In Norse mythology we are confronted, in the mythological poems of the Edda and also in Snorri Sturluson’s treatise, with a great many scattered hints and observations about the minor beings of the immensely rich and many-peopled heathen supernatural world. Taken all together it is baffling; and beyond question there was once a whole world of thought and belief concerning these beings which is now almost totally lost. However, bearing in mind that Snorri was writing in the thirteenth century and that behind him stretch century upon century of unrecorded, various and shifting beliefs, we may notice what he says: which is, that there are the Light Elves, Ljósálfar, and the Dark Elves, Dökkálfar. The Light Elves dwell in a glorious place called Álfheimr (Elf-home, Elf-world), but the Dark Elves ‘live down in the earth, and they are unlike the Light Elves in appearance, but much more unlike in nature. The Light Elves are fairer to look upon than the sun, but the Dark Elves are blacker than pitch.’

  So far as we can now tell, there seems little difference between the Scandinavian Dark Elves, black as pitch and living underground, and the Dvergar, Dwarves; in fact Snorri more than once refers to Dwarves as inhabitants of Svartálfaheimr, the Land of the Dark Elves. The Dwarf Andvari, original owner of Fáfnir’s treasure, dwelt, according to Snorri, in the Land of the Dark Elves (see the commentary on the Lay of the Völsungs, p.189): there he kept his hoard within a rock, and there Loki caught him.

  Characteristics of the Dwarves in Old Norse literature may be briefly mentioned. They are above all master-craftsmen, the makers of marvellous treasures and wonderful weapons. The most renowned objects in the Norse myths were made by Dwarves: Ódin’s spear Gungnir, Thór’s hammer Mjöllnir, and Skíðblaðnir, the ship of the God Freyr, which could carry all the Gods, yet was made so intricately that it could be folded up like a napkin and put in a pouch.

  Dwarves lived always underground or inside rocks (an echo was called dverg-mál, ‘dwarf-talk’); and they possessed vast knowledge. If caught in the open after sunrise they were turned to stone. There is a poem in the Edda, the Alvíssmál, in which the God Thór asks many questions of a Dwarf named Allvíss (‘All-wise’); and Thór kept him answering his questions so long that the sun came up. The poem ends with Thór crying: ‘Dwarf, you are uppi dagaðr’, you are ‘dayed up’, the sun has caught you.

  The train of thought that emerges from all this will be clear, and the conclusion. Dark Elves, black as pitch, and Dwarves, closely related in Norse mythology if not identical, guardians of treasure in caverns and rocks; Alberich and Andvari; the origin of the Nibelung name in connection with ‘darkness’ words; Hagen’s ‘elvish’ birth, his dark and troll-like appearance in Thiðrekssaga. On this theory, this is what the Nibelungs originally were: they were beings of darkness, Dark Elves or Dwarves, and Siegfried/Sigurd stole their great treasure from them.

  This ‘mythological’ theory, or some form of it, is radically challenged by other scholars. From place-names and personal names in the region of Burgundian settlement there is evidence that is interpreted to mean that Nibelung was the name of a powerful Burgundian family or clan. Putting the matter in its simplest form, it is supposed on this basis that the (purely human) Nibelung clan of Burgundia either possessed very great wealth in historical fact, or else very early had it attributed to them; and ‘the hoard of the Nibelungs’ was the family treasure of the Burgundian kings.

  That my father subscribed to the ‘mythological’ theory in some form is plain; but his view of the process by which the Burgundians became Nibelungs is nowhere clearly or fully expressed in his writings. He had suggested (see this Appendix p.341) that the connection of the ‘Dragon-hero’ with the Burgundian king Gundahari began with ‘gold’ as a motive to explain Attila’s attack (when Attila had become the leader of the Huns in the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom of Worms). As Gundahari faded back into the past (he wrote), old legends of fairy-hoards localized on the Rhine naturally became attached to the famous king in Worms: ‘this treasure probably had demon or dwarvish guardians already, but need not originally have been the same as Sigemund’s gold, though it may well have been.’

  ‘It would certainly seem’, he said, ‘that the gold-hero who intrudes into the Burgundians had already gathered round him enemy Niflungar, who robbed him of life, bride, and treasure. The historical Burgundians partly take their place, and though there is never complete fusion they are darkened.’ He also saw it as virtually certain that the Nibelungenlied is the more original ‘in making the demonic and cruel Hagen not a brother, but an associate vaguely connected with the Burgundians. Very likely Hagen/Högni is a relic of some old mythical figure connected originally with the gold, or at any rate with the mythical pre-Burgundian part of the “Sigurd” story.’

  From observations such as these in his notes one can perhaps surmise that my father saw the genesis of the central part of the legend after this fashion. The Dragon-hero was already the robber of the Hoard of the dark, demonic Nibelungs (whom my father expressly saw as ‘the original owners’), and he brought with him into the Burgundian legend the story of how the Nibelungs in revenge slew him, and took the treasure.

