Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/26

10 and assigned him by superfluous genealogy to the tribe of Cain. The wise saws and ancient instances may be colored by a new theology; but they derived from the old wisdom poetry in which Germanic minds had long delighted.

We have thus come fairly close to an understanding of the poet’s conception of the characters in his epic and his treatment of them. We must now look at the characters themselves.

The persons of the epic fall into evident groups. Apart from the prelude, which glorifies the Danish royal house, and repeats the pretty myth of Scyld the Sheaf-Child, we have the actual family and companions of Hrothgar, king of the Danes. He himself is son of Healfdene—that is, a king whose mother was not of the Danish folk—and brother to Heorogar and Halga. The three brothers, as so often in Germanic families, have names in the same rime; one thinks of Gunther, Giselher, and Gernot in the Nibelungen. Heorogar, the oldest, was king before Hrothgar, and had a son Heoroweard, but for some reason did not leave favorite armor to him. Halga was probably father of Hrothulf,—as in the Norse account, Helgi was father of Hrolf Kraki, the famous hero. Saxo tells the story of him, and his betrayal by a relative, who probably answers to Heoroweard of our epic. In Widsith one is told more of Hrothgar and this nephew Hrothulf. Together they