ARYAN MYTHS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2479, 18 September 1901, Page 60

ARYAN MYTHS.

By Jessie Mackay.

IH.— SIGURD: THE SEASON MYTH OF THE NORTH.

It may seem that, while the birth and death of the sun might reasonably appear to the childmind of primeval man as a

manifestation of visible personality, the poetic abstraction of personifying Aie seasons must have been utterly beyond beings of such Hmited intelligence. But while Mi* Cox undoubtedly suboidinates every vestige of 'epical history, every diverse flight of national fancy, to his dominant idea, the esoteric elaboration of the Nature Myth, it is not difficult, on bioad lines, to reconcile the Season Myth to the proven reality of the Solar Myth. In fact, the Season Myth is but the Solar Myth writ large. Primeval man in the firsy Aryan home would say, "The Summer is dead,' when he shivered in frost and snow. Then when he saw the lengthening days he would say, "The Sun has raised the Summer to life." He could not but see that the summei only came back with the sun at full strength. Then the dark thought of death would pas. into the igentler fancy of sleep, — "the Sun has wakened the Summer." Ages of wandering from the Aryan homp again clouded the primal meaning if words, though the sayings were still part of the nomad's life. Now spring or summer was spoken of as a lovely maiden in a trance, surrounded by flames, by guarding dragons or serpents, by impenetrable walls or thickets ; never to wake till die one destined knight should cleave his way to her side, and rouse her to love and life. This is the story of Brynhild, of the sweet Briar Rose, in her hundred years' sleeps of Gyneth in the Enchanted Castle of St. John, and many another. In India the germ of it is in the mournful tale of Little Surya Bai, sleeping in the eagle's nest, while the evil Eaksha or demon tries to break open the door. This he could not do, but he left part of a claw sticking in the door, which pieiced the little maiden's hand, so that she fell dead. In Greece it ■was deflected into the beautiful tale of Persephone, spending half the year in her dark husband's kingdom of the underworld, while she was permitted to spend the other half with her mother, the Earth Goddess, Demeter, whose gladness renewed the spiing year after year at her darling's return.

Naturally it was in the frozen north that the Season. Myth assumed its most tragic and terrible aspect. Ihe northern epic of Siguid, the Volsung, is fa., more closely reflected in its great latter development, the Geiman Nibelungenleid, or Story of the Nibelungs, than the Perseus legend is reflected in the life of Hercules, or the Trojan expedition in Jason's search of the Golden Fleece. The story of Sigurd is contained in the "Older Edda," an ancient Icelandic book of poems ir which the Scandinavian mythology ir preserved. The "Older Edda' is supposed to have been compiled about the time of the Norman Conquest ; most of its songs apparently having been composed at different times between the sixth and ninth centuries of our era. It is most remarkable that, while the similarities between Greek and "Norse legend strike every scholar, the former should h,ave crystallised into £fii<i fernj, Sfi jj&ftgy^

J centimes before the latter. For the Iliad was first 1 educed to writing, we are told, by command of Fisistratus, of Athens, eailier than 500 8.C., the poem having 'been preserved in the memory of Greek bards for j ages before that. The epics of Teutonic Sigiud and of Celtic Aithur seem to have giown about the same time, though the lirst i* absolutely fabulous. It may be that this ]ate efflorescence of the noithem legend partly accounts for the moral superiority of Sigurd to his Hellenic and Hindu rivals, the soLir heroes India, Achilles, Odysseus, and others. As Sigiud in the Edda, and Siegfried in the Nibelung story, the Sun Bright heio of the North i« ever loyal, brave, and ti ue. c ho\ving none of the selfish indulgence, moodiness, ov craft of the easterly champions. He is ever the beneficent lord of light, though deceived and slain by the guileful forces of storm and darkness. Sigurd was the grandson of Odin, and grew up glorious, golden-haired, and stronger than mortal men. Like Arthur, he has a weapon that only he can wield, the good sword Gram, Odin's gift. Like Pbcebus, he a dragon, the evil Fafnir, and tak^s the golden treasure the monster guarded. All through both sagas there runs this, thread of a golden treasure, stolen by subterranean dwarfs, fiercely guarded by the dragon, masterfully taken by the ' solar hero : now it is the chosen spoil of Lol:i and Odin ; now it .is the dowry of Brynhihl; but always it is akin to the Golden Fleece, the wealth of Odj tsetis, and a score of othpr Gieek legends; being both the treasme of light and of renewed vegetation, the true dowry of the Spring Maiden. Having slain the dragon and spoiled the evil dwarfs, Sigurd rides across the Glistening Heath — a name that seems to tell its own frosty tale- — and breaks thiougli the ling of flame that guards Brynhild in her enchanted slumber. He plights his troth to the rescued Spring Maiden ; but like Hercules, Odysseus, and other Greek heroes, he ha*, to obey his destiny and wander on. He reaches the abode of the Niflungs (the Mists), and is given a potion I that makes him forget Brynhild and love the , Kuromer Maiden, Gudrun." For her sase he consent to change shapes- and arms with ].'«• brother Gunnor, aDd .once more brave the 11-nnes to win Brynhild as the bride of the young Niflung. Loyally he keeps faith with Gunnar, whom Brynhild weds as a conquering hero, Sigurd returning to be the husband of 0-udrun. Too late the potion passes off, and he knows lie has broken his vow to Brynhild and g^ven her ring to (audjun. But he keeps silent for many years, till a, quarrel betwen Brynhjld and Gudrun stirs the latter to humiliate Brynhild by j showing the ring that once was hers, and | telling hei the fraud that made her the ! wife of Gunnar. The haughty BrynhiJd's | wrath can only be appeased by the death j of Sigurd, but her husband ;annot work ! her •« ill. having sworn peace with the hero. But at last the treacherous Niflungs suborn then* half-brother to stab Sigurd j sleeping (the power of the Sun slain by the \ mists of winter). In his dying agony he slays the murderer ; Brynhild, moved to remorse and pity, lies down to lie on the funeral pile of "the bright hero, her first love. The direct criminals being thus, dead, the vengeance of Gudrun, which runs a gloomy course through many years, is directed against her second husband, Atli, who murders her brothers, the Nifiungs. for the golden treasure of Sigurd, which they had seized. Finally, after the terrible destruction of Atli's whole house, Gudrun becomes the wife of Jonakr. a second forced and loveless mairiage (Atli, the twilight; Jonakr, the night), and the miserable lot of the once lovely Summer Maiden ends in death. With some change of names and scenes. the Nibelung Saga of old Germany is almost identical with the Volsung story up to the quarrel of the sisteia-in-law. It is Grimhild now who is the wife of the hero, Siegfried the Sun Bright ; and this time the golden treasure is Grimhild's dowry, sunk in the Rhine by the false brothers. Like Achilles, Siegfried has but one vulnerable spot, and Hagen, learning this from Grimhild, his sister, on pretence of guarding the hero more securely, treacherously murders ,him. Grimhild lives henceforth for revenge only ; and to this end consents to nuury Etzel (supposed by the mediaeval poets to be Attila, King of the Huns). The scruples of the Christian Grimhild

