mythological poems. “In their old songs (he says), which are the only kind of history and chronicles they have, they tell of a god Tuiscon sprung from Earth, and his son Mann, the fountain-head and founder of their race[1].” And he speaks further of their heroic poems on Arminius[2], who had died two or three generations before (c. 90 years before the Annales); rude verse, no doubt, but we believe alliterative and of similar type to our older poems.
Einhard, in his Life of Charles the Great, tells how, when he was emperor, the great Frank took care of his native literature. “Moreover the oldest barbarian Lays, in which the deeds and wars of the kings of old were sung, he had written down and committed to memory[3].”
But far more excellent is the record of Paul the Deacon (died c. 790), who, speaking of his hero Elfwine Eadwineson, the Lombard, king, who died 572, and was thus distant about six generations, or 200 years, from him (about the same space as from Ari to Harold Fairhair), says, “But the famous name of Elfwine resounded so far and wide, that even down to to-day, as well among the Bavarian and Saxon folk as among [all] other men of the same tongue, his open hand and renown, and luck and bravery in warfare, are set forth in their songs. That the best of weapons were wrought in his days is also the common talk of many down to our own time[4].” This passage is strikingly confirmed by the fame of Elfwine having reached even the English author of the Traveller's Song, who says:—
But Paul does not stop here; he actually gives us very close prose paraphrases of two old Elfwine Lays (for no one familiar with the Eddic Songs can fail to see that they are Lays and not bits of mere history) which are contemporary with the poems of Cadmon, if we take the probable date as half-way between Paul and Elfwine. These Songs therefore are the earliest remains of epic Teutonic poetry we have any exact knowledge of. The first one is of the same type as the Helgi
- ↑ Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus est, Tuisconem deum, Terra editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque.—Germ. ch. 2.
- ↑ Canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes.—Ann. ii. 87.
- ↑ Item barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit memoriæque mandavit.—Vita Car. 29. The latter words are ambiguous: do they refer to learning by heart or to using for history?
- ↑ Alboin vero ita præclarum longe lateque nomen percrebuit, ut hactenus etiam, tam aput Baioariorum gentem, quamque et Saxonum, sed et alios ejusdem linguæ homines ejus liberalitas et gloria bellorumque felicitas et virtus in eorum carminibus celebretur. Armia quoque præcipua sub eo fabricata fuisse a multis hucusque narratur.—Book ii (end).
