Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/149

Rh That the later forms into which the Volsung story has been chap. thrown may contain some incidents which may be either truly told or else travestied from real history, it is impossible to deny. When at the best they who insist most on the historical character of these Lay. poems can but trace a name here and there, or perhaps see in the account of some fight a reference to some actual battle with which it has no likeness beyond the fact that men fought and were killed in both, as the fishes swim in the streams of Macedon and Monmouth, it seems useless to affirm it Wh^n the motives are alike in all, when in each case there is a wealthily dowered maiden whose hoard is stolen, a robber who refuses to disclose the secret of the lost treasure, and bloody vengeance by those who lay claim to this wealth, when thousands are murdered in a single hall, and men lie down contentedly in flaming chambers floating in blood, treading out the falling brands in the gore and recruiting their strength by sucking the veins of the dead, we can scarcely regard it as a profitable task to search amidst such a mass of impossibilities the materials for a picture of society as existing whether amongst Northmen or amongst Greeks. That the colouring thrown over them is in part reflected from the manners of the age, there is no room to doubt ; but when the groundwork of the story has been shown to be purely mythical, this fact will not carr}' us far. We are confined to mere names or mere customs ; and the attempt to advance further lands us in the region of guesswork. Thus to Mr. Kemble's assertion that Attila " drew into his traditional history the exploits of others, and more particularly those of Chlodowic and his sons in the matter of the Eurgundian kingdom," and that this fact will be patent to any one who will look over the accounts of the Eurgundian war in Gregory of Tours, Mr. Ludlow replies that the search yields only two names, Godegiselus namely, and Theudericus, answering to the Giselher and Dietrich of the Nibelungen Lay.^ Nor do we gain much if we find Gundicar, the Eurgundian king, as one of the sovereigns conquered by Attila, if the Atli of the Volsung story belonged to the myth long before the days of the Hunnish devastator. The name of the Bishop Pilgrim seems to be more genuinely historical ; but even if he can be identified as a prelate who filled the see of Passau in the tenth century, we know no more about him from the poem than we learn of Hruodlandus from the myth of the Roland who fell at Roncesvalles.

poem. The end at which Mr. MahalTy Intr-oduction to Comparative Mytho- aims is clear enough, but it is scarcely log)>. one which reflects much credit on the ' Ludlow, Popular Epics of the critic. I have examined his position Rliddle Ages, i. ibo. more at length in Appendix H. of the