Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/495

 Reviews. 453

Irish version of the Fall of Troy, a tenth-century composition, are credited (on what I cannot consider sufficient evidence) with having affected the composer of the first Helgi-lay. In Chapter VII. the Frankish-Bavarian story of Wolf -Dietrich is credited with having affected the Irish tale of the Birth of Cor mac, through a lost O. E. poem on Wolf-Theodric, which also influenced the composers of the Helgi-poems. In Chapter VIII. is considered the classic influence of the Meleager story as told by Hyginus. " Oeneus and Mars slept ^together one night with the daughter of Thesticos, to whom, when a son (Meleager) was born, there suddenly appeared in the palace the Fates or Weirds, and they sang his fates thus : Clotho said he should be a noble man, Lachesis a strong man, &c." All this seems to me to go no further than to establish the parallelism of some few features of early and unconnected tales of heroes. Chapter IX. discusses " English and Irish influence on the second Helgi-lay " (which lay I take to be merely a part of the Lay of Helgi and Sigrun), points out traces of O. E. influence, and con- cludes that it is of the same school as the first poem on Helgi, but composed some half century before it. Chapter XI. opens with this thesis : " The Helgi-lays are not historical poems, and Helgi as he appears in them is in no way an historical personality. Nor is the Helgi-story a popular tale which involuntarily suff'ered the changes, natural and necessary, in stories preserved by tradi- tion. It was evidently put into form and arranged by poets who were conscious literary artists." It is maintained that the com- posers of these lays supposed Helgi to be a Danish king,^ and Dr. Bugge ingeniously identifies many of the place-names with localities on the Baltic, e.g., Warins fjordr is found at Warne-miinde, Swarinshaugr is Schwerin, M6insheim is Mon older Moynland. In Chapter XII., Saxo's story of Helgi Halfdan's son is decided to represent an older stage of the Helgi story than the Eddie lays, as Jesson holds. Saxo's " Hesca, Eyr et Ler " are Esce [berg] in Funen, ^gir of the Eider and Hler of Hlesscy, and the Lay's Jsung is the poetical representation of Jsefjord (including Isore the chief Danish moot-stead), and Saxo's tale of Gram and Gro is " taken from the Helgi stories," for Rydberg's further

Helgi being son of Sigmund was naturally Sigling or Siclinrjr. " SiggeiT?- lingai? " is wholly unnecessary, and by no means satisfactory from a linguistic point of view.