  With the fusion of the two legends, the Burgundian princes necessarily became his enemies: he must be killed in order that they should become the possessors of the gold, and they drew into themselves, so to speak, something of the dark Nibelung nature. It was from the ‘Nibelung’ side of the composite legend that the ‘demonic and cruel’ Hagen ultimately came, with (in the Nibelungenlied) his lust for the gold and his guarding it to the death, his relentless hatred of Siegfried leading to his murder. Hagen became more or less assimilated to the Burgundians, and in the Norse (as Högni) wholly so; but the Burgundians on their side became Nibelungs, or Niflungar.

  My father also surmised that the demonic bride was part of the complex of legend that was brought in with the Dragon-hero into the Burgundian story; and that when he brought with him his enemies the Nibelungs, they came not only as the robbers of his life and the treasure, but also of his betrothed. ‘It seems probable,’ he said, ‘that the robbing of Sigurd of his bride by the Niflungar is part of the old legendary plot that was handed over to the Burgundians. And the Valkyrie-bride has all along retained too much that is fierce and inhuman about her for completely successful treatment.’

  Thus, finally, the hoard of which Sigurd was robbed became (by a curious irony) the Hoard of the Nibelungs (as it had always been); for the Burgundians were now the Nibelungs. And Gunnar acquired the Valkyrie.

  APPENDIX B

  THE PROPHECY OF THE SIBYL

  I include this poem by my father in rhyming couplets as a companion to the altogether distinct Upphaf to the Lay of the Völsungs, since it also was inspired by the Eddaic poem Völuspá (see the commentary on the Lay, pp.183–84).

  It is found in a single very fine decorated manuscript; of earlier work there is now no trace. There is no evidence of any kind for its date, but on general grounds I would be inclined to ascribe it to the 1930s.

  The Prophecy of the Sibyl

  From the East shall come the Giant of old

  and shield of stone before him hold;

  the Serpent that the world doth bind

  in towering wrath shall him unwind

  and move the Outer Sea profound,

  till all is loosed that once was bound.

  Unloosed at last shall then set forth

  the ship of shadow from the North;

  the host of Hel shall cross the sea

  and Loki shall from chain be free,

  and with the wolf shall monsters all

  upon the world then ravening fall.

  Then Surtur from the South shall fare

  and tree-devouring fire shall bear

  that bright as sun on swords shall shine

  in battle of the hosts divine;

  the hills of stone shall bend their head;

  all men the paths of death shall tread.

  Then darkened shall the sunlight be,

  and Earth shall founder under sea,

  and from the cloven heavens all

  the gleaming stars shall flee and fall;

  the steam shall rise in roaring spires

  and heaven’s roof be licked with fires.

  *

  A house there is that sees no sun,

  dark-builded on the beaches dun

  where cold waves wash the Deadly Shore,

  and northward looks its shadowy door;

  the louver poisoned rain lets fall,

  of woven serpents in the wall.

  Laden in heavy streams there wade

  men perjured, men who have betrayed

  the trust of friend; and there the coward

  and wolvish murderer is devoured:

  the dragon who yet Yggdrasil

  gnaws at the roots there takes his fill.

  Dim-flying shall that dragon haste

  over the beaches dark and waste,

  up from the Nether-fells shall spring

  bearing those corpses under wing,

  then plunge, and sea close o’er his head

  for ever, o’er the doomed and dead.

  *

  At last once more uprising slow

  the Earth from Ocean green shall grow,

  and falls of water shimmering pour

  from her high shoulders to the shore;

  the eagle there with lonely cry

  shall hunt the fish on mountains high.

  The younger gods again shall meet

  in Idavellir’s pastures sweet,

  and tales shall tell of ancient doom,

  the Serpent and the fire and gloom,

  and that old king of Gods recall

  his might and wisdom ere the fall.

  There marvellous shall again be found

  cast in the grass upon the ground

  the golden chess wherewith they played

  when Ásgard long ago was made,

  when all their courts were filled with gold

  in the first merriment of old.

  A house I see that standeth there

  bright-builded, than the Sun more fair:

  o’er Gimlé shine its tiles of gold,

  its halls no grief nor evil hold,

  and there shall worthy men and true

  in living days delight pursue.

  Unsown shall fields of wheat grow white

  when Baldur cometh after night;

  the ruined halls of Ódin’s host,

  the windy towers on heaven’s coast,

  shall golden be rebuilt again,

  all ills be healed in Baldur’s reign.

  APPENDIX C

  FRAGMENTS OF A HEROIC POEM

  OF ATTILA IN OLD ENGLISH

  These verses in the old English alliterative metre were composed at some date unknown, but I think it at least very probable that they belong to the same period as all the writings in this book, my father’s earlier years at Oxford after his departure from Leeds.

  In content and internal sequence both pieces are closely based on the Old Norse Atlakviða. There is more than one copy of each, with minor progressive improvement. In each case I have appended a translation and a few explanatory notes.

  I

  This text corresponds to the first eight stanzas of Atlakviða. It is a part of the Norse poem that poses many difficulties and doubts; and it seems conceivable that my father selected it precisely because it is the beginning of the poem, as if at one time he thought to transform it in this way in its entirety. For the corresponding passage in the Lay of Gudrún see pp.265–67, stanzas 37–44.

