In dealing with questions such as these we cannot hope to get beyond a reasonable hypothesis, since the paucity of common features between the two versions admits of few definite conclusions. But from the time when the hero arrives at the Burgundian court the case is quite different. In spite of certain discrepancies there is no difficulty in determining the main outline of the story. Even in the most important point of all—the true cause of the hero's death—the two versions are really in full agreement. Gutthormr does the deed in one version, Hagen in the other; but in both alike it arises out of the bitter resentment cherished by Brynhildr, owing to the deception which has been practised upon her. We have seen that this motif is incompatible with the current mythological interpretation of the story. But more than this, it is plainly not a motif derived from mythology at all, but from real life.
It must not be overlooked that the Brynhildr and Högni of the Norse version are in the nature of character-studies. Both appeal to our sympathies, though we do not approve of the actions which they commit or allow. Here we are in a region of thought as alien as possible to that of the folk-tale. But it is also alien to that period of thought, which was most open to the influence of folk-tales, the period which we have called Stage III in the history of German poetry. In such a period the person who destroyed the hero must necessarily be a villain as black as Hell. Between the instigator of the deed and the perpetrator, who by this time was Hagen—whether this was so originally or not is immaterial—the choice was made, not unnaturally in the circumstances, in favour of the latter, while the former was allowed, awkwardly enough, to drop out of the story. Thus the peculiarities of the German version may be explained quite naturally as modifications of an earlier form similar to the other—modifications necessitated by the conditions under which heroic poetry was preserved in Germany. The effect produced is somewhat similar to that which would be obtained by converting a modern problem play into a popular melodrama.
The conclusion then to which we are brought is that the supposed traces of myth, so far as they have any foundation at all, are due to late accretions to the story, while the central motif in both versions alike is by no means of a mythical character, but essentially human. Consequently the story of Sigurðr stands quite on a line with the other stories of the Heroic Age. Most of them contain elements which may be interpreted as mythical; but these elements are always most prominent in the latest forms of the story. It must not escape notice that those scholars who most strongly uphold the mythical interpretation base their arguments chiefly on such works as the Seyfridslied and Thiðreks Saga af Bern. The explanation is that myth is a growth which requires time to develop. Even Beowulf is no real exception to the general rule, for in the latter part the hero is probably confused with a namesake whose story may have been of considerable antiquity, while the only character in the poem who is quite clearly of mythical origin is the first ancestor of the Danish royal family[220].
FOOTNOTES:
[195] Danmarks Heltedigtning, p. 248 ff. With this subject I have already dealt in The Origin of the English Nation, p. 287 f.
[196] Saxo (p. [11] f.) records several incidents of which we know nothing from other sources. He represents Skiöldr (Scioldus) as a reformer of the laws, but not as the first king.
[197] This is stated only in Ynglinga Saga (cap. 5); but the question to be asked is whether it is likely that such a combination would be invented in late times.
[198] From Deor's Elegy and the picture on the Franks casket in the British Museum it is clear that almost all the main features of the second part of the story were known in England. Reminiscences of the first part occur in the medieval German poem Herzog Friedrich von Schwaben.
[199] It is usually connected with O. Norse vél, 'contrivance,' 'artifice.'
[200] Waldhere, I 2 f.; Thiðreks Saga, cap. 23 etc.