 systoin, 78. 
 systor-ver, 79. 
 systrungar, 78. 
 
 tryga, 58. 
 
 fling, 67. 
 tiflg-logi, 69. 
 {ling-scil, 68. 
 {>rselar, 86. 
 {jyjar, 86. 
 Jiyrma, 76. 
 
 ual-rauf, 59. 
 uarar, 80. 
 uara-uargr, 74, 77. 
 uarg-dropi, 77. 
 «argT,_73. 
 uar-liugr, 77. 
 uar-lygi, 77. 
 ueitasc, 80. 
 uel, nela, 74. 
 uerr, 83. 
 ner-fang, 83. 
 uer-gigrn, 83. 
 
 ujg, 74- 
 uil-megir, 86. 
 uinna (verb), 76. 
 uin-{)i6fr, 74. 
 und, 71. 
 wrog, 61. 
 
 F. Y. P. 
 
EPILOGUE IN OXFORD. 
 
 There are no Germans, save perhaps Luther and Goethe, so well 
 known and so well beloved among English- speaking peoples as the 
 Brothers Grimm. On the little child's nursery-shelf their well-thumhed 
 ^ Household Stories' stand side by side with those dear old favourites, 
 ' Robinson Crusoe^ ' Gulliver! 'The Arabian Nights' and 'Poor 
 Jack.' One cannot help feeling differently toward such books to what 
 one does towards all others. They are the good-natured friends who 
 would talk to us pleasantly, when other folks were too busy to attend 
 to us. They were never tired of telling us the same stories over and 
 over again in the same familiar and welcome words, and we were 
 never tired of listening to their quiet voices. Hans and Klaus, and 
 the master thief, and the magic fiddler, and the valiant tailor, and the 
 too hilarious bean are and have been part and parcel of the dream- 
 world of millions of English children. And if to have devoted and 
 delighted readers everywhere is the author's meed, surely the Brothers 
 Grimm have their reward. 
 
 It must have come as a great surprise to many others, as it came to 
 me, when I found out, after I had known the Brothers Grimm for 
 years as well as I kneiv the gardener, and the gardener's boy, and the 
 children who came and played with us in the garden, that these old 
 friends were great people, known and honoured by the wisest and 
 greatest of grown-up folk ; that they were Wise Men who had written 
 learned books and made wonderful discoveries; that they had even busied 
 themselves with composing grammars and dictionaries, books which it 
 .must surely need the most deadly perseverance and the most abstruse know- 
 ledge to compose, judging from the infinite pains, loth physical and 
 mental, it cost most of us to master our daily portions of the 'Accidence ' 
 and ' Syntax ' of the Classic Tongues. When one grew older still and 
 cafne to have some acquaintance for oneself with these bigger books of 
 JACOB and WILHELM GRIMM, one's love and reverence for 
 them did not at all grow less. It surprised one indeed at times, that 
 one felt the same fascination in listening to their wondrous tale of Teu- 
 tonic Grammar and Old-time Laws a?id Faiths and Customs, as one had 
 
93 EPILOGUE IN OXFORD. 
 
 felt in hearkening io the ' Household Stories ' long before. And when 
 one came to know that these charming books — in which every fact seemed 
 to stand in its natural place and in which by the most minute study 
 principles of the widest range were fixed and laid down so surely and 
 steadily — were the first and earliest of their kind, and that their authors 
 had been Pioneers working in the Wood of Error, bringing Order out 
 of Chaos, timbering houses and barns, and tilling the ground to good 
 purpose, where before all was dark overhead and clogged and slippery 
 underfoot, a mighty maze without a plan, a forest wild and vast as 
 that where Sigf red fought and Varus fell — one marvelled more and 
 more. 
 
 Englishmen are clumsy in the way they show gratitude and affection, 
 but they are sincere; a grip of the hand says more than an Illuminated 
 Address, and a silent look of admiration is really more flattering than 
 all the applause of the Claque. But 1 do not know that foreigners 
 ought to be expected to understand this, and indeed I find that some- 
 times they set us down as cold and ungrateful, because we prefer, like 
 so many Red Indians, to conceal our emotions, and have no better words 
 of thanks than the ' Ugh ' of a Mohican or a Sioux. 
 
