SIGMUND AND SIGNY. 285 The story goes that the childless Rerir besought the aid of the All-father, who sent Freya, in the guise of a crow, with an apple which she dropped into his lap. Rerir took it and gave it to his wife, who then became the mother of Volsung; but before the child was born Rerir had gone home to Odin. The fortunes of his house turn on a sword which Odin thrusts to the hilt in the roof-tree of Volsung's hall, to be drawn forth only by him who has strength to wield it. The story is clearly the same as that of Theseus, who alone is able to lift the huge stone under which his father Aigeus had placed his sword and sandals. So here the sword Gram will yield to no hand but that of Volsung's son Sigmund, and at his touch it leaves the trunk as though it were a feather floating on the water. Sigmund and For this sword, which is a weapon from the same armoury with the spears and arrows of Phoebus, Achilleus, and Philoktetes, and the brands of Arthur and of Roland, there is a deadly contest between Sinfjötli. Sigmund and his people and the men of king Siggeir, who has married Sigmund's sister Signy. The result is that Sigmund and his ten brothers are all bound; the deaths of these ten brothers being brought about in a way which will be familiar to all who are acquainted with Hindu folklore. As in the story of the wolf and the seven little goats, the wolf swallows six of the kids, but is ripped up before it has swallowed the seventh,1 so here Sigmund alone escapes the she-wolf who each night devours one of the ten, and who is the mother of king Siggeir, the enemy of Volsung and his children. Being loosed from his bonds, Sigmund now dwells in the woods; and his sister Signy sends to him one of her children, the son of Siggeir, to whom Sigmund gives his meal bag, charging him to make bread. The boy fails to do so, being afraid to set hand to the meal-sack because somewhat quick lay in the meal; and at the bidding of 'Aus dem Mutter-leib geschnittene Kinder pflegen Helden zu werden.' For the devouring of his parents by Agni, see p. 164. Signy Sigmund slays him. The same fate befalls her next child, and then Signy, changing forms with a witch woman whom she leaves with Siggeir, goes into the wood, and becomes, by her brother Sigmund, the mother of Sintjötli, who safely goes through the ordeal before which the children of Siggeir had failed. The child, when he is asked if he has found aught in the meal, answers: I misdoubted me that there was something quick in the meal when I first fell to kneading of it; but I have kneaded it all up together, both the meal and that which was therein, whatever it was.' Sigmund replies with a laugh: 'Nought wilt thou eat of this bread this night, for the most deadly of worms hast thou kneaded up therewith.' This worm is almost ubiquitous in Teutonic and Scandinavian myths; and we have already met with it in the myths of Phoebus, Cadmus, Edipus, Herakles, and others. Its death is the slaying of the darkness, whether of the night or of the winter; and the weakly children who fail to slay it answer to the ill-fated knights who fail in their efforts to pierce the thorn hedge behind which sleeps Briar-rose, or to leap the barrier of spears which guards the sun maiden of Hindu fairy tales. When at length Siggeir is overcome, his wife Signy exults in the thought of her son Sinfjötli, and says to Sigmund: 'I let slay both my children, whom I deemed worthless for the revenging of our father, and I went into the wood to thee in a witch wife's shape, and now behold Sinfjötli is the son of thee and of me both, and therefore has he this so great hardihood and fierceness, in that he is the son of Volsung's son and Volsung's daughter, and for this and for nought else have I so wrought that King Siggeir might get his bane at last. And merrily now will I die with King Siggeir, though I was nought merry to wed with him.' Having thus said, she kisses her brother and her son, and going back into the fire dies with Siggeir and his men.' 1 When a like idea was presented to the Greek mind in the marriage of Edipus and Iokastê, a feeling of horror was roused directly by the thought of THE STOLEN TREASURES. 287 Nothing is perhaps more remarkable in the legends of Northern Europe than the recurrence of the same myth in cycles, the series of narratives thus formed Sigurd and being regarded as a single continuous tradition. Regin. No sooner are the adventures of one hero ended than another starts up to do the same things over again, or the same series of exploits is being achieved by two or more heroes at the same time. The objects of their career and the mode in which they seek to attain them are always the same, and in most cases tell their own tale with a clearness which it is impossible to misapprehend. The story of Sigmund is in its main features the story of the son who avenges him, and Sigurd's victory is won only with the sword which Odin himself had shattered in his father's hand. The broken bits are forged afresh by the smith Regin, who charges Sigurd to slay with it his kinsman Fafnir,' and thus to end their quarrel for the treasures which Fafnir had contrived to get into his own keeping. The