It is unnecessary to examine the poems or romances which some writers are fond of arranging under sub-cycles of the main cycle of the Carolingian epics. These epics Mr. Ludlow1 pronounces "historical." The sort of history contained in them we may take at his own estimate of it. "The history of them is popular history, utterly unchronological, attributing to one age or hero the events and deeds of quite another." In other words, it is a history from which, if we had no other sources of evidence, we could not by any possibility learn anything. Possessing the genuine contemporary history of the time, the critic has a clue which may here and there furnish some guidance through the labyrinth; but it is the genuine history which enables him in whatever measure to account for the perversions of the poems, not the perversions which add a jot to our knowledge of the facts. But it is more important to remember that these poems are of a quite different class from the general epics of the Aryan nations. They are the result of bookwork-in other words, they are not organic; and to the stories spun by men sitting down at their desks, and mingling mythical or historical traditions at their will, there is literally no end. Yet even in these poems it is remarkable that some of the most prominent or momentous incidents belong to the common inheritance of the Aryan nations. The story of Garin the Lorrainer repeats in great part the story of Odysseus. Thierry's daughter, the White Flower (Blanche Flor), is the Argive Helen. "That maiden," says the poet, "in an evil hour was born, for many a worthy man shall yet die through her." The death of Bego, after the slaying of the boar, is the death of Achilleus after the fall of Hektor. But whatever travesty of real history there may be in parts of this poem, or in the epics of William of Orange and Ogier the Dane, there is next to none in the story of Bertha Largefoot, which simply reflects the myth of Cinderella, Penelopê, Punchkin, and perhaps one or two more. In short, it is mere patchwork. As in the case of Cinderella and Rhodôpis, the true queen is made known by her feet; the only difference being that have been woven into popular tales 1 Popular Epics of the Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 13. Bertha is in name the Teutonic goddess, who in another form appears as Frau Holle or Holda, the benignant earth, and who, like Penelopê, has marvellous skill in spinning. This myth occurs again in the Gaelic story of "The King who wished to marry his Daughter." Mr. Campbell (Tales of the West Highlands, i. 227) mentions other instances, and remarks THE GRETTIR SAGA. VI. 141 with Bertha it is the great size of her feet which determines the issue, CHAP. not their smallness. To coin a word, she is Eurypous, instead of Eurôpê; and there was a version which spoke of her as Queen Goosefoot, a personage over whom it might seem impossible that a poet could become sentimental. Yet the goose-footed queen is simply a swan-maiden, one of the most beautiful creatures of Aryan mythology. rature of Europe. The same materials will probably be found to have furnished the Saga Liteframework of at least the greater part of the Saga literature of Northern Europe. If here and there a name or an incident belonging to real history be introduced into them, this cannot of itself raise the story above the level of plausible fiction. Far too much, probably, has been said of these Sagas as a true picture of society and manners. That the writers would throw over their narrative a colouring borrowed from the ways and customs of their own time is certain; but the acts which they record are not proved to be deeds which were constantly or even rarely occurring, if they involve either a direct contradiction or a physical impossibility. To say that all incidents involving such difficulties are to be at once rejected, while we are yet to give faith to the residue, is to lay ourselves as bondmen at the feet of Euêmeros and his followers, and to bid farewell to truth and honesty. Even in pictures of life and manners there is a certain limit beyond which we refuse to credit tales of cruelty, villainy, and treachery, when they are related of whole tribes who are not represented as mere savages and ruffians; and unless we are prepared to disregard these limits, the history of many of these Sagas becomes at once, as a whole, incredible, although some of the incidents recorded in them may have occurred. Grettir This is especially the case with the Grettir Saga, for which a high The historical character has been claimed by the translators. Yet the Saga. tale from beginning to end is full of impossibilities. In his early youth Grettir, being set by his father to watch his horses, gets on the back of one named Keingala, and drawing a sharp knife across her shoulders and then all along both sides of the back, flays off the whole strip from the flank to the loins. When Asmund next strokes the horse, the hide to his surprise comes off in his hands, the animal being seemingly very little the worse for the loss. After this impos BOOK I. The character of Grettir. sible result of his exploit, Grettir, having lost a mealbag, finds Skeggi "I will go against him in front, and take thou heed how matters go betwixt us, for I will trust myself against any man, if I have one alone to meet; but do thou go behind him, and drive the axe into him with both hands atwixt his shoulders; thou needest not fear that he will do thee hurt, as his back will be turned to thee." " When at a later time Grettir had slain Thorir Redbeard, Thorir of Garth assails the solitary outlaw with eighty men. Grettir slays eighteen and wounds many more, and the rest take to flight." This last incident brings us to the main question. It is, of course, a sheer impossibility:* and if, as such, it is to be regarded as lying beyond the pale of human history, we are at once driven to ask wherein lies the real value of a narrative in which such incidents form the staple of the story. The translators tell us that throughout the tale "the Sagaman never relaxes his grasp of Grettir's character, that he is the same man from beginning to end, thrust this way and that by circumstances, but little altered by them; unlucky in all things, yet made strong to bear all ill-luck; scornful of the world, yet 1 Preface, pp. i. and 94. 