Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/147

Rh Volsungs, he yet treacherously stabs Helgi (another of the many forms of Baldur's death), and tells Sigrun that he is dead. The ^ — sequel, although essentially the same, shows the working of a new vein of thought. Sigrun curses Dag as one who had broken his oath, and refuses to live

Unless a glory should break from the prince's grave. And Vigblar the horse should speed thither with him ; The gold-bridled steed becomes him whom I fain would embrace.

Her tears disturb the repose of Helgi in his grave, and he rebukes her as making his wounds burst open afresh. But Sigrun is not to be scared or driven away. She prepares a common resting-place for him and for herself, a couch free from all care, and enters of her own free will the land of the dead.

" Nothing I now declare Unlocked for. At SefafioU Late or early, Since in a corpse's Arms thou sleepest, Hogni's fair daughter. In a mound, And thou art living, Daughter of kings. Time 'tis for me to ride On the reddening ways ; Let the pale horse Tread the aerial path ; I toward the west must go Over Vindhialm's bridge, Ere Salgofnir Awakens heroes." *

The third Helgi, Haddingaheld, is but a reproduction of the second The Third Helgi, while Kara, the daughter of Halfdan, takes the place of Swava ^ ^'" or Sigrun. In all these tales the heroes and the heroines stand in precisely the same relations to each other ; ^ and thus, having seen that the myths of these heroes merely reproduce the legends of Baldur and of Sigurd the Volsung, we are prepared for the conclu- sion that the story of Siegfried, in the Lay of the Nibelungs, is only another form of the oft-repeated tale. For the most part the names are the same, as well as the incidents. The second Helgi is a son of Sigmund, his mother also being called Sigurlin ; and so Sigurd of the Volsung and Siegfried of the Nibelung Saga are each the son of Sig- mund. The slaying of Hunding by Helgi answers to the slaughter of Fafnir and Regin by Sigurd, Siegfried being also a dragon-slayer like Phoibos, or Oidipous, or Herakles. So too, as Sigurd first won the love of Brynhild and then marries Gudrun, for whose brother

bana, 46, 47. This is the legend of Ilislory, ii. 466. For the resurrection Lenore, of which Bunsen says that of Helgi and Sigrun see hitrodttction " Biirger caught the soul of the story to Coniparative Mythology, p. 289. as it was on the point of extinction, * For a tabular view of these paral- and lent it a new and immortal life lelisms see Bunsen, ib. 470, &c.
 * Second Lay of Helgi Hundings- among the German people." — God in