CHAPTER XIX. [159]
Footnote 159:[ (return) ] This chapter is based on Peringskiold's Latin translation of the "Wilkina Saga", and on the German translation contained in F.H. von der Hagen's "Alt-deutsche und Alt-nordische Helden-Sagen". I am also much indebted to the spirited rendering of the Sagas contributed by Madame Dahn to her husband, Professor Dahn's, volume, "Walhall".
THE THEODORIC OF SAGA.
The fame of Theodoric attested by the Saga dealing with his name, utterly devoid as they are of historic truth--The Wilkma Saga--Story of Theodoric's ancestors--His own boyhood--His companions, Master Hildebrand, Heime, and Witig--Death of his father and his succession to the throne--Herbart wooes King Arthur's daughter, first for Theodoric and then for himself--Hermanric, his uncle, attacks Theodoric--Flight and exile at the Court of Attila--Attempt to return--Attila's sons slain in battle--The tragedy of the Nibelungs--Theodoric returns to his kingdom--His mysterious end.
t is one of the most striking testimonies to the greatness of Theodoric's work and character, that his name is one of the very few which passed from history into the epic poetry of the German and Scandinavian peoples. True, there is scarcely one feature of the great Ostrogothic King preserved in the mythical portrait painted by minstrels and Sagamen; true, Theodoric of Verona would have listened in incredulous or contemptuous amazement to the romantic adventures related of Dietrich of Bern; still the fact that his name was chosen by the poets of the early Middle Ages as the string upon which the pearls of their fantastic imaginations were to be strung, shows how powerfully his career had impressed their barbaric forefathers. Theodoric's eminence in this respect, his renown in mediæval Saga, is shared apparently but by three other undoubtedly historic personages: his collateral ancestor, Hermanric; the great world-conqueror, Attila; and Gundahar, king of the Burgundians, about whom history really records nothing, save his defeat in battle by the Huns.
As it would be a hopeless attempt in a short chapter like the present to discuss the various allusions to Dietrich von Bern in the Teutonic and Scandinavian Sagas, I shall invite the reader's attention to one only, that which concerns itself most exclusively with his life, and which is generally called the "Wilkina Saga", [160] though some German scholars prefer to call it by the more appropriate name of "Thidreks Saga".
Footnote 160:[ (return) ] So called because it contains a large number of episodes as to King Wilkinus, his descendants, and the land known by his name, Wilkina-land (Norway and Sweden). Some suppose the name to be a corruption of Viking.
The earliest manuscripts of this Saga at present known are attributed to the first half of the thirteenth century. There are many allusions in the work to other sources of information both written and oral, but the Saga itself in its present form appears to contain the story of Theodoric as current in the neighbourhood of Bremen and Münster, translated into the old Norse language, and no doubt somewhat modified by the influence of Scandinavian legends on the mind of the translator. In its present form it is not a poem but a prose work, and though the flow of the ballad and the twang of the minstrel's harp still often make themselves felt even through the dull Latin translation of Johan Peringskiold, there are many chapters of absolutely unredeemed prose, full of genealogical details and the marches of armies, as dry as any history, though purely imaginary.