Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/129

Rh which I think, in essentials, must be accepted along with the ingenious identification of Groa, Orwandil’s wife, and Groa, Sripdag’s mother, with the considerations it involves. On the other hand, the suggested equation Halfdan-Mannus must fall to the ground, and the reasons that support it are wholly illusory, e.g., Guðormr is taken as Guð-hormr instead of Guð-&#42853;ormr, and falsely connected with Hermio. The suggestion that Heimdall was the husband of Sol the sun-goddess will require further proof. The identification of Saxo’s Halfdan-Gram with the Eddie Helge Hundingsbane is of course correct. The treatment of the Eddie lay itself is poor, with a curious suggestion that in the lines “þa es Borgarr [Borgir R.] braut í Brálunde”, and “Drótt &#42853;otti sá deglingr uesa”, the names of Halfdan’s father and mother, Borgarr and Drott are preserved; ch. 35 on Svipdag is not convincing. The following discussion on the first war and its incidents, and the hag Gulveig-Herð-Angerboda, is exceedingly ingenious. The adventures of Hadding are next treated, with much skill. But there is too much forcing of analogies in what follows, and to identify Hadding-Hartung with Theodoric of Verona is absurd, though there are false traditions connected with the great king which have some relation with those told of Hadding.

An investigation into the myths relating to the Lower World follows, but its results are too consistent. The fact is that we have existing traditions respresentingrepresenting [sic] not only divergent sister legends of the same type, but survivals from successive strata of very different age, from the most archaic and “petral” to those which are deeply tinged with Christian ideas.

However, one may note the identification Gudmund-Mimer-Modsögner, and the Iranic parallels adduced to explain Mimer’s grove by Jima’s garden. In his geography of the Teutonic underworld and the equation Hel-Urd which follow, one cannot follow Dr. Rydberg. Chapters lxix, lxx, lxxi, on the thingsteads and dooms of the gods, are over-ingenious, and the writer does not seem to understand