Another hero of the Beówulf cycle is Hnæf the Hócing, whose fate is described in a fine episode[[795]], and is connected with the poem called “The battle of Finnesburh[[796]].” Of him too England has something to tell: I find a place was called Hnæfes scylf[[797]], and further that there was a Hóces byrgels[[798]], obviously not a Christian burial-place, a Hóces ham[[799]], and a Hócing mǽd[[800]]. But unless resemblances greatly deceive us, we must admit that this hero was not entirely unknown to the Franks also; Charlemagne’s wife Hiltikart, a lady of most noble blood among the Swæfas or Sueves (“nobilissimi generis Suavorum puella”) was a near relation of Kotofrit, duke of the Alamanni[[801]]: in her genealogy occur the names Huocingus and Nebi in immediate succession, and it seems difficult not to see in these Hócing and Hnæf. If, as has been suggested, the Hócings were Chauci or Frisians, their connexion with the Sueves must be of an antiquity almost transcending the limits of history, and date from those periods when the Frisians were neighbours of the Swæfas upon the Elbe, and long before these occupied the highlands of Germany, long in fact before the appearance of the Franks in Gaul, under Chlodio.

Among the heroes of heathen tradition are Wada, Weland and Eigil. All three, so celebrated in the mythus and epos of Scandinavia and Germany, have left traces in England. Of Wada the Traveller’s Song declares that he ruled the Helsings[[802]]; and even later times had to tell of Wade’s boat[[803]], in which the exact allusion is unknown to us: the Scandinavian story makes him wade across the Groenasund, carrying his son upon his shoulder; perhaps our tradition gave a different version of this perilous journey. The names of places which record his name are not numerous, but still such are found, thus Wadanbeorgas[[804]], Wadanhlǽw[[805]]. It is otherwise, however, with his still more celebrated son, Weland, the Wieland of German, Völundr of Norse and Galand of French tradition. Weland is the most famous of smiths, and all good swords are his work. In Beówulf, the hero when about to engage in a perilous adventure, requests that if he falls his coat-of-mail may be sent home, Welandes geweorc, either literally the work of Weland, or a work so admirable that Weland might have made it.[[806]] Ælfred in his Boetius[[807]] translates fidelis ossa Fabricii by “ðæs wísan goldsmiðes bán Welondes,” where, as Grimm[[808]] observes, the word Fabricius (faber) may have led him to think of the most celebrated of smiths, Weland. The use made by Sir W. Scott of Weland’s name must be familiar to all readers of Kenilworth: from what has been said it will appear how mistaken in many respects his view was. The place in Berkshire which even yet in popular tradition preserves the name of Wayland smith, is nevertheless erroneously called; the boundary of a Saxon charter names it much more accurately Welandes smiððe, i. e. Weland’s smithy, his workshop[[809]]. The legend of Weland, identical in many respects with that of the Wilkina Saga and other Northern versions, is mentioned in the Cod. Exon. p. 377. Here we find notice taken of his mutilation by Niðaudr, the violence done by him to Bödhildr, and other acts of his revenge[[810]], all in fact that is most important in this part of his history. Grimm reminds me[[811]] that the Wilkina Saga makes Weland the constructor of a wondrous boat, and that the act of the son may thus have been transferred to the father, Weland’s boat to Wade.

In the Northern tradition appears a brother of Weland, named Eigil or Egil, who is celebrated as an archer, and to whom belongs the wide-spread tale which has almost past into accredited history in the case of William Tell; this tale given by Saxo Grammaticus to Toko, by the Jomsvíkínga Saga to Palnatoki, and by other authorities to other heroes from the twelfth till the very end of the fifteenth century, but most likely of the very highest antiquity in every part of Europe, was beyond doubt an English one also, and is repeated in the ballad of William of Cloudesley: it is therefore probable that it belongs to a much older cycle, and was as well known as the legends of Wada and Weland, with which it is so nearly connected. Eigil would among the Anglosaxons have borne the form of Ægel, and accordingly we find places compounded with this name,—thus Æglesbyrig, now Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire; Æglesford, now Aylsford in Kent; Ægleslona, in Worcester[[812]]; Ægleswurð, now Aylsworth in Northamptonshire[[813]]; also Ægleswyl; and lastly Aylestone in Leicestershire.

The Wilkina Saga and the Scald’s Complaint already cited from the Codex Exoniensis, lead us next to the legends of Ðeódríc (Dietrich von Bern) and Eormenríc, (Hermanaríc), and through the latter to Sigfried and the other heroes of the Nibelungen cycle. The heroic or even godlike character of Dietrich has been well made out by Grimm[[814]], and the historical Theodoric the Ostrogoth vanishes in his traditional representative. The Anglosaxon poet evidently refers to the latter, not indeed from the story he tells, but from the collocation of Ðeódríc among merely mythical personages. Perhaps, as the whole scope of his poem is to relate the misfortunes of the great and thus draw consolation for his own, the thirty years’ residence in Mæringaburg may be considered as a reference to Ðeódríc’s flight from before Otachar[[815]] and long-continued exile. In a Saxon menology[[816]] of great antiquity, the author, after stating the eighteenth of May to be the commemoration of St. John, Pope and Martyr, goes on to say, that an anchoret on Lipari told certain sailors how at a particular time he had seen king Theodoric, ungirt, barefoot, and bound, led between St. John and St. Finian, and by them hurled into the boiling crater of the neighbouring island Vulcano. That on their return to Italy the sailors discovered by comparison of dates that Theodoric died on the day on which the anchoret noticed his punishment by the hands of his victims. The author expressly tells it was Theodoricus, the king of the Goths in Ravenna; and he concludes by saying, “That was Theodoricus the king whom we call Ðeódríc,” which we can only understand by supposing him to allude to the mythical Ðeódríc. Ælfred seems also to have known something of the mythical Ðeódríc when he says, “he wæs Amaling,” a fact historically true of the Ostrogoth Theodoric, but yet unlikely to have been contained in Ælfred’s Latin authorities. The Traveller’s Song says[[817]], “Ðeódríc weóld Froncum,” Theodoric ruled the Franks, but this I should rather understand of one of the historical Merwingian kings, than of the Ostrogoth.

