Chapters 114-123 - Germanic Mythology

mythology I must leave aside for the moment. 125 Both these kings of mythological
descent reappear in the cycle of the Sigurd songs. It has already been pointed out above
(no. 118) that the Gjukungs appear in the Sigurd saga as heirs and owners of Hlöðvér's
halls and treasