Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/161

Rh CHAP. VI. that of Hagen, here the two heroes, thus sorely bested, make up their quarrel, and Walthar bids Hildegund bring wine and offer the cup to Hagen, who will not drink first, because Walthar is the better man. In short, the story ends with an interchange of courtesies, which have an air of burlesque not unlike that which Euripides has thrown over the Herakles of his Alkestis, and the bridal of Hildegund has all the joy and brightness which mark the reunion of Penelope with Odysseus.^

Mr. Ludlow has given a summary {Popular Epics, i. 193, <S:c.), has many of the features of the Xibelungen Lied and the story of Walthar of Aquitaine. It is scarcely necessary to note the end- less modifications of myths, with which the poets of successive ages allowed themselves to deal as freely as they pleased ; but we are fully justified in referring to the old myth incidents which are found in a hundred mythical traditions, but which never happen in the life of man. Thus, in the Lay of Gudrun, the child who is carried away to the griffin's or eagle's nest, whither three daughters of kings have been taken before, must remind us of the story of Surya Bai, although the child thus taken is Hagen, who grows up so mighty that he becomes celebrated as the Wayland of all kings, a title which sufficiently shows his real nature. Thus, although he is invested with all the splendour of the Trojan Paris, Hagen slays all the messengers sent by princes to sue for the hand of his beautiful daughter, nor can any succeed until Hettel comes — the mighty king at Hege- lingen ; a tale which merely repeats the story of Brj-nhild, Dornroschen, and all the enchanted maidens whom many suitors court to their own death. The wonderful ship which Hettel builds to fetch Hilda, capable of holding three thousand warriors, with its golden rudder and anchor of silver, is the counterpart of the Argo, which goes to bring back the wise and fair INIedeia. The good knight Horant, at whose singing " the beasts in the wood let their food stand, and the worms that should go in the grass, the fish that should swim in the wave, leave their purpose," is the fiddler of the Nibelung Song, the Orpheus of the Hellenic legend. Of this feature in the story Mr. Ludlow says, "The quaintly poetical incident of Horant's singing is perhaps the gem of the earlier portion," a phrase to which objection can be taken only as it seems to look upon the incident as an original conception of the poets of the Gudrun Lay. From Mr. Ludlow's words no one would necessarily gather that the myth is simply that of Orpheus and nothing more, while the old tradition is further marked by the words put into the mouth of Hilda, that she would willingly become king Hettel's wife, if Horant could sing to her every day at morn and even, like the breeze of the dawn and the twilight in the myth of Hermes. Here also we have the magic girdle of Brynhild, Harmonia, and Eriphyle, the Cestus of Freya and Aphrodite ; while in the stealing of Hilda, who is no un- willing captive, and the fury of Hagen, as he sees the ship carry her away beyond the reach of pursuit, we have precisely the fury of Aietes and his vain chase after the Argo, which is bearing away INIedeia. Here ends the first part of the tale ; but it starts afresh and runs into greater complications after the birth of Ortwein and Gudrun, the son and daughter of Hettel and Hilda. Like her mother, Gudrun is carried away by Hartmut and his father, and a great struggle is the consequence. The Lay of King Rother (Ludlow, ibid. i. 317) is in great part made up of the same materials. Here also we have the beautiful maiden whose suitors woo her to their own destruction — the wonderful ship which Rother builds to bring away the daughter of King Con- stantine of Constantinople ; the sending of the messengers to the dungeon, where they remain until Rother comes to deliver them. But Rother, who wishes while on his expedition to be called Thiderich or Dietrich, is the splendid prince of the Cinderella story, and he obtains his wife by means of a gold and silver shoe which he alone is able to fit on her foot. But the princess is stolen away again from the home of king Rother, and brought back to Constanti- nople ; and thus we have a repetition of
 * The later lay of Gudrun, of which