Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

DEAGON. 689
lie upon gold, and are illumined by it ; gold itself was poetically
named worm-bed, ON. ormbe^r or ormbe^s-eldr (worrnbed s fire).
And with this was linked a further notion, that they guard
treasures, and carry them through the air by night. That wyrm
slain by Sigemund is -called hordes hyrde/ Beow. 1767 ; the one
that Beowulf fought with receives the epithet c se hord beweo-
tode 4420. Fafnir, formerly a giant, lay in (the shape of) a
worm/ wearing the Oegis-hialm, over inherited gold (Ssom.
188 b . 189 b
) ; the expression is i tyngvi (from lng, heath), and
the spot is named Gnita-herSi ; hence in other cases also the word
lyngvi, lyngormr (heath-worm) stands for dragon. The Yols.
saga c. 17 distinguishes lyngormr a small snake from dreki a large
one; so that our OHGr. heimo, OS. hema, AS. hdma, spoken of
on p. 387, may be identical with lyngvi ; Vilk. saga c. 17, p. 31
expressly calls heima allra orma
}
skemutr (omnium vermium
minimus), but as he is venomous, he cannot be the harmless
cicada (OHGL muhheimo). Popular belief still dreams of glitter
ing treasures lying on lonesome heaths and guarded by dragons ;
and hcecfen gold in Beow. may mean either aurum tesquorum or
ethnicorum, for dragons, like giants, were thought of as old and
full of years, e.g., eald uhtsceafta, Beow. 4536 ; wintrum fixyS (wise
with years) 4548 ; J?reo hund (300) wintra heold on hrusan (earth)
4550 ; at the same time they are covetous, envious, venomous,
spitting flame : mftdraca, Beow. 4540 ; attorsceaffa 5673, fyre
befongen 4541, ongan gledum spiwan 4619., deorcum nihtum
ricsian 4417. It is said of Fafnir, ,Sgem. 186: screr<5 af gulli,
bles eitri, hristi sik ok bar^i hofSi ok sporSi/ stept off the gold,
blew poison, shook himself, and struck with head and tail ; it was
noticed on p, 562 that the two notions of eit (fire) and eiter
(poison) run into one. Connect with this the descriptions of MHG.
: poets the
*
trache has his haunt in a valley, out -of his throat
he darts flame, smoke and wind, Trist. 8944-74 ; he has plumage,
wings, he spits fire and venom, Troj. 9764. 9817 (see Suppl.).
Now it was the heroes province to extirpate not only the
giants, but (what was in a measure the same thing) the dragons l
in the world: Tborr himself tackles the enormous mr<5gar<$s-orm,
Sigemund, Siegfried,
Beowulf stand forth as the bravest of
1 The analogy is kept up in the circumstance of the conquered dragon (like the
giant s skeleton p. 555n.) being fastened over the town-gate, e.g. Pulci 4, 76.