Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/151

Rh CHAP. godlike countenances, in their flashing swords and unerring spears, there is no difference between them ; and every additional point of likeness adds to the weight of proof that these epic poems represent neither the history nor the national character of Northmen, Greeks, or Germans. In each case the spirit of the tradition has been care- fully preserved, but there is no servile adherence. In' the Volsung story, Gudrun becomes the wife of Siegfried; in the Nibelung song, her mother Kriemhild takes her place. The Hogni of the former tale becomes in the latter the Hagen of Tronege, against whom Siegfried is warned when he desires to marry Kriemhild, the sister of Gunther, Gemot, and Giselher, and who recognises Siegfried as the slayer of the Niblungs, the conqueror of their magic sword, Balmung, and of all their treasures, and the possessor of the tarnkappe, or cape of darkness — all of them features with which the earlier legend has made us familiar. The story of Thetis or Demeter plunging Achilleus and Triptolemos into the bath of fire is here represented by the myth that Siegfried cannot be wounded, because he had bathed himself in the blood of a dragon whom he had slain — the Fafnir or Python of the Norse and Delphic legends. At the first glance Kriemhild is filled with love for Siegfried, but the latter cannot see her until he has sojourned for a year in the country of King Gunther — a condi- tion which answers to that under which Hades suffered Orpheus to lead away Eurydike. Here, like Sigurd in the Volsung myth, Siegfried wins Brynhild for Gunther or Gunnar; but though there is here not the same complication, the narrative scarcely becomes on this account the more human. Like Perseus with the helmet of Hades, Siegfried can make himself invisible at will, and like Apollon Delphinios, he pushes a ship through the sea — a myth in which we recognise also the Wish breeze.^ Here also, as in the Norse story, the ring and girdle of Brynhild come through Siegfried into the

nysos, Herakles, Perseus, Sigurd, Indra, put into the ground. The necessary Oidipous, Theseus ; and it is unneces- consequence is that the woman has two sary to say that in the end he becomes golden children who, mounting on the the husband of the Dame of the Fine two golden foals of the mare, represent Green Kirtle, who is none other than the Asvins and the Dioskouroi, the Medeia with the magic robe of Helios. pieces put into the ground producing (Campbell, ii. 435.) two golden lilies on which the lives of

' The power of the Fish Sun is the children depend. In the tale of strikingly shown in the German stories the Fisherman and his Wife, the fish of the Gold Children and of the Fisher- accomplishes the wishes of the woman, man and his Wife. In the former a who chooses to become first a lady, then poor man catches the Golden Fish which queen, then pope ; but when she wishes makes him the possessor of the palace of to become the ruler of the universe, the Helios, and bids the man divide him flounder sends her back to her old hovel, into six pieces ; two to be given to his — an incident reflecting the fall of Tan- wife, two to his mare, and two to be talos, Sisyphos, and IxiGn.