mode by which this antagonism between the dragon and the dwarf was brought about is among the most significant features of the legend. The treasures are the ransom by which Odin, Loki, and Hahnir, the gods of the bright heaven, are compelled to purchase their freedom from the sons of Reidmar, whose brother, the otter, they have slain. By way of atonement they are not only to fill the otter's skin with gold, but so to cover it with gold that its bearing on the conditions of human society; and in that tale there is throughout, on the part of the involuntary actors, nothing but grief of mind and agony of conscience. Here there is nothing but exultation as well for the incest as for the wild havoc wrought without any motives higher than those which might prompt the treacheries of the most truculent savages. But when in Greek myths we get away from the circle or what was supposed to be the circle of human affairs, and find ourselves among the inhabitants of Olympos, we discern precisely the same indifference to what we may fairly call Aryan morality in any of its forms; and in Zeus and Hêrê, Artemis and Apollon, sister and brother, wife and husband, we see the original forms of which Signy and Sigmund are the reflexions. 1 Grimm regards this name as a cognate form of the Greek Python, the words standing to each other in the relation of Oǹp and php (Deutsche Mythologie, 345). not a white hair upon it shall remain visible; in other words, they are to set the earth free from its fetters of ice, and so to spread over it the golden sunshine that not a single streak of snow shall be seen upon it. But the most precious of all the treasures hoarded by the elf Andvari, who appears as Alberich in the Nibelungenlied, is the golden ring from which other golden rings are constantly dropping. It is the source of all his wealth, for in fact it is the symbol of the reproductive powers of nature, which in a thousand myths is associated with the wealth-giving rod of Hermes or of Vishnu. On this treasure, whether it be the dower of Brynhild or of Helen, there rests the curse which leads to theft and betrayal, to vengeance and utter ruin; and the doom which Regin brings on Fafnir falls also on himself so soon as Sigurd learns that Regin seeks to cheat him of the dragon's wealth. No sooner, again, is the story of Brynhild ended than the woeful tale is repeated in the sequel of the gloomy Brynhild and history of Gudrun. Brynhild is the peerless Gudrun. maiden who has slept in a charmed slumber caused by the thorn of winter thrust into her right hand by Odin, like the Raksha's claw which leaves Surya Bai, the sun-maiden, senseless in the Hindu story.1 One knight alone can rouse her, and that knight is Sigurd, who, having slain the dragon, becomes possessed of the treasures lying within the mighty coils of his body, and by eating his heart, gains wisdom beyond that of mortal man. Wakened from her sleep, the maiden plights her troth to Sigurd, who afterwards rides on to the house of Giuki, the Niflung, who is determined that he shall marry his daughter Gudrun, and that Brynhild shall become the wife of his son Gunnar. But Gunnar cannot ride through the flames, and by magic arts Sigurd is made to assume the form and voice of Gunnar, and to hand Brynhild over to him. Discovering his treachery, Brynhild urges Gunnar 1 Frere, Deccan Tales. THE HELGIS. 289 to slay Sigurd; but, as in the legend of Balder, he and his brothers had sworn not to lay hands on the hero. They, therefore, get Guttorm to do what they could not do themselves, and thus Sigurd is slain while he sleeps. His death re-awakens all the love of Brynhild, who dies heart-broken on his funeral pile. We can scarcely doubt that in earlier forms of the myth these bright beings are restored to life, as are Balder, Adonis, Memnon, Alkestis, and Sarpêdôn. In the Helgi Saga Sigrun mourns the death of her lover Helgi, Hunding's bane, 1 O Helgi, thy hair With the dew of the dead How for thee, O my king, Is thick with death's rime: Her prayers avail so far that Helgi comes to her on the great mound, where she has dight a bed for him on which she will come, and rest as she was wont when her lord was living, and they remain together till the dawn comes, when Helgi must ride on the reddening paths, and his pale horse must tread the highway aloft. The Sagaman adds simply that in old time folk trowed that men should be born again, though the troth be now deemed but an old wife's doting; and so, as folk say, Helgi and Sigrun were born again, and at that tide was he called Helgi the scathe of Hadding, and she Kara the daughter of Halfdan.' When we reach the story of Sigurd, the bane of Fafnir, this old faith, which rested on the reappearance of Balder, Osiris, Tammuz, Zagreos, and Adonis, has grown weaker. Dire vengeance may be taken for his death, yet he himself is seen on earth no more, and Gudrun in her agony cries out, 'Oh! mindest thou not, Sigurd, the words we spoke that thou wouldest come and look on me, yea, even from thy abiding place among the dead?' But Gudrun, who after the abandonment of Brynhild 1 For some account of the three Sagas known by this name, see Myth. of Ar. Nat. i. 285, et seq. U |