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Viking Tales of the North

Notes

Page 1

In its present form Tegnér’s “Fridthjof’ Saga” was first published in the year 1825; but already before that the last nine cantos had been given to the public in a Swedish magazine called “Idun.” The cantos XVI-XIX inclusive were published in 1820, and the cantos xx-XXIV in 1822. In 1871 twenty large editions of this celebrated poem had been called for in Sweden alone. Nearly as many editions have appeared in Norway and Denmark; and in Icelandic there is now a splendid version by Matthías Jochumsson. England boasts eighteen different translations. Thirteen translations had appeared in Germany in 1863, when the ninth edition of Mohnike’s version appeared. the poem has been reproduced in all European languages, even in Russian, Polish and modern Greek. H.W. Longfellow and Bayard Taylor are the only American authors who hitherto have published “Fridthjof’s Saga” in whole or in part. The former has written an elaborate review with copious translations, the later has edited Rev. William Leweary Blackley’s translation with an introduction. The present (the appendix of this volume) is thus, as the reader will observe, the second American edition of the whole poem, but the writer of this (Anderson) has recently had the pleasure of reading in manuscript a complete American translation. It is the result of several years patient and pains-taking labor of Mr. and Mrs. Thos. A. E. Holcomb. It is the nineteenth English but the first American translation, and it certainly will hold its own among any of its English predecessors. We have not the manuscript at hand, but the easy, graceful and musical flow of its metres has been ringing in our ear since Mr. Holcomb had the goodness to pay us a visit and read it to us. One feature of the Holcomb version is of special interest, — every canto is rendered in the same metre as the Swedish original, and the feminine rhymes are everywhere preserved. Moreover the alliteration in canto XXI of the original is reproduced, — a task that most of the other English translators have shrunk from in dismay (1) In short, the Holcomb translation is in eery way so excellent that it cannot fail to be received with generous favor, and we are glad that it is soon to be published.
        In reference to Norse-mythological names, we refer the reader, once for all, to the Vocabulary and Index of Anderson’s Norse Mythology, in which complete information concerning the Teutonic gods and their abodes will be found.

Canto I. (2)
Stanza 16. Dryden in “Alexander’s Feast” has the same thought:
                        Happy, happy, happy pair!
                                None but the brave,
                                None but the brave,
                        None but the brave deserves the fair.

Stanza 17. Reading the old sagas is to this day one of the highest pleasures of the Icelander. it is with this he passes the long winter evenings. This is the amusement of the company when many have assembled together. The master of the house first beings the reading, and the others continue ti when he is tired. Some of them know sagas by heart, others use printed copies, or, for want of these, fair manuscripts — not seldom written by the peasant himself. — STRINHOLM.

Stanza 18. Light hair was common in the North; black, more rare; bright yellow, a beauty in either sex. Gold or silk colored hair, light-yellow tresses, bright-gold locks, etc. almost always belong in the sagas to the description of beauty. the olden Celts also admired light hair, and the “yellow haired laddie,’ and “lassie wi’ the lint-white locks,” continue favorites with their descendants to the present day.

Stanza 24 and 25. the inhabitants of the old North were as remarkable as the modern Norsemen for their skill and ingenuity in all kinds of handiwork. The women excelled in embroidery, whereof we find many graphic descriptions in their old writings. — See Elder Edda, “Gudrun’s Grief,” Str. 14, 15, 16. In the “Volsung Saga” we read: “Great delight had they in needle-work, and greatly was Gudrun’s sorrow eased thereby.”

Stanza 37. The free-born yields not; for still
                His arm wins worlds where’er it will.
Witness the Norse Adventures, exploits and conquests in every part of Europe, and even in Africa and Asia, from the beginning to the end of those viking expeditions whereby Iceland, Greenland and Vineland (America) were discovered, England twice subdued, and the whole of Europe remodeled.

Canto II.
The gnomes put in the mouths of the old men in this canto Tegnér has taken mostly from “Hávamál: of the Elder Edda. This poem, of which Tegnér has employed only about a dozen strophes, contains one hundred and thirty-eight stanzas, and constitutes a literary monument of the old Teutonic mind, so sublime, so full of wisdom, in short so remarkable, that it deserves to be immortalized in every language on earth. A literal translation of it may be found in Anderson’s NORSE MYTHOLOGY, pp. 130-155.

Stanza 37. Norse kings and warriors are often mentioned in the sagas as choosing their burial-place by bays and arms of the sea; as if even when dead they could not be parted from their favorite elements. The latter half of this stanza has a striking parallel in “Ynglinga Saga,” ch. 36. where we read: “So Yngvar the king fell and his host fled away. There rests he in his cairn, right along by the salt wave’s side.” Thus Thjodolf:
                                And the East Sea
                                For Sweden’s king
                                Ocean’s song
                                To gladden him chanted.

Canto III.
“Not five hundred men (though ten twelves went to the hundred),” etc. The duodecimal computation is still common in Britain as well as in Scandinavia. The long and great hundred, or thousand, etc. are well known in most trades. The old Norsemen always employed great hundreds (120) in counting men.
        “Vifil,” “Angervadil”, “Ellide,” etc. The reader will observe that much of this canto is taken from “The Saga of Thorstein, Viking’s Son.”
        “Sun’s Gates.” Mythology, etymology and history unite in pointing to western Asia as the ancient home of the worshipers of Odin.
        “The twelve immortals.” These are Odin, Thor, Balder, Tyr, Brage, Heimdal, Hoder, Vidar, Vale, Uller, Forsete, Loke.
        “Autumn-judge.” The old Norsemen held their judicial thing (diet, assize) in the autumn.
        “And live self.” Burial while living is not without example in the sagas, In the saga of Hakon the Good we read of several persons who caused themselves, while yet living, to be placed within their grave-hows togther with much goods.

Canto IV.
Stanza 20. It was very common in old times to hold public meetings on the hows of celebrated kings and warriors. Owing to the gradual elevation of the ground, all present could easily see the presiding officer or chief speaker. Gustavus Vasa addressed the Dalecarlians from Frey’s How called also Thing Hill) near Upsala.

Stanza 25. The Norsemen firmly believed in the dead life of the buried hero.

ENDNOTES:

1. George Stephens has alliteration. — See poem. Back

2. As stated in our preface, the most of these notes are taken from the work of George Stephens. Back

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