Tag: Legends of the Ring

From The Saga Of Dietrich Of Bern

This is Part Two of Book Two of Legends of the Ring. It “was most likely composed in Norway somewhere between 1230 and 1250 by a well-travelled or well- read Norwegian, writing in Norse for the culturally flourishing court of Hakon IV.” (Magee).

This Folio Society selection, focussing on the Siegfried story, does not include the whole of the Dietrich saga, but the last in a series of duels is one between the two heroes. The main thread stitches together bloodthirsty battles between the Nibelungs and the Huns. The translation is by Edward R. Haymes.

In my review of The Nibelungenlied I state that “The powerful prose narrative lacks the beauty of the Icelandic poetry of Book one, although it presents the tale in considerably more detail.” https://derrickjknight.com/2024/08/04/the-nibelungenlied/. Maybe the more fluent and attractive prose in this saga of a now familiar story reflects the writing of someone more akin to the Scandinavian Source.

Dietrich is described thus: “He was long-faced and regular of features, light in colour, and had the best eyes of all men, dark brown in colour. His hair was light and fair and fell in curls. He had no beard, no matter how old he got. His shoulders were so broad that they measured two ells across. His arms were stout like a great trunk and hard as stone. He had fair hands. In the waist he was slender and well-formed, and his hips and his thighs were so stout that everyone thought that it was very strange how the man had been shaped. His legs were fair and well-shaped. And his calves and ankles were so stout that they could have belonged to a giant. His strength was greater than any man knew and he himself scarcely tested it. He was cheerful and modest, generous and a giver of great gifts, so that he did not hold back from his friends with gold or silver or treasure or with almost anything they would accept.”

The birth of Siegfried and his fostering by a hind is beautifully expressed: “A hind came along and took the [baby] boy in her mouth and carried him home to her lair. There she had two fawns. She put the boy down and let him drink for her. She raised him like her own young and he was with the hind for twelve months. Then he was as strong and big as other boys four years old.” Growing thereafter into a perfect match for Dietrich. When Mimir found the youngster and took him in “a hind came running up, went up to Mimic’s knees and licked the face and head of the boy. From this Mimir knew that the hind must have fostered the boy. For this reason he did not want to kill the hind and he took the boy and kept him with him. He intended to raise him as his son and he gave him a name and called him Siegfried.”

This is an example of the greater detail given in this saga to the material covered in previous sections of Legends of the Ring.

We also have more details of lengthy individual duels and battles with fast moving action described.

The position of women in this society obsessed with beauty and strong men of honour is somewhat complex. It was a fate worse than death for a man to be beaten by a woman and fathers are always speaking of giving their daughters to valued suitors. Yet queens and wives can be powerful, scheming and influential. We have clear indication of this in Chapter 5 of the saga extracts, The Bride-Winning of Siegfried and Gunther.

The first of Simon Brett’s illustrations to this section of the book has been placed above the relevant quotation. The others are in this gallery.

The Mythological Poems Of The Elder Edda

This is Part Four of Book One of Legends of the Ring; like the Heroic ones it has been translated by Patricia Terry. I read it today.

“The mythological poems feature all the well-known Norse gods: Odin [often disguised, as for example a ferryman in the Lay of Harbard.], Fridge, Frey and Freyja, Thor, Loki and the fair god Balder. Giants and dwarfs have their share too. Sometimes the poems tell genuine stories about these characters. Both the ‘Lay of Thrym’ and the ‘Lay of Hymir’ are comic tales involving Thor, and the ‘Lay of Skirmir’ succeeds as a tale of romance.

“….knowledge is at the hub of the majority of these poems…..[which] convey knowledge of places, people, and events throughout the cosmos. They act as guides to the beginning of the universe, and its end, and contain the names and doings of all the major players on its many worlds.

“As with the heroic poems, much of the poetry takes the form of speech. Gods, giants and dwarfs, in turn act as the poems’ mouthpiece, climaxing in the great cosmic vision of the vala or sybil. Consequently knowledge, too, comes in spoken form: sometimes in monologue, more often in dialogue, principally in question-and-answer exchanges.” (Magee)

The first set of these poems is entitled WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.

‘The High One’ who offers the opening monologues ‘Sayings’ and the ‘Lay of Lloddfafnir’ is Odin, who, disguised as Gagnrad enters into a full dialogue with the giant Vafthrudnir in that eponymous lay. The advice given in the first of these reflects those given by Snorri, for example “if a man takes with him a mind full of sense/ he can carry nothing better;/ nothing is worse to carrot your way/ than a head heavy with beer.” The repetition of the first lines of a string of these verses is a common element in these lays. “Don’t stay for ever when you visit friends,/ know when it’s time to leave;/ love turns to loathing if you sit too long/ on someone else’s bench.” contains the now familiar penchant for alliteration. There are some nice similes in this verse: “Thus you’ll find the love of a faithless woman:/ like a smooth shod horse on slippery ice – / a sprightly two-year-old not yet trained,/ or sailing with no rudder in a frantic storm/ or a lame man on an icy hill running after reindeer.”

Then we have COMEDY AND INSULT.

“The Eddic interpretation of comedy is many-faceted: incongruous, preposterous, ridiculous; sometimes salacious, often insulting, and occasionally spiteful or downright cruel.”

In ‘The Lay of Thrym’ “Thunder-weilding Thor woke in a rage – / someone had made off with his mighty hammer;/ his hair stood upright, his beard shook with wrath,/ wild for his weapon the god groped around” (Again the alliteration).