about allying herself with a heathen read strangely after the frightful revenge she planned with the consent of Etzel. Years pass, by ; and the Nibelungs, with their enormous following, are enticed into visiting their sister, believing the murder of Siegfried forgotten by her. -They feast in the Hall of Etzel ; Gunther (Gunnar in the Volsung Saga) and Hagen, having received warning from a witch, keep watch ; but «oon a chance blow is the signal for the Huns to fall upon their Burgundian guests. The Hall of Etzel is f> sea of blood ; 7000 Burgundians lie dead, but Gunther and Hagen fight on, indomitable, invulnerable; , while Etzel and Grimhild order in com pany after company, only to fall under their strokes. At last they are taken and bound ; and Grimhild, after a vain attempt ! to obtain from them her lost dowry, sunk in the Rhine, slays them with her own hand, sets fire to the dreadful slaughter- ! house, and peri&hes in the holocaust. Such are the main points of the great Teutonic epic. A vase amount of extra- j neous legend grew round them, as round the tale of Troy. Both versions are full of ferocity and horror from the moment the beneficent hero meets his early doom. One great difference is the diverse character of the murderer. In the Volsung tale he is the mean assassin suborned by the Niflungs, &lain by Sigurd in his death throe. la the Nibelung tale, the murderer, Hagen, is the mighty Burgundian champion. Dastaidly as is his crime, there is a dignity about his latter bearing that constrains a certain respect. That bearing in the hall of Etzel indeed suggests the deep note of destiny touched by Agamemnon when he declares himself innocent of wilfully iffending Achilles ; a note which seems to remove both tales out of possible human tragedy into the realm of inevitable Nature. . it m*k fe£ confjegsei $& kvtk gggg^

throw the darkest light possible oa femai«. character. Brynhild is the more lovable in her self-choser death with Sigiud (the (Spring Maiden may die with the strong sun ; the Summer Maiden must live on to avenge him) • but in life she is a haughty, revengeful Amazon ; while Gudiun. or Grimhild, though a true and tender wife t<: the living Sigurd, lose« every womanly instinct in her deadly after career. No Greek woman of myth has a tithe of her ferocity, save Medea, the forsaken wife of Jason, who slew her own children, as did Gudrun those of her marriage with Atli. The lovely Dawn Maidens of India are being-? of another order. But after all, the stern and gloomy temper of these Northern women does but typify the everlasting Northern warfare with snow and storm, even as the moods and excesses of the Greek and ! Hindu solar heroes denote ihe droughts, I pestilences, and heat-waves of tropical ' lands. Contrast the mild beauty of the Greek season myth with the Nibelung tragedy. On the w.irm Mediterranean coast the power of the s"n is not slain ; j he does not hang, a pallid ghost, on the frozen horizon as in the North. The Spring J Maiden, Persephone, is indeed carried off 1 by force at first, and kept by slrat agent . at last. But she mourns no dead hero : she learns to love the dirk majesty of j Hjdp.s her lord, and returns to him contentedly year aftci year when the time comes that she must quit her mother, Demeter, in the world of light. Far different is the struggle of the sun to win the stern (Spring Maiden of the North, the Brynhvld , who can only love after she is fairly vanquished in fight. In North Europe the Sigurd epic has influenced poetry and fiction almost as much as the Troy tale in the South. Ibsen has a gloomy play. 'The Vikings in Helgeland," which is almost identical ; the story being of Alfied's time. In "Count Bribert of Paris," Scott freely bestowed tlie attributes and early story of Brvnlii'd on Brenhi'.cU of Asprdinoute." the warlike bride of the count. Nor must we forget thnt the Brynhild myth dowered us with the lovelytales of the Sleeping Beauty, whether as Grynetli. Briar Rose, or whatever name the storyteller 'ias chosen to give her.