The view that the name "Eoten" in the Finnsburg story is a form of the word "Jute" is, then, one which is very difficult to reject. It is one which has in the past been held by many scholars and is, I think, held by all who have recently expressed any opinion on the subject[[463]]. But this renders very difficult the assumption of Bugge and his followers that the word "Eoten" is synonymous with "Frisian[[464]]." For Frisians were not Jutes.
The tribes were closely related; but the two words were not synonymous. The very lines in Widsith, which couple Jutes and Frisians together, as if they were related in story, show that the names were regarded as those of distinct tribes. And this evidence from Widsith is very important, because the compiler of that list of names clearly knew the story of Finn and Hnæf.
But this is not the only difficulty in Bugge's interpretation of the Eotens as Frisians. The outbreak of war, we are told, is due to the treachery of the Eotens. This Bugge and his followers interpret as meaning that Finn must have treacherously attacked Hnæf. Yet the poet speaks of "the warriors of Finn when the sudden danger fell upon them": þā hīē se fǣr begeat. It is essential to fǣr that it signifies a sudden and unexpected attack[[465]]: and the unexpected attack must have come, not upon the assailants but upon the assailed.
Yet this difficulty, though it has been emphasized by Möller[[466]] and other opponents of Bugge's view, is not insuperable[[467]], and I hope to show below that there is no real difficulty. But it leads us to a problem not so easily surmounted. If Finn made a treacherous attack upon Hnæf, and slew him, how did it come that Hengest, and Hnæf's other men, made terms with their murderous host?
In the primitive heathen days it had been a rule that the retainer must not survive his vanquished lord[[468]]. The ferocity of this rule was subsequently softened, and, in point of fact, we do often hear, after some great leader has been slain, of his followers accepting quarter from a chivalrous foe, without being
therefore regarded as having acted disgracefully[[469]]. But, if Finn had invited Hnæf and Hnæf's retainers to be his guests, and had fallen upon them by treachery, the action of the retainers in coming to terms with Finn, in entering his service, and stipulating how much of his pay they shall receive, would be contrary to all standards of conduct as understood in the Heroic Age, and would deprive Hnæf's men of any sympathy the audience might feel for them. But Hnæf's men are not censured: they are in fact treated most sympathetically in the Episode, and in the Fragment, at an earlier point in the story, they are enthusiastically applauded[[470]].
It is strange enough in any case that Hnæf's retainers should make terms with the slayer of their lord. But it is not merely strange, it is absolutely unintelligible, if we are to suppose that Finn has not merely slain Hnæf, but has lured him into his power, and then slain him while a guest.
It is to the credit of Bugge that he felt this difficulty: but his attempt to explain it is hardly satisfactory. He fell back upon a parallel between the story of the death of Rolf Kraki and the story of Finnsburg. We have already seen that the resemblance is very close between the Bjarkamál, which narrates the death of Rolf, and the opening of the Finnsburg Fragment. The parallel which Bugge invoked comes from the sequel to the Rolf story[[471]] which tells how Hiarwarus, the murderer of Rolf Kraki, astonished by the devotion of Rolf's retainers, lamented their death, and said how gladly he would have given quarter to such men, and taken them into his service. Thereupon Wiggo, the one survivor, who had previously vowed to avenge his lord, and had concealed himself with that object, came forward and offered to accept these terms. Accordingly he placed his hand upon the hilt of his new master's drawn sword, as if about to swear fealty to him: but instead of swearing, he ran him through.
"Glorious and ever memorable hero, who valiantly kept his vow," says Saxo[[472]]. Whether or no we share the exultation of
that excellent if somewhat bloodthirsty ecclesiastic, we must admit that Wiggo's methods were sensible and practical. If, singlehanded, he was to keep his vow, and avenge his lord, he could only hope to do it by some such stratagem.