The final selection represents QUEST AND PROPHESY.

This closes with ‘Sybil’s Prophesy’ quoted in “The Prose Edda”, describing the creation of the cosmos, its disastrous destruction by fire and tempest, and its ultimate hope of regeneration.

These two of Simon Brett’s engravings are relevant to this last section.

This evening, from tables in front of the TV while watching the Women’s rugby sevens Olympic match between Australia and Great Britain; the first round Olympic tennis doubles match between Britain’s Andy Murray and Dan Evans and Japan’s Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori; followed by highlights of the third day of the third cricket test match between England and West Indies, we dined on roast pork, brambly apple sauce, Yorkshire pudding, boiled new potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and meaty gravy cooked perfectly by the Culinary Queen, with which I drank Bajoz Tempranillo 2022.

The Heroic Poems Of The Elder Edda

This is Part Two of Book One of Legends of the Ring, taken from Patricia Terry’s “Poems of the Elder Edda” which she has translated apart from three versions from Elizabeth Magee. “compiled in Iceland round 1270 by an anonymous collector or copyist, the collection contains poems composed somewhere in Scandinavia during the tenth and eleventh centuries”. (Magee)

“Originally the poetry collection had no title. The name Elder Edda was adapted from the term Snorri Sturluson coined: Edda, which he used for his own prose work recounting Scandinavian pre-Christian beliefs…..the poems are clearly older than the prose, even if they were written down later……The poems fall into two main groups. One is a set of mythological poems, which we shall return to later. The second group is heroic, and it is these poems that interest us here.” (Magee)

These poems tell the story of Sigurd and his dynasty as mirrored by the Saga of the Volsungs, expressing the key moments and emotions in a much more beautifully poetic manner than could the prose narrative.

Whoever has been primarily responsible for the poetry in this book has presented luscious, flowing, language with a love of alliteration following the original expressive form of verse. Highlights of the story display intense emotions of passion, drama, and action, linked together with short prose passages.

Leaving the details of the tale for those wishing to read for themselves, I can say that these poems are in four groups: Of Heroes, Swanmaidens and Valkyries; Sigurd Ascendant; Sigurd’s Death; Death of the Niflungs; and End of the Line.

As has been seen in https://derrickjknight.com/2024/07/12/the-saga-of-the-volsungs/ myth plays a large part in the sagas.

“Swanmaidens fly through the air wearing their feathers; once they have landed, however, they set their feather cloaks aside and become as other women. A mortal man can gain power over a swanmaiden by hiding her feather cloak so that she can no longer fly away. ……….

….”the valkyries are Odin’s wish-maidens, who ride through the heavens, sway battles, select those heroes selected for Valhall, and serve the inexhaustible brew of ale to them when they arrive. Some are said to be Odin’s own daughters….” (Magee)

I offer a few phrases from the verses in order to illustrate the complexity of the alliterations:

“Blades were burning in bloody wounds,/ Long swords lowered….” from The Lay of Hakon

“He set bear steaks to roast on the fire -/ high blazed the faggots from seasoned fir trees,/ wind-dried wood, warming Volund.” from The Lay of Volund

“……….Grani’s bride/ gold-bitted, good at galloping; ” from The First Lay of Helgi Hunding’s Bane

“What kind of fish can swim the falls/ but fails to ward off woe?” from The Lay of Regin

“few things worry a worthy king” from The Lay of Fafnir

The poetry is rich in simile and metaphor.

Advice given to Sigurd by Sigrdrifa, the valkyrie in her eponymous lay is almost identical as that of Brunhild in https://derrickjknight.com/2024/07/12/the-saga-of-the-volsungs/

Here are Simon Brett’s muscular illustrations pertinent to this section.

Reading And Listening

This afternoon Elizabeth visited for a while wishing me well as she was at a wedding on my birthday.

After this I listened to the Test Match between England and West Indies on BBC News when not reading the introduction to

The first of these images is of the boards, back and front, of my edition; the second the Title Page and Frontispiece by Simon Brett.

Elizabeth Magee has gathered and woven together the array of saga, myth, and legend from the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples drawn on by Wagner in his Ring series. Because of the nature of the collection, involving similar but differently told stories from differing sources, Simon Brett’s powerful illustrations are gathered together in one block.

In Scandinavian mythology Yggdrasil, the frontispiece image, is most significant. “Underlying it is a whole cosmos, a universe created by the interaction of fire and ice and embedded in the great void. Central to the cosmos is the World Tree, Yggdrasil. According to Snorri, the three roots securing it reach down to the underworld Niflheim, out to the frost ogres and up to the sky among the gods and light elves. Its branches spread up to heaven and over the earth. The world is formed of concentric circles, surrounded by sea. Midgard is the home of humankind; rimward are the giants, and right at the hub is Asgard, seat of the gods on earth. Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, brings the gods every day from earth to heaven. Within the earth dwell dwarfs and dark elves.” (Magee)

I will follow the editor’s sections and add the pictures as I work my way through the book.

This evening we dined at The Lazy Lion in Milford on Sea, where I enjoyed fish pie with a minted melange of peas and other green veg followed by a summer fruits créme brulée with which I drank Flack’s Double Drop; Jackie’s choice was sun-dried tomato and pesto with halloumi cheese with which she drank Diet Cola.