2 P. 141. In Scott's Old Mortality, ch. xi., old Major Bellenden takes his niece to task for believing that the heroes of romance fought single-handed with whole battalions. "One to three," he says, "is as great odds as ever fought and won; and I never knew anybody who cared to take that except old Corporal Raddlebanes. . . . I dare say you would think very little of Raddlebanes if he were alongside of Artamines." MATERIALS OF THE GRETTIR SAGA. capable of enjoyment and determined to make the most of it; not deceived by men's specious ways, but disdaining to cry out because he must needs bear with them; scorning men, yet helping them. when called on, and desirous of fame; prudent in theory, and wise in foreseeing the inevitable sequence of events, but reckless even beyond the recklessness of that time and people, and finally capable of inspiring in others strong affection and devotion to him in spite of his rugged self-sufficing temper." It is one thing if this is to be regarded as the portrait of a man who really lived and died on this earth, or as the picture of some inhabitant of the Phaiakian cloudland. The translators raise a vital issue when they say that "to us moderns the real interest in these records of a past state of life lies principally in seeing events true in the main treated vividly and dramatically by people who completely understood the manners, life, and above all the turn of mind of the actors in them." 2 If we have any honest anxiety to ascertain facts, and if we are prepared to give credit to a narrative only when the facts have been so ascertained, then everything is involved in the question whether the events here related are true in the main or not. The genealogies given in the earlier part of the Saga agree, we are told, with those of the Landnáma-bók and of the other most trustworthy Sagas; yet such names tell us as much and as little as the names in the genealogy of the tale-maker Hekataios. A catalogue of names belonging to real persons cannot impart authority to a narrative of fictitious events, if they are fictitious; and when we have put aside these genealogies and the names of one or two kings, as of Olaf, Hacon, and Harold Fairhair, we have numbered all the historical elements in the book: nor is it necessary to say that some safeguard is wanted when we remember that the Carolingian romances take the great Karl to Jerusalem. 143 CHAP. VI. Saga. If then we have before us a story, some of the incidents of which Materials are manifestly impossible or absurd, we are scarcely justified in of the accepting, on the mere authority of the Saga, other portions which involve no such difficulties. We have the alternative of rejecting the whole story without troubling ourselves to examine it further, or we may take it to pieces, reducing it to its constituent elements, and then seeing whether these elements are to be found in any other narratives. If this should be the case, the character of the narratives in which these common elements are seen will go far towards determining the credibility of the story. Clearly the latter course is the more philosophical and the more honest. That the translators had BOOK I. Grettir and Boots. Parallelisms be tween the Grettir Saga and other myths. the clue in their own hands, is clear from the sentence in which, speaking of the events which followed Grettir's death, they tell us that "the Sagaman here has taken an incident, with little or no change, from the romance of Tristram and Iseult." If, as they think, the chapters in which this incident is related were added to the tale, and if this part of the story be substantially the same as that of a romance which is known to be mythical; if further, as they say, the whole Saga "has no doubt gone through the stages which mark the growth of the Sagas in general, that is, it was for long handed about from mouth to mouth until it took a definite shape in men's minds," a presumption, to say the least, is furnished that other incidents in the Saga may be found to be of a like nature. If we take the sentences which tell us of Grettir's childhood, how he had scant love from his father who set him to watch his homegeese, how he was fair to look on, red-haired and much freckled, how he would do no work or spoilt all that he did; how, when placed on board a boat, he "would move for nought, neither for baling, nor to do aught for the sail, nor to work at what he was bound to work at in the ship in even share with the other men, neither would he buy himself off from the work," how, when he does some great thing, the remark is "we wotted not that thou wert a man of such powers as we have now proved thee," how he goes disguised to the wrestling match, and when Thorbiorn Angle pushes and tugs hard at him, moves not a whit but sits quiet, yet wins the victory,—we have before us the Goose-girl and the Boots of Teutonic story, the Boots who sits among the ashes in the "irony of greatness," biding his time, the disguised Odysseus, patiently enduring the gibes of the suitors and the beggar Arnaios. When the Saga tells us that on coming back from a Thing, "Grettir lifted a stone which now lies there in the grass and is called Grettir's heave,” and how "many men came up to see the stone and found it a great wonder that so young a man should heave aloft such a huge rock," it relates a well-known legend in the myths of Theseus and of Sigurd in the Volsung tale. When Grettir is driven forth from his home without arms and his mother draws forth from her cloak the fair sword which has gained many a day, we see before us Thetis and Hjordis bestowing on their children the magic weapons which reappear in the hands of Arthur and of Roland. In the |