  Ætla Guðhere ar onsende

  cenne ridend – Cneofrið hatte –:

  com to geardum Gifecan, Guðheres healle;

  beornas ymb heorðe beore gefægon.

  Druncon dryhtguman on dreorsele,

  5

  mod miðende meldan sæton;

  Huna heteþanc hæleþ ondreordon.

  Secg suðlendisc sliþan reorde,

  Cneofrið ciegde cuma on healle:

  ‘Hider on ærende Ætla mec sende

  10

  geond Wistlawudu wegas uncuðe

  mearh ridendne midlbætedne;

  het inc gretan wel, Guðhere, beodan

  þæt git helmum þeahte to his ham cwomen.

  Þær git sceld sculon agan ond sceaft smeðne,

  15

  helm goldhrodene, Huna mænigo,

  sadol seolforweredne, serc scynestan,

  blancan betstan bitolhæbbendne,

  wæde wealhbeaswe, ond wacne gar.

  Cwæþ þæt he giefan wolde inc Gnitanhæðe,

  20

  weald þone widan on geweald sellan,

  ofer giellendne gar ond gylden stefn,

  maðmas micle, mearce Dænepes,

  ond þæt mære holt – Myrcwudu hatte.’

  Ða heafod hylde helm Burgenda,

  25

  Hagenan sægde: ‘Þa wit hyraþ swelc,

  hwæt rædeþ unc se rinc, runbora geonga?

  On Gnitanhæðe ic gold ne gefrægn

  þæt wit oþres ne ahten efnmicle sped.

  Wit seld agon seofon sweordum gefylled,

  30

  þára sint hiltu gehwilces heawen of golde;

  mearh is mín mærest, mece betsta,

  helm hwitesta ond hilderand

  ahyþed of horde hean Caseres –

  þonne ealra Huna an is min betera.’

  35

  Hagena

  ‘Hwæt biecnede seo bryd þa heo unc beag sende,

  weargloccum wand? wearnunge geteah!

  Þy ic wriðen fæste þær wulfes hær

  hares hæþstapan on hringe fand,

  wylfen, þæs ic wene, bið uncer waþ heonan.’

  40

  Ætla sent to Guðhere a bold messenger

  riding – Cnéofrið was his name:

  he came to the courts of Gifeca, to the hall of Guðhere;

  about the hearth warriors rejoiced in the ale.

  The men of that company drank in the gloomy hall,

  5

  the

  meldan

  sat hiding their thoughts;

  the warriors feared the hatred of the Huns.

  The man from the south cried out with a fell voice,

  Cnéofrið, the stranger in the hall:

  ‘Hither upon an errand Ætla sent me

  10

  on unknown ways through the Vistula forest

  riding the bit-bridled steed;

  he bade me greet well you twain, Guðhere, and ask

  that you come covered by your helms to his abode.

  There you shall have shield and smooth-shaven lance

  15

  gold-adorned helmet, a great company of Huns,

  silvered saddle, coat of mail most shining,

  the finest horse that bears a bridle,

  clothes of foreign scarlet, and slender spear.

  He said that he would give to you Gnitanheath,

  20

  give into your power the wide woodland,

  shrieking spear and golden prow,

  great treasures, the abodes of the Dnieper,

  and that forest renowned that is called Mirkwood.’

  Then the lord of the Burgundians turned his head,

  25

  to Hagena he spoke: ‘When we hear such things

  what does he advise us, the young counsellor?

  I have not heard of a gold hoard on Gnitanheath

  that we twain did not possess another of as great abundance.

  We have seven halls filled with swords,

  30

  the hilts of each of them hewn of gold;

  my horse is the most renowned, my sword the best,

  my helm the brightest, my battle-shield

  plundered from the treasure of the high emperor –

  mine alone is better than [those] of all the Huns.’

  35

  Hagena

  ‘What did the bride signify when she sent us a ring,

  wound it with wolf-hair? She offered us warning!

  Fast bound on the ring I found the hair of a wolf,

  of the grey heath-roamer:

  wolvish, as I think, will be our journey hence.’

  40

  Notes

  1 Ætla, Guðhere: the Old English forms of the Norse names Atli and Gunnar.

  2 Cnéofrið: the name of Atli’s messenger in Atlakviða is Knefröðr: see the commentary on the Lay of Gudrún, stanzas 37–48.

  3 Gifeca: the Old English form of the Norse name Gjúki, father of Gunnar: see Appendix A, p.340.

  5–6 In a lecture on the text of Atlakviða my father took the meaning of the verse at this point to be that there was merriment in the hall among Gunnar’s folk, but the Hunnish envoys sat silent, hiding their thoughts. But his Old English verses may not proceed from this interpretation.

  The Old English word melda means one who declares, tells, informs, or betrays. The man in Beowulf who stole the goblet from the dragon’s hoard and led Beowulf and his companions to the lair is called a melda. But I do not know what significance my father gave to the word in this verse.