Lays, a noble heroic Lay with a flyting scene, which vividly recalls the fierce half-humourous bickerings of the heroes Sinfiotli, Gudmund, etc. The other is a royal tragedy of the same cruel, dreadful type as the Hunnish tragedy of Attila, furious passion and deadly reckless hate, with the fatal consequent Nemesis on all the actors. These stories we give here literally translated, in order that they may be compared as to length, style, and phrasing with the older epics of this volume. They are the best witness to the essential unity of Teutonic poetry, and exhibit many close parallels to our poems.
In the first, The Youth of Elfwine, after describing how the Gefids and Lombards came to fight, he turns to the words of the song, and goes on:—
And when the battle was joined, while both hosts were fighting mightily, neither willing to give way to the other, it came to pass that in this self-same fray Elfwine son of Eadwine and Thurismund son of Thuriswend met face to face. But Elfwine thrust Thurismund through with a sword, and he fell dead headlong from his horse. Now when the Gefids saw that their king’s son was dead for whose sake they had in great measure entered upon the war, their courage was melted and they began to fly. And the Lombards followed them up fiercely and smote them down. And when they had slain most of them they came back to strip the slain of the spoil. And when the Lombards came back to their own homes after the winning of this victory, they asked their king Eadwine to make Elfwine, by whose valour they had gotten the day, one of his Guests, that he might be his father’s companion at the banquet as he was his companion in the day of danger. But Eadwine answered them that he could not do this thing without breaking the custom of the Lombard folk. “For ye know,” quoth he, “that it is not the custom among us that the king’s son should sit down with his father, before he hath first received weapons [of a foe slain in fair fight] of the king of some other folk.” Now when Elfwine heard his father’s words, he took forty young men with him and no more, and went to Thuriswend the king of the Gefids with whom he had lately fought, and told him the cause of his coming. And Thuriswend welcomed him kindly, and bade him to the feast and seated him at his right hand, where Thurismund his dead son had been wont to sit.
And it came to pass while the servants were serving at the tables, that Thuriswend remembering how his son had been lately slain, and calling to mind his death, and beholding his slayer there beside him in his very seat, began to draw deep sighs, for he could not withhold himself any longer, and at last his grief burst forth into words. “Very pleasant to me,” quoth he, “is the seat, but sad enough it is to see him that is sitting therein.” Then the king's second son [Cynemund], who was present, was roused by his father’s words, and began to sting the Lombards with foul words, and he said they were like mares with white stockings,—for the Lombards are wont to wear white bands about their legs. “White-legged mares are they ye take after!” said he. Then one of the Lombards answered him in these words: “Go to Asfield,” said he, “and there thou shalt plainly learn, how hard they, whom thou callest mares, can kick, for there thy brother’s bones lie scattered about in the midst of the meadow like the bones of a wretched pack-horse.” When they heard these words the Gefids could not bear the reproach and were mightily moved to wrath, and made ready to avenge the open scoff; the Lombards also on their part made ready for the fray, and every
