The Edda, Volume 2 | Page 9

a legendary story became connected with the name
of a real personage. The slaying of Erp introduces a common folk-tale
incident, familiar in stories like the Golden Bird, told by both
Asbjörnsen and Grimm.
* * * * *
_Helgi._--The Helgi-lays, three in number, are the best of the heroic
poems. Nominally they tell two stories, Helgi Hjörvardsson being
sandwiched between the two poems of Helgi Hundingsbane; but
essentially the stories are the same.

In _Helyi Hjörvardsson_, Helgi, son of Hjörvard and Sigrlinn, was
dumb and nameless until a certain day when, while sitting on a howe,
he saw a troop of nine Valkyries. The fairest, Svava, Eylimi's daughter,
named him, and bidding him avenge his grandfather on Hrodmar (a
former wooer of Sigrlinn's, and her father's slayer), sent him to find a
magic sword. Helgi slew Hrodmar and married Svava, having escaped
from the sea-giantess Hrimgerd through the protection of his Valkyrie
bride and the wit of a faithful servant. His brother Hedin, through the
spells of a troll-wife, swore to wed Helgi's bride. Repenting, he told his
brother, who, dying in a fight with Hrodmar's son, charged Svava to
marry Hedin. A note by the collector adds "Helgi and Svava are said to
have been born again."
In Helgi Hundingsbane I., Helgi is the son of Sigmund and Borghild.
He fought and slew Hunding, and afterwards met in battle Hunding's
sons at Logafell, where the Valkyrie Sigrun, Högni's daughter,
protected him, and challenged him to fight Hödbrodd to whom her
father had plighted her. She protected his ships in the storm which
overtook them as they sailed to meet Hödbrodd, and watched over him
in the battle, in which he slew his rival and was greeted as victor by
Sigrun: "Hail, hero of Yngvi's race ... thou shalt have both the red rings
and the mighty maid: thine are Högni's daughter and Hringstad, the
victory and the land."
Helgi Hundingsbane II., besides giving additional details of the hero's
early life, completes the story. In the battle with Hödbrodd, Helgi killed
all Sigrun's kinsmen except one brother, Dag, who slew him later in
vengeance. But Helgi returned from the grave, awakened by Sigrun's
weeping, and she went into the howe with him. The collector again
adds a note: "Helgi and Sigrun are said to have been born again: he was
then called Helgi Haddingjaskati, and she Kara Halfdan's daughter, as it
is told in the Kara-ljod, and she was a Valkyrie."
This third Helgi legend does not survive in verse, the _Kara-ljod_
having perished. It is told in prose in the late saga of Hromund
Gripsson, according to which Kara was a Valkyrie and swan-maid:
while she was hovering over Helgi, he killed her accidentally in

swinging his sword.
There can be little doubt that these three are merely variants of the
same story; the foundation is the same, though incidents and names
differ. The three Helgis are one hero, and the three versions of his
legend probably come from different localities. The collector could not
but feel their identity, and the similarity was too fundamental to be
overlooked; he therefore accounted for it by the old idea of re-birth, and
thus linked the three together. In each Helgi has an hereditary foe
(Hrodmar, Hunding, or Hadding); in each his bride is a Valkyrie, who
protects him and gives him victory; each ends in tragedy, though
differently.
The two variants in the Poetic Edda have evident marks of
contamination with the Volsung cycle, and some points of superficial
resemblance. Helgi Hjörvardsson's mother is Sigrlinn, Helgi
Hundings-bane's father is Sigmund, as in the Nibelungen Lied Siegfried
is the son of Sigemunt and Sigelint. Helgi Hundingsbane is a Volsung
and Wolfing (Ylfing), and brother to Sinfjötli; his first fight, like
Sigurd's, is against the race of Hunding; his rival, Hödbrodd, is a
Hniflung; he first meets the Valkyrie on Loga-fell (Flame-hill); he is
killed by his brother-in-law, who has sworn friendship. But there is no
parallel to the essential features of the Volsung cycle, and such
likenesses between the two stories as are not accidental are due to the
influence of the more favoured legend; this is especially true of the
names. The prose-piece _Sinfjötli's Death_ also makes Helgi
half-brother to Sinfjötli; it is followed in this by _Völsunga Saga_,
which devotes a chapter to Helgi, paraphrasing Helyi Hundingsbane I.
There is, of course, confusion over the Hunding episode; the saga is
obliged to reconcile its conflicting authorities by making Helgi kill
Hunding and some of his sons, and Sigurd kill the rest.
If the theory stated below as to the original Helgi legend be correct, the
feud with Hunding's race, as told in these poems, must be extraneous. I
conjecture that it belonged originally to the Volsung cycle, and to the
wer-wolf