These two sons of Ohthere were banished from Sweden for rebellion, and took refuge at the Court of the Geat King Heardred. This greatly enraged their uncle Onela, that they should resort to the Court of their hereditary foes (see above). Onela invaded the land of the Geats (Chapters [XXXIII]. and [XXXIV]., pp. 144 sq.) and slew Heardred. Then it was that Beowulf became King of the Geats. Thus two Geatish kings had been slain by the Swedes, viz. Hæthcyn and Heardred. In revenge, later on, Beowulf supported Eadgils in his counter-attack on his own fatherland when Eadgils killed his uncle Onela. This story is confirmed by the Scandinavian accounts in which Athils (= Eadgils) slew Ali (= Onela) on the ice of Lake Wener; cp. the phrase ‘cold journeyings’ (Chapter [XXXIV]., p. 145).
This is Wyatt’s version of the story.
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SIGMUND
Sigmund (page 65) is the father and uncle of Fitela. He is stated in Beowulf to have killed a serpent who kept guard over a hoard of treasure. In the Icelandic saga known as the Völsunga Saga, Sigmund is represented as the father of Sigurd, and ‘it is Sigurd who rifles the treasure of the Niblungs and kills the serpent (Fafnir), its guardian’ (Arnold, p. 69), and he carries it away on the back of his horse Grani. Sigmund is represented as the son of a Völsung; that is, as Beowulf has it, ‘the heir of Waels.’ Waels was afterwards forgotten, however, and Waelsing was regarded as a proper name instead of a patronymic denoting descent from Waels. In a similar way, as Arnold points out, Sigmund is pushed into the background to make room for his son Sigurd (Siegfried). ‘And so in the German Nibelungen Lay it is Sigurd (Siegfried) who wins the hoard, but does so by defeating and killing its former possessors Schilbung and Nibelung’ (Arnold, p. 70). Attempts have been made to claim a German origin for this saga, but in face of the evidence of Beowulf and the Völsunga Saga and the Edda there is, I think with Arnold, little doubt but that its origin was Scandinavian. Possibly and probably we owe the later elaboration of the saga in the Nibelungen Lay to German influence. For discussion of the whole question see Arnold’s Notes on Beowulf, pp. 67–75, Edit. 1898, cap. v.
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TRIBES MENTIONED IN THE POEM
1. Brondings. Breca was a Bronding. After his famous swimming-match with Beowulf (Chapter [VIII].), he is said to have sought out his ‘pleasant fatherland the land of the Brondings.’ Arnold suggests that they were located in Mecklenburg or Pomerania.