| Note on Translation
The
Manuscripts The
Manuscripts The R version comes from the early 15th century vellum Gl.kgl.sml. 2845, 4to, of the Royal Library in Copenhagen. U is preserved in the corrupt paper manuscript U (R:715 of the University Library, Uppsala, mid 17th century), and a part also appears in AM 203 fol. of the University Library, Copenhagen, written by Síra Jón Erlendsson of Villingaholt (died 1672). The H text is known from the Hauksbók, AM 544, 4to, written by Haukr Erlendsson (died 1334). From the answer to the second riddle, the ending is missing, but two 17th century copies, AM 281, 4to (h1) and AM 597b, 4to (h2), preserve this version to the end of the riddles. In addition, a large number of paper manuscripts derived from the above attests to the saga's continuing popularity.
Which
Versions I Have Used In a few places I've supplemented this with additional material from the H and U versions. For the former I used Finnur & Eiríkur Jónsson's 1892-96 edition of Hauksbók (Vol. 2, pp. 350-369), and for the latter, Hervarar saga ok Heidrekskongs, ed. Stefán Björnsson, 1785, based on the U-type 17th century paper manuscript AM 345 4to. Both are available online at Saganet. Digitised texts of R and H can be found here: http://www.home.no/norron-mytologi/diverse/kilder.htm (titled respectively: Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, and Saga Heiðreks konungs ins vitra). Petersen's edition, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs, útgefin af NM Petersen, Copenhagen 1847, looks like a composite with the beginning according to H, but including the fuller account of the duel on Samsey as in R, after which it goes back to H while that lasts. The divergences in my translation from the Turville-Petre edition are as follows:
* The first mention of Arrow-Odd in Sweden is from U; in R he's not introduced till the duel. Heidrek's life in the woods is from H, as is the people's desire to expose the baby in Chapter 5; so too the names of the six berserks from Brami to Bui inclusive (only six names are given in R), and the detail regarding the relative weakness of the Haddings. I stuck to R however for the order of the first four. * Extra riddles have been included from H, together with much additional repartee between Gestumblindi and the king, and the detail of the by-stander inadvertantly slain. The order of riddles varies between versions, and in a few cases I've altered it further to accommodate asides from both R and H. In the process, one or two asides in my translation have been shifted to follow a different riddle. From H too come some verses in The Waking of Angantyr which are missing from R. The accidental killing of the retainer is from U. * R seems to contradict itself regarding the name of the 2nd Hervor's foster father. For continuity, I added to Chapter 10 a mention of Ormar from H, thus: "...with Jarl Frodmar, or some say with a man called Ormar." (H only names Ormar here.) The words "or some say" are my own. See below. * The story of the king and the dwarves in Chapter 1 is from H, with nods to U. (This incident is only alluded to in R.) However, including the dwarves presents a dilemma, since their curse demands the death of the king by his own sword. Now, in R Arngrim stays peacefully with King Sigrlami. In H & U, Arngrim never stays with the king (who is called Svavrlami there) but only attacks him, kills him in battle and steals his daughter. At first I tried combining the two versions: having Arngrim stay with Sigrlami, then betray him--but it wasn't working. So instead I've left the story of Arngrim just as in R, but shifted the curse from the king to his "kin" (that is, his descendents). Though arguably not out of keeping with legendary saga conventions--compare the elf-woman's delayed-action curse on Helgi's offspring in The Saga of Hrolf Kraki, and moreover Angantyr's own warnings to Hervor that this sword will bring doom to future generations--you might want to note: "kin" in place of "you [king]" is a wanton change to original text.
Names Gardariki (Garðaríki) 'realm of fortified towns' is left as such, but identified with Russia the first time it appears. In Old Norse it referred to the kingdom of the Rus, based on Novgorod, Kiev, etc. Its king is the Garda King. Sometimes a geographical component is translated, e.g. Mounts of Jass, and Jassar Fells, both from Jassarfjöll. I anglicised the unidentified River Graf as 'Grave', preserving possible semantic associations in the original (in this position, the Icelandic f is pronounced like English "v"). And Myrkviðr 'the Dark Forest' becomes its well-known English equivalent, Mirkwood. Other names have generally been left in Old Norse form, minus diacritics, non-English letters and inflectional endings--even where they've been identified with modern places. Thus Samsey, rather then Samsø; Bolm, rather than Bolmsö. The former is an island between Jutland and Zealand, and the latter on Lake Bolmen in southern Sweden--although the H and U versions locate Bolm in Halogaland, Norway.
