Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/132

114 ancient lays. This is particularly the case with the Niblung story, which is scattered thoughout the North and Norway, and has furnished the materials for several of the finest songs in the Elder Edda, for the Volsunga Saga, for the Vilkina Saga, for the Niebelungen Lied, which is based on lost German popular songs; and finally, for the four Danish ballads on Sivard Snaresvend, as Sigurd the Volsung here is called. The same applies to the heroic tradition about King Dietrich of Bern (Theodoric of Verona) and his warriors, a story which is known throughout Gothdom, and which is the subject of seven Danish ballads. These Dietrich ballads are based on German songs that were early imported into the North, while some few of the Sivard ballads give the northern version of the story, and, indeed, partly in its original form and partly with the changes caused by the lapse of time. Among the ballads presenting purely Norse themes, special mention must be made of the one about Aage and Else; about the knight who, after his death, returns to his bride, called from his grave by the intensity of her grief. In this ballad we recognize the close of the second lay of Helge Hundingsbane, in a Christian and romantic dress, it is true, and applied to entirely different persons, but the ideas in the ballad are unquestionably the same as those in the Edda poem. The celebrated song, famous throughout the North, of the faithful love of Harbard and Signe—a love which brought death to both of them, for be must expiate it on the gallows, while she perishes in the burning chamber which she has herself set on fire—is a rendering of a world-old story which doubtless had been the theme of many a song in antiquity. Finally, we have a number of ballads relating to traditions with which we are not acquainted, but which, according to their entire character, belong to the olden time. This is certainly true of the weird ballad of the Sword of the Avenger. In it blood revenge is painted in most powerful colors, and the cruelty of the sword is to such a degree personified, that the latter continues to rage in the wildest manner, until the master of