Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/146

114 BOOK saviours, who make whole or restore life, like the Paieon or Asklepios of Greek mythology.'

The first Of these Helgis, the first is called the son of Hiorvardur, and he ^'* is loved by Swava, the daughter of King Eilimir. But his brother Hedin makes a vow on the yule eve that Swava shall be his wife, not the bride of Helgi. He has been misled by the sorceress Hrimgerda, who seeks to make him her own, as Kirke and Kalypso use all their arts to detain Odysseus ; but the northern hero is more scrupulous than the Ithakan chieftain, and he not only rejects her love, but compels her to prophesy till the day dawns and her power is at an end, — a sufficiently clear token of her nature. Soon, however, he repents him of the oath which the sorceress had led him to take, and he confesses his guilt to Helgi, who, foreboding his own death in the coming struggle with Alfur, the son of Hrodmar, promises that when he is slain Swava shall be Hedin's. When he has received the death- wound, he tells Swava of this promise ; but she refuses to abide by it or to have any other husband but Helgi, and Helgi in his turn declares that though he must now die, he will come back again when his death has been avenged. This is manifestly the avenging of Baldur, and Helgi is thus another form of Adonis, or Memnon, or Dionysos. The younger brother is the waning autumn sun, who thinks to obtain his brother's wife when the sun of summer has lost its power.

The At the birth of the second Helgi, known as Hundingsbana, the Heig?'^ Nomas came and fixed the lot of the babe, like the Moirai in the legend of Meleagros.^ When fifteen years old, he slays King Hund- ing and his sons, and afterwards wins the love of Sigrun, daughter of Hogni, who, like Swava, is a Valkyrie and a sister of Bragi and Dag, the brilliant heaven and the day. She promises Helgi that she will be his wife if he will vanquish the sons of Granmar, the bearded spirit, to one of whom she had been betrothed. Thus again we have the woman whom two heroes seek to obtam, the Helen for whom Menelaos and Paris contend together. In the battle which follows, Sigrun, as a Valkyrie, cheers him on, and Dag alone is spared of all the sons of Granmar But although Dag swears allegiance to the

' They are the Alcis mentioned by History, ii. 470. Tacitus, Gertn. 43, as worshipped by * He is also identified as Hermod- the iSaharvali, and as answering to the hur, Heermuth, the son of Odin, who Roman Castor and Pollux. They are is sent to fetch up Baldur from the the Teutonic iJioskouroi or Asvins ; under world and is thus the returning and for the loss of ihe aspirate in the or conquering sun who conies back name as given by Tacitus, Bunsen cites after the winter solstice. — Bunsen, God the analogous forms Irmin and Her- in History, ii. 471. man, Isco and Ilisicion. — God in