Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/180



ROM the famous Waltharius, one of the best poems of medieval times, although written in Latin hexameters by a scholar at the monastery of St. Gall as a kind of exercise in composition, we learn the story of Walter and Hiltigund as it was current early in the tenth century among the Alemannians. Probably Ekkehard, who wrote it, had his material in Latin prose; it is not now believed that the young poet translated directly from a German original. Surely, however, there were poems about Walter in the vernacular; and the present fragments in Anglo-Saxon show that the story itself was popular throughout the Germanic world. Jacob Grimm believed that Walter was originally a Gothic hero; and the connection with Attila makes for this supposition. As for the flight of the pair, the pursuit, the combats, there is reason to believe that these romantic elements are based on the old story of Heden and Hilde, runaway lovers, where Hagen is the father of the bride.

The fragments of our Anglo-Saxon epic poem—for such it probably was, and not merely a short lay—show an older form of the story than is found in Ekkehard’s version. Guthhere is “friend,”—that is, king,—“of the Burgundians,” while for Ekkehard Guntharius has become Frank. But the story cannot have varied much in its essential facts. Attila, pictured as an amiable and Rh