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Translator`s Preface
Translator`s Preface
In offering to the reader this translation of the most complete and
dramatic form of the great Epic of the North, we lay no claim to special
critical insight, nor do we care to deal at all with vexed questions, but are
content to abide by existing authorities, doing our utmost to make our
rendering close and accurate, and, if it might be so, at the same time, not
over prosaic: it is to the lover of poetry and nature, rather than to the
student, that we appeal to enjoy and wonder at this great work, now for the
first time, strange to say, translated into English: this must be our excuse
for speaking here, as briefly as may be, of things that will seem to the
student over well known to be worth mentioning, but which may give some ease
to the general reader who comes across our book.
The prose of the Volsunga Saga was composed probably some time in the
twelfth century, from floating traditions no doubt; from songs which, now
lost, were then known, at least in fragments, to the Sagaman; and finally from
songs, which, written down about his time, are still existing: the greater
part of these last the reader will find in this book; some inserted amongst
the prose text by the original story-teller, and some by the present
translators, and the remainder in the latter part of the book, put together as
nearly as may be in the order of the story, and forming a metrical version of
the greater portion of it.
These Songs from the Elder Edda we will now briefly compare with the
prose of the Volsung Story, premising that these are the only metrical sources
existing of those from which the Sagaman told his tale.
Except for the short snatch on p. 271 of our translation, nothing is now
left of these till we come to the episode of Helgi Hundings-bane, Sigurd`s
half-brother; there are two songs left relating to this, from which the
prose is put together; to a certain extent they cover the same ground; but the
latter half of the second is, wisely as we think, left untouched by the
Sagaman, as its interest is of itself too great not to encumber the progress
of the main story; for the sake of its wonderful beauty, however, we could not
refrain from rendering it, and it will be found first among the metrical
translations that form the second part of this book.
[See Hundings-bane: Hundings-band`s return to Valhal. From the painting by E.
Wallcousins.]
Of the next part of the Saga, the deaths of Sinfjotli and Sigmund, and
the journey of Queen Hjordis to the court of King Alf, there is no trace left
of any metrical origin; but we meet the Edda once more where Regin tells the
tale of his kin to Sigurd, and where Sigurd defeats and slays the sons of
Hunding: this lay is known as the Lay of Regin.
The short chap. xvi. is abbreviated from a long poem called the Prophecy
of Gripir (the Grifir of the Saga), where the whole story to come is told with
some detail, and which certainly, if drawn out at length into the prose, would
have forestalled the interest of the tale.
In the slaying of the Dragon the Sage adheres very closely to the Lay of
Fafnir; for the insertion of the song of the birds to Sigurd the present
translators are responsible.
[See Sigurd: Sigurd who slayed the dragon Fafnir. From the painting by E.
Nielsen.]
Then comes the waking of Brynhild, and her wise redes to Sigurd, taken
from the Lay of Sigrdrifa, the greater part of which, in its metrical form, is
inserted by the Sagaman into his prose; but the stanzas relating Brynhild`s
awaking we have inserted into the text; the latter part, omitted in the prose,
we have translated for the second part of our book.
[See Brynhild: Brynhild in armour. From the statue by Bissen.]
Of Sigurd at Hlymdale, of Gudrun`s dream, the magic potion of Grimhild,
the wedding of Sigurd consequent on that potion; of the wooing of Brynhild for
Gunnar, her marriage to him, of the quarrel of the Queens, the brooding grief
and wrath of Brynhild, and the interview of Sigurd with her - of all this, the
most dramatic and best-considered part of the tale, there is now no more
left that retains its metrical form than the few snatches preserved by the
Sagaman, though many of the incidents are alluded to in other poems.
[See Sigurd And Sword: Sigurd and sword. From the painting by F. Leeke.]
Chapter XXX is met by the poem called the Short Lay of Sigurd, which,
fragmentary apparently at the beginning, gives us something of Brynhild`s
awakening wrath and jealousy, the slaying of Sigurd, and the death of Brynhild
herself; this poem we have translated entire.
The Fragments of the Lay of Brynhild are what is left of a poem partly
covering the same ground as this last, but giving a different account of
Sigurd`s slaying; it is very incomplete, though the Sagaman has drawn some
incidents from it; the reader will find it translated in our second part.
But before the death of the heroine we have inserted entire into the text
as chapter XXXI the First Lay of Gudrun, the most lyrical, the most complete,
and the most beautiful of all the Eddaic poems; a poem that any age or
language might count among its most precious possessions.
From this point to the end of the Saga it keeps closely to the Songs of
Edda; in chapter XXXII, the Sagaman has rendered into prose the Ancient Lay of
Gudrun, except for the beginning, which gives again another account of the
death of Sigurd: this lay also we have translated.
The grand poem, called the Hell-ride of Brynhild, is not represented
directly by anything in the prose except that the Sagaman has supplied from it
a link or two wanting in the Lay of Sigrdrifa; it will be found translated in
our second part.
[Hear Die Walkure]
The Hell-ride of Brynhild (Act III, Scene I) from "Die Walkure"(1870)
of "Der Ring das Nibelungen", by Richard Wagner.
The betrayal and slaughter of the Giukings or Niblungs, and the fearful
end of Atli and his sons, and court, are recounted in two lays, called the
Lays of Atli; the longest of these, the Greenland Lay of Atli, is followed
closely by the Sagaman; the shorter one we have translated.
[See Nibelungenlied: The Nibelungenlied. From the fresco by Professor E. Ille.]
The end of Gudrun, of her daughter by Sigurd, and of her sons by her last
husband Jonakr, treated of in the last four chapters of the Saga, are very
grandly and poetically given in the songs called the Whetting of Gudrun, and
the Lay of Hamdir, which are also among our translations.
These are all the songs of the Edda which the Sagaman has dealt with; but
one other, the Lament of Oddrun, we have translated on account of its
intrinsic merit.
As to the literary quality of this work we might say much, but we think
we may well trust the reader of poetic insight to break through whatever
entanglement of strange manners or unused element may at first trouble him,
and to meet the nature and beauty with which it is filled: we cannot doubt
that such a reader will be intensely touched by finding, amidst all its
wildness and remoteness, such a startling realism, such subtility, such close
sympathy with all the passions that may move himself to-day.
In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to us, that this
Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem, should never before have
been translated into English. For this is the Great Story of the North, which
should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks - to all our
race first, and afterwards, when the change of the world has made our race
nothing more than a name of what has been - a story too - then should it be to
those that come after us no less than the Tale of Troy has been to us.
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