 If it were not for this national characteristic of ours, the love and 
 reverence that are felt among us all both here and in the Colonies and 
 States, for the Brothers Grimm, would have been manifested abundantly 
 enough. The little child and the grey-bearded scholar are equally 
 their debtors andwouldhave taken appropriate part in their Centenary 
 Celebration. But such demonstrations, natural and proper as they 
 seem to foreigners, do not come naturally to us now-a-days. Our public 
 statues and tasteless state ceremonials show how aivkwardly our feelings 
 are apt to express themselves. And I think it is better that no celebra- 
 tion of the Grimms' Centenary was attempted in England. Perhaps 
 ere the next we may have learned to conduct such a festival with grace 
 and dignity — we cannot do so now. 
 
 After all, the best plan to honour such men is to try and walk in 
 their ways, though certainly it is not the easiest. For these Brothers 
 led an upright, manly, industrious scholar's life, in word and deed, 
 holding nothing too childish for their notice, but ever aiming at great 
 things, and by no means contented, as others use, to bombast it about 
 bigly over trifles, and to shrink abashed and helpless before the very 
 notion of a great task. The example is not one we can afford, to 
 neglect now-a-days, hard though it be to copy. 
 
EPILOGUE IN OXFORD. 93 
 
 To conclude, this little Pamphlet must not he taken as more than the 
 mere personal expression of our own gratitude, though like the floating 
 thistle-down it may perhaps serve to show which way the wind is 
 blowing, and so to bear witness that neither the Brothers Grimm 
 nor their favourite Studies are forgotten in Oxford. 
 
 The poet shall have the last word — 
 
 Call it by what you will, the Day is Theirs, 
 
 And here, I hope, is none that envies it. 
 
 In framing an Artist, Art hath thus decreed 
 
 To make some good, but others to exceed. 
 
 And these are her laboured Scholars — 
 
 Their presence glads our Days : Honour we love ; 
 
 For who hates Honour hates the Gods above. 
 
 F. Y. P. 
 Oxford, /m/c 1885. 
 
95 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 p. 6. We cannot forbear quoting the description of Arminius from Velleius, 
 'rendered English by Sir Robert Le Grys, Knight,' London, 1632; whose 
 English style is so pithy and well sustained, that one would not take his book 
 for a translation — 
 
 ' A young man then, noble by birth, valiant of his person, quicke of appre- 
 hension, beyond the rate of a Barbarian of a nimble wit, by name Arminius, 
 soime of Sigimerus, Prince of that Nation, whose aspect and eyes did denote 
 the fervency of his spirit, being a continuall follower of our colours in the 
 former warres, and having obtained the freedome of the City of Rome, and to 
 be made of the order of Knights, made use of the dulnesse of the Commander 
 to his mischievous end.' 
 
 P. 22. The exact place of Varus' defeat, unless fresh evidence should per- 
 chance turn up, is beyond the ken of any man. 
 
 A recent find of coins has revived the inquiry (Mommsen's Essay)! My 
 opinion is : The suddenness of the onslaught, and the overwhelming complete- 
 ness of the disaster, left the Romans no time for stowing away their chest. 
 And on the other hand, the Germans, when the battle was over, had such 
 full leisure for search, that a hoard like this is the last thing they would have 
 left in situ for the benefit of an inquiring historian of after days. Never, till 
 vrithin man's memory, did such a ' udlratif fall to- the lot of a German king. 
 Yet the find, we doubt not, is the memorial of some incident in that long 
 struggle, which we vs[ould dub the Thirty Years War of Independence between 
 Gennany and Rome (roughly, 741-770 U.c), a war that, in spite of the sham- 
 Triumph, was of happier augury to Gennany than the second one. 
 
 P. 26. Caesar, B. G. v. 9, gives one more instance of ' broti ' in Britain. — 
 ' Nam crebris arboribuB succisis omnes introitus erant praeclusi. Ipsi ex silvis 
 rari propugnabant.' 
 
 P. 36. Mr. H. H. Howorth, in his Third paper on the ' Early Intercourse of the 
 Franks and Danes,' has shown the importance of the Channel Islands as strong- 
 holds and trysting-places for Wicking fleets in the first half of the gth century. 
 
 P. 65. The. judge, or justice, is called 'migto3r,' Vsp. 8 (A. S. metod); 'hgf- 
 undr,' Sonat., cp. Diet. 308, b. ; ' {ors&ii,' J>raeses, Grimn. 55 ; ii^e judgment-seat, 
 ' roec-stolar,' Vsp. 85. 
 
 P. 74. A slaughter within the family is 'frsend-uig,' Vsp. 64, cor.; ' sett-ui'g,' 
 Sigh. vi. 27. 
 
 P. 80. Impediments to marriage, 'mein.' Grip. 141. 
 

 ) 
 I 
 
 
 
 u'i:.&MMmMsM