On
Continuity Since in other versions, Heidrek kills his brother with Tyrfing, I suspect I may be one "vile deed" short of the prophesy (depending how you count them)--troubled readers are invited to commit one of their own. After Heidrek's death, Tyrfing seems to lose its quality of killing a man each time it is drawn--unless in some lost version the pike was really a person? (compare The Saga of the Volsungs, where Andvari lives in the form of a pike). In one verse, late in the saga, "Tyrfing" seems to refer not to the sword, but to a Gothic tribe, the Tervingi of Latin historians. Detached names and conflicting details give a clue to the typically patchwork composition of this saga: not the work of one writer, but an accretion of layers. For example, confusion exists as to the names of the foster fathers of both Hervors. That of the first is called Bjarmar by the saga. But a single obscure reference to Frodmar in the first verse of Chapter 5 may imply a different version, unless it's the name of Hervor's supposed father in the thrall's insult. The second Hervor is said in Chapter 10 to have been fostered by a Jarl Frodmar in England, yet by Chapter 13 her foster father has become Ormar, a Goth--all this according to the R-version. (As stated above, I've added to Chapter 10 a mention of Ormar from H, thus: "...with Jarl Frodmar, or some say with a man called Ormar." The words "or some say" being my own). Similarly puzzling is the name Soti, mentioned in Hjalmar's Death Song but nowhere else in the story. Virtually the same verse occurs in Arrow-Odd's Saga (see Appendix B), which sheds no light on Soti either, although Odd does kill a viking of that name earlier in an unrelated incident. But the verse seems to imply that he was a comrade of Hjalmar's who either came along with Odd, or stood in place of Odd, in an alternate version. Then again, Soti "sooty" appears elsewhere as a horse name and a poetic word for "horse". Given all this, and the occasional narrative dead end, you might agree with Christopher Tolkien that "the virtue of the work lies indeed not in its structural coherence but in its memorable scenes." Alternatively, Manuel Aguirre's investigation into "Narrative Composition in the Saga of the Volsungs" (Saga Book XXVI, 2002) has interesting suggestions on parallelism and ritualistic repetition, equally applicable to Hervor's Saga. Alaric Hall has contrasted the approaches of the three versions, showing how each redactor (author/compiler/creator of a distinct version) adapted style and narrative to their own rather different ends: "Changing Style and Changing Meaning: Icelandic Historiography and the Medieval Redactions of Heiðreks saga", Scandinavian Studies, 77, pp. 1-30. Abstract: http://69.72.226.186/~alaric/
Christopher Tolkien, ed. & trans. Saga Heiðreks konungs ins vitra. The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, Thomas Nelson & Sons 1960. Nora Kershaw "The Saga of Hervor & Heithrek" (in Stories & Ballads of the Far Past, 1921) http://www.home.ix.netcom.com/%7Ekyamazak/myth/norse/kershaw/Kershaw-TOC.htm Kershaw's book includes translations of some Faroese ballads, and one Danish ballad, representing later interpretations of the story in oral tradition, among them the Faroese Gátu Ríma, Riddle Ballad. And the original Faroese ballads can be found here: http://www.tjatsi.fo Poems from Hervor's Saga are among the translations in Lee M Hollander's Old Norse Poems: The Most Inportant Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Elder Edda, Columbia University Press, 1936; http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/onp/index.htm ; http://www.geocities.com/thefrithstead2/ There are several English renderings of the poem The Waking of Angantyr online: Thomas Percy "The Incantation of Hervor" (from Five Pieces of Runic Poetry Translated from the Icelandic Language, 1763) http://www-db.library.nottingham.ac.uk/egil/runic_poetry/ EM Smith-Dampier "The Waking of Angantheow" (from The Norse King's Bridal, 1912) http://www.northvegr.org/lore/kings/001.php WH Auden & AR Taylor http://meadhall.homestead.com/Angantyr.html Todd B Krause & Jonathan Slocum (in Old Norse Online, Lesson 8; first a complete grammatical explanation of the original poem, then the original printed again without notes, then a modern English translation) http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/eieol/norol-8-X.html Another modern translation of The Waking of Angantyr appears in Patricia Terry's Poems of the Elder Edda (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). A Russian translation of The Lay of Hlod (The Battle of the Huns and Goths) as Pesn' o Hlyode extists online at various sites, e.g. http://norse.net.ru/edda/hlods.html (A Korsun: Starshaya Edda, 1976). |
