Nought was my might | with such a man,
Nor from his strength | could I save myself.”
[[252]]
NOTES
[[254]]
[Prose]. Nithuth (“Bitter Hater”): here identified as a king of Sweden, is in the poem (stanzas 9, 15 and 32) called lord of the Njars, which may refer to the people of the Swedish district of Nerike. In any case, the scene of the story has moved from Saxon lands into the Northeast. The first and last sentences of the introduction refer to the second part of the poem; the rest of it concerns the swan-maidens episode. Bothvild (“Warlike Maid”): Völund’s victim in the latter part of the poem. King of the Finns: this notion, clearly later than the poem, which calls Völund an elf, may perhaps be ascribed to the annotator who composed the prose introduction. The Finns, meaning the dwellers in Lapland, were generally credited with magic powers. Egil appears in the Thithrekssaga as Völund’s brother, but Slagfith is not elsewhere mentioned. Ulfdalir (“Wolf-Dale”), Ulfsjar (“Wolf-Sea”), Valland (“Slaughter-Land”): mythical places without historical identification. Valkyries: cf. Voluspo, 31 and note; there is nothing in the poem to identify the three swan-maidens as Valkyries except one obscure word in line 2 of stanza 1 and again in line 5 of stanza 5, which may mean, as Gering translates it, “helmed,” or else “fair and wise.” I suspect that the annotator, anxious to give the Saxon legend as much northern local color as possible, was mistaken in his mythology, and that [[255]]the poet never conceived of his swan-maidens as Valkyries at all. However, this identification of swan-maidens with Valkyries was not uncommon; cf. Helreith Brynhildar, 7. The three maidens’ names, Hlathguth, Hervor, and Olrun, do not appear in the lists of Valkyries. King Hlothver: this name suggests the southern origin of the story, as it is the northern form of Ludwig; the name appears again in Guthrunarkvitha II, 26, and that of Kjar is found in Atlakvitha, 7, both of these poems being based on German stories. It is worth noting that the composer of this introductory note seems to have had little or no information beyond what was actually contained in the poem as it has come down to us; he refers to the “old stories” about Völund, but either he was unfamiliar with them in detail or else he thought it needless to make use of them. His note simply puts in clear and connected form what the verse tells somewhat obscurely; his only additions are making Nithuth a king of Sweden and Völund’s father a king of the Finns, supplying the name Ulfsjar for the lake, identifying the swan-maidens as Valkyries, and giving Kjar a home in Valland.
[1]. The manuscript indicates line 3 as the beginning of a stanza; two lines may have been lost before or after lines 1–2, [[256]]and two more, or even six, with the additional stanza describing the theft of the swan-garments, after line 4. Myrkwood: a stock name for a magic, dark forest; cf. Lokasenna, 42.
[2]. In the manuscript these two lines stand after stanza 16; editors have tried to fit them into various places, but the prose indicates that they belong here, with a gap assumed.
[3]. In the manuscript these two lines follow stanza 1, with no gap indicated, and the first line marked as the beginning of a stanza. Many editors have combined them with stanza 4.