Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/178

146 BOOK I. The avenging of Greltir,

of the eighty assassins led on by Thorir of Garth is the defeat of the Lykian ambuscade by Bellerophontes. After this the wounded hero goes to a cave under Balljdkul, where the daughter of Halhnund heals his wound, and treats him well. "Grettir dwelt long there that summer," like Odysseus in the cave of Kalypso, or Tanhaiiser in the Venusberg, or True Thomas in the coverts of Ercildoune; but we look to find him chafing, as these did, at the enforced rest. We turn over the page and we read, " Now as the summer wore, Grettir yearned for the peopled country, to see his friends and kin."^ It is Odysseus longing to see Penelope once more. But he is under a doom. As Olaf says, " If ever a man has been cursed, of all men must thou have been."^ It is the curse which is laid on Ixion and Sisyphos, and singularly enough his father Asmund says of his son, " Methinks over much on a whirling wheel his life turns." ^ Hence also he dreads the darkness like a child, for Herakles, Helios, and Achilleus can do nothing when the sun has gone down. Hence too, the old mother of Thorbiorn lays on him the fate " that thou be left of all health, wealth, and good hap, all good heed and wisdom," the very fate of which Achilleus complains again and again to Thetis in the very bitterness of his heart If again Grettir has his brother Illugi in whom he has garnered up his soul, this is the story of Achilleus and Patroklos, of Peirithoos and Theseus, of the Dioskouroi, and a host of others. Nineteen years he is an outlaw. "Then said the lawman that no one should be longer in outlawing than twenty winters in all," and so Grettir was set free, as Odysseus returns home in the twentieth year. The incident which led to the death of Grettir is simply the myth of Philoktetes and of Rustem. The cutting off of Grettir's hand is an incident in the myth of Indra Savitar, of Tyr, and of Walthar of Aquitaine. When again it is said of him that " he is right-well ribbed about the chest, but few might think he would be so small of growth below," * we cannot avoid a comparison with the story of Shortshanks in Grimm's collection, or of Odysseus who, when he sits, is far more majestic than Menelaos, although the latter, when standing, towers above him by head and shoulders.

In short, the Saga, as a whole, ceases practically to have any distinctive features, and even in the sequel which relates the story of Thorstein, Dromund, and Spes, the incident which the translators compare with the romance of Tristram is not the only point of likeness with other legends. The closing scenes in the lives of the two

• Grettir Saga, 171. » lb, 121. » lb. 126, ' lb. 232.