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. 24 (1) 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.
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 Saga adheres very closely
to the "Lay of Fafnir"; for the insertion of the song of the birds to
Sigurd the present translators are responsible.
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 stanza 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.
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
parts 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.
Chap. 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 chap. 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 chap. 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.
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.
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 in 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 subtilty, 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 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.
WILLIAM MORRIS and EIRIKR MAGNUSSON.