CHAPTER V.
THE POETRY AND MINSTRELSY OF EARLY TIMES.
In the preceding chapters we have seen that the persons and events celebrated in the heroic poems apparently all belonged to the fourth, fifth or sixth centuries, and further that heroic poetry was flourishing among the Goths during the same period. For the existence of English, Scandinavian or German heroic poetry at this time we have no absolutely conclusive evidence. But the materials from which our poems are formed must largely be referred to the sixth century. This may be seen most clearly in cases where the poems of two or more nations not merely treat an identical theme but also agree in the motif or in comparatively small details, as in the stories of Ingeld, Waldhere and Svanhildr. A like age is probably to be attributed to resemblances in language, such as those shown by the hortatory addresses and the accounts of dragon-fights cited in the last chapter (p. [60] f.). The fact that these resemblances sometimes occur in stories relating to entirely different characters need not prevent us from believing that they spring ultimately from a common origin.
It cannot of course be proved that the materials from which the heroic poems are derived were themselves always in poetic (metrical) form. In principle we must admit the possibility that they were transmitted from one generation to another in a more or less stereotyped form of prose narrative, such as we find later in the sagas of Iceland and Ireland. But in point of fact we have no evidence whatever for the cultivation of such traditional prose narratives among any of the early Teutonic peoples, whereas there is good reason, as we shall see shortly, for believing that narrative poetry was both ancient and widely cultivated.
In the first place we may note that English and German poetry down to the ninth century shared a common system of metre and that the Fornyrðislag, which is used in most of the Edda poems, differed but little from this type, except of course that it was always arranged in strophes. The application of this common metre to narrative purposes can scarcely be regarded as a recent innovation, for English and German poems frequently exhibit verses and half-verses of very similar construction. Thus in the Hildebrandslied speeches are generally introduced with the formula: Hadubrant gimahalta, Hiltibrantes sunu, which is almost identical with a formula used in Beowulf: Wiglaf maðelode, Weohstanes sunu. In the same German poem (v. 42) we find the verse: dat sagetun mi seolidante ('it has been told me by mariners'), with which we may compare Beow. 377: þonne saegdon þaet saeliðende. Note should also be taken of such phrases as (v. 55) ibu dir din ellen taoc ('if thy prowess is sufficient') and definitely poetical expressions like (v. 43) inan wic furnam ('war carried him off'), as compared with Beow. 572 ðonne his ellen deah and 1080 wig ealle fornam Finnes þegnas. The number of such parallels might be greatly increased if we were to take into account passages from religious poems, especially the Old Saxon Heliand.
For a very much earlier period direct evidence is furnished by the Roman historian Tacitus, who says (Germ. 2) that the Germani possessed ancient poems or songs (carmina) even in his time and adds expressly that they had no other means of preserving a historical record[116]. That these poems were partly of what may be called a 'heroic' character is clear from another passage (Ann. II 88), where it is stated that Arminius was still a subject of poetry among barbarian nations (canitur ... adhuc barbaras apud gentes). In both cases the reference is in all probability to the peoples of western Germany rather than to the Goths.
On the whole then we need not doubt that the heroic poetry which we find in England and Germany during the seventh and eighth centuries had a long history behind it. Of course as to the form of the poetry current in the first century we are entirely without information. Many scholars hold that it was exclusively choric, not only in Tacitus' time but for four or five centuries later. This is one of the questions which we shall have to bear in mind in the course of our discussion.
The earliest historical reference to the cultivation of poetry, or rather perhaps minstrelsy, in England occurs in Bede's account of the poet Caedmon (Hist. Eccl. iv 24). In this story we are told that it was the custom that, when the villagers met together to drink and amuse themselves, everyone should take his turn in singing to the harp. Caedmon, who had never been able to learn a song, used to leave the festivities and make his way home as soon as he saw the harp coming in his direction[117]. No information is given as to the character of these songs. Probably they would as a rule be quite short—perhaps not much longer than the hymn learned by Caedmon from the angel, which contains only nine verses. It is not unlikely that they resembled some of the metrical riddles more than any other form of Anglo-Saxon poetry which has come down to us. Longer songs, of a narrative type, may of course have been known. But it is a question whether such songs would deal with heroic themes or with folk-tales. We may think of the Scandinavian story of Svipdagr and Menglöð, which is preserved in a number of different versions, ranging in date probably from the tenth century to the seventeenth or later.