The Poetic Edda (tr. Bellows)/Guthrunarkvitha III

by Anonymous

GUTHRUNARKVITHA III

The Third Lay of Guthrun

Introductory Note

The short Guthrunarkvitha III, entitled in the manuscript simply Guthrunarkvitha, but so numbered in most editions to distinguish it from the first and second Guthrun lays, appears only in the Codex Regius. It is neither quoted nor paraphrased in the Volsungasaga, the compilers of which appear not to have known the story with which it deals. The poem as we have it is evidently complete and free from serious interpolations. It can safely be dated from the first half of the eleventh century, for the ordeal by boiling water, with which it is chiefly concerned, was first introduced into Norway by St. Olaf, who died in 1030, and the poem speaks of it in stanza 7 as still of foreign origin.

The material for the poem evidently came from North Germany, but there is little indication that the poet was working on the basis of a narrative legend already fully formed. The story of the wife accused of faithlessness who proves her innocence by the test of boiling water had long been current in Germany, as elsewhere, and had attached itself to various women of legendary fame, but not except in this poem, so far as we can judge, to Guthrun (Kriemhild). The introduction of Thjothrek (Theoderich, Dietrich, Thithrek) is another indication of relative lateness, for the legends of Theoderich do not appear to have reached the North materially before the year 1000. On the anachronism of bringing Thjothrek to Atli's court cf. Guthrunarkvitha II, introductory prose, note, in which the development of the Theoderich tradition in its relation to that of Atli is briefly outlined.

Guthrunarkvitha III is, then, little more than a dramatic German story made into a narrative lay by a Norse poet, with the names of Guthrun, Atli, Thjothrek, and Herkja incorporated for the sake of greater effectiveness. Its story probably nowhere formed a part of the living tradition of Sigurth and Atli, but the poem has so little distinctively Norse coloring that it may possibly have been based on a story or even a poem which its composer heard in Germany or from the lips of a German narrator.

 

---

 

^[1]Herkja^[2] was the name of a serving-woman of Atli's; she had been his concubine. She told Atli that she had seen Thjothrek^[3] and Guthrun both together. Atli was greatly angered thereby. Then Guthrun said:

1. "What thy sorrow, Atli,  Buthli's son?Is thy heart heavy-laden?  Why laughest thou never?It would better befit  the warrior farTo speak with men,  and me to look on."

  Atli spake:2.^[4] "It troubles me, Guthrun,  Gjuki's daughter,What Herkja here  in the hall hath told me,That thou in the bed  with Thjothrek liest,Beneath the linen  in lovers' guise."

  Guthrun spake:3.^[5] "This shall I  with oaths now swear,Swear by the sacred  stone so white,That nought was there  with Thjothmar's sonThat man or woman  may not know.

4. "Nor ever once  did my arms embraceThe hero brave,  the leader of hosts;In another manner  our meeting was,When our sorrows we  in secret told.

5.^[6] "With thirty warriors  Thjothrek came,Nor of all his men  doth one remain;Thou hast murdered my brothers  and mail-clad men,Thou hast murdered all  the men of my race.

6.^[7] "Gunnar comes not,  Hogni I greet not,No longer I see  my brothers loved;My sorrow would Hogni  avenge with the sword,Now myself for my woes  I shall payment win.

7.^[8] "Summon Saxi,  the southrons' king,For he the boiling  kettle can hallow." Seven hundred  there were in the hall,Ere the queen her hand  in the kettle thrust.

8. To the bottom she reached  with hand so bright,And forth she brought  the flashing stones:"Behold, ye warriors,  well am I clearedOf sin by the kettle's  sacred boiling."

9. Then Atli's heart  in happiness laughed,When Guthrun's hand  unhurt he saw;"Now Herkja shall come  the kettle to try,She who grief  for Guthrun planned."

10.^[9] Ne'er saw man sight  more sad than this,How burned were the hands  of Herkja then;In a bog so foul  the maid they flung,And so was Guthrun's  grief requited.

1. Prose. The annotator derived all the material for this note from the poem itself, except for the reference to Herkja as Atli's former concubine.
2. Herkja: the historical Kreka and the Helche of the Nibelungenlied, who there appears as Etzel's (Attila's) first wife.
3. Thjothrek: cf. Introductory Note.
4. The manuscript omits the names of the speakers throughout.
5. Holy stone: just what this refers to is uncertain; it may be identical with the "ice-cold stone of Uth" mentioned in an oath in Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II, 29. Thjothmar's son: the manuscript has simply "Thjothmar." Some editions change it as here, some assume that Thjothmar is another name or an error for Thjothrek, and Finnur Jonsson not only retains Thjothmar here but changes Thjothrek to Thjothmar in stanza 5 to conform to it.
6. Regarding the death of Thjothrek's men cf. Guthrunarkvitha II, introductory prose, note. It was on these stanzas of Guthrunarkvitha III that the annotator based his introduction to Guthrunarkvitha II. The manuscript repeats the "thirty" in line 2, in defiance of metrical requirements.
7. In the manuscript this stanza follows stanza 7; many editions have made the transposition.
8. Who Saxi may be is not clear, but the stanza clearly points to the time when the ordeal by boiling water was still regarded as a foreign institution, and when a southern king (i. e., a Christian from some earlier-converted region) was necessary to consecrate the kettle used in the test. The ordeal by boiling water followed closely the introduction of Christianity, which took place around the year 1000. Some editions make two stanzas out of stanza 7, and Müllenhoff contends that lines 1-2 do not constitute part of Guthrun's speech.
9. The word "requited" in line 4 is omitted in the manuscript, but it is clear that some such word was intended. The punishment of casting a culprit into a bog to be drowned was particularly reserved for women, and is not infrequently mentioned in the sagas.