The legends of Eormanríc were obviously familiar to the Anglosaxons: in the so often quoted poem of the Traveller’s Song, this celebrated prince is mentioned more than once, as well as in the poem which contains the notices of Weland, Beadohild and Ðeódríc. The character given of him in both these compositions denotes a familiarity with the details of his history, as we find them almost universally in the Northern traditions, and more particularly those of his wealth, his cruelty and his treachery.

In Beówulf we have a somewhat further development of his history. We there learn incidentally that Háma (the Ammius of Saxo Grammaticus) carried off from him the Brósinga-mén or mythical collar of the goddess Freya. There can be no doubt that this necklace, called in the Norse traditions Mén Brísínga, is of a most thoroughly mythological character[character][[818]], and any reference to it in Saxon poetry is welcome evidence of ancient heathendom: moreover the Anglosaxon poet alone mentions it in connection with Eormanríc. This peculiar feature is as little known to the other Germanic nations as the beautiful legend of Scyld Scéfing, the loves of Geát and Mǽðhild, the dragon-slaughter of Sigmund, the wars of Hengest and Finn Folcwalding, or the noble epos of Beówulf itself: unfortunately we have no detail as to the circumstances under which the necklace of the goddess came into the possession of Eormanríc.

The Traveller’s Song however has traces of many heroes who are closely connected with the traditional cyclus of Eormanríc: among these are Sifeca (the false Sibich of Germany) and Becca, the Bikki of the corresponding Norse versions, whom it makes chieftain of the Baningas, perhaps the “sons of mischief” from Bana. Háma, already named, and Wudga, the Wittich and Heime of Germany, occur in the same poem: so also the terrible Ætla, Attila the Hun, the Ætli of Scandinavia, the Etzel of the Nibelungen cycle. In the same composition we find Gúðhere, king of the Burgundians, the Norse Gunnar, and German Gunther; and Hagena, probably the Norse Högni, and Hagen the murderer of Sigfried. The Traveller’s Song, and the Scóp’s Complaint contain no mention of the great hero of the Norse and German epos, Sigurdr Fafnisbani, Sigfried, the betrothed of the Shieldmay Bryhyldur, the husband of the fairhaired Chriemhilt.

All the more welcome to us is the episode in Beówulf, which not only records the tale of Sigurdr, though under the name of his father Sigmund, and makes particular mention of the dragon-slaughter (Fafnis-bani)—which is a central point in the Norse tradition, although hardly noticed at all in the Nibelungen Lied,—but also refers to the fearful adventures which the Edda relates of the hero and his kinsman Sinfiötli (Fitela) which appear totally unknown in Germany.

Having said thus much of the heroic personages to whom so large a portion of Northern and Germanic tradition is devoted, it becomes possible for me to refer to the great work of James Grimm on German mythology for a demonstration of the connection between these heroes and the gods of our forefathers. I regret that my own limits render it impossible for me to enter at greater length upon this part of the subject; but it requires a work of no small dimensions, and devoted to it exclusively: and it is therefore sufficient to show the identity of our own heroic story and that of Scandinavia and the continent, and thus enable the English reader to adapt to his own national traditions the conclusions of learned enquirers abroad, with respect to their own[[819]].

DIVINATION AND WITCHCRAFT.—The attachment of the Germanic races to divination attracted the notice of Tacitus[[820]]: he says: “They are as great observers of auspices and lots as any. The way they use their lots is simple; they cut into slips a branch taken from an oak or beech, and having distinguished them by certain marks, scatter them at random and as chance wills over a white cloth. Then if the enquiry is a public one, the state-priest,—if a private one, the father of the house himself,—having prayed to the gods, and looking up to heaven, thrice raises each piece, and interprets them when raised according to the marks before inscribed upon them. If they turn out unfavourable, there is no further consultation that day about the same matter: if they are favourable, the authority of omens is still required. Even here they are acquainted with a mode of interrogating the voices and flight of birds; but it is peculiar to this race to try the presages and admonitions of horses. These, white in colour and subject to no mortal work, are fed at the public cost in the sacred groves and woods: then being harnessed to the sacred chariot, they are accompanied by the priest, the king or the prince of the state, who observe their neighings and snortings. Nor has any augury more authority than this, not only among the common people, but even the nobles and priests: for they think themselves the ministers, but the horses the confidants, of the gods. There is another customary form of auspices, by which they inquire concerning the event of serious wars. They match a captive of the nation with which they are at war, however they can come by him, with a select champion of their own, each armed with his native weapons. The victory of this one or that is taken as a presage.”