Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/137

Rh CHAP, Siofsieir's followers are the suitors who eat up the substance of SiErmund, as they had deprived him of his armour. There remains therefore to be wrought again a vengeance like that of Odysseus: and when Sinfiotli is, like Telemachos, strong enough to help his father, the two, like the Ithakan chieftains, burn up Siggeir and all his followers, the mode in which they are slain pointing to the scorching heat of the sun not less clearly than the deadly arrows which stream from the bow of Odysseus. Sigmund now regains his heritage, and for him, as for Odysseus, there follows a time of serene repose. Like Nestor, who is exaggerated in Tithonos, he reaches a good old age : but as Odysseus must yet go through the valley of death, so Sigmund has to fight the old battle over again, and is slain in a war with the sons of King Hunding, in whom are reflected the followers of Siggeir. But Achilleus is slain only when ApoUon guides the spear of Paris ; and so when Sigmund's hour is come, the one-eyed man with the flapping hat and the blue garment (of ether) is seen again. As he stretches out his spear, Sigmund strikes against it his good sword Gram, and the blade is shivered in twain. The hero at once knows that Odin stands before him, and prepares to die on the battle-field. But lole stood by the funeral pile of Herakles, and Sigmund dies in the arms of his young wife Hjordis, youthful as Daphne or Arethousa, "refusing all leech- craft and bo ng his head to Odin's will," as in the Trojan myth Paris cannot be healed even though Oinone would gladly save him.

So ends the first act of the great drama ; but the wheel has only The Story to make another turn, and bring back the same series of events with °^ Sigurd, slight differences of names and colouring. Sigmund leaves Hjordis the mother of an unborn babe, the Phoibos, who is the child of Leto, and of the Sun who sank yestereve beneath the western waters. This child, who receives the name of Sigurd, is born in the house of Hial- prek, who is localised as king of Denmark, but who represents Laios or Akrisios in the Theban and Argive legends ; and these, we need not say, are simply reflexions of Vritra, the being who wraps all things in the veil of darkness. Sigurd himself is the favourite hero of northern tradition. Like Achilleus, he is the destined knight who succeeds where all others have failed before him. Troy cannot fall if the son of Peleus be absent; Fafnir cannot be slain, nor Brynhild rescued, except by the son of Sigmund. Physically, there is no difference between them. Both have the keen blue eyes, and golden locks, and invincible weapons of Phoibos and Athene ; on both alike rests the glory of a perfect beauty ; and to both their weapons and their armour come from the god of fire. But in the Norse story there is a connexion between Regin, the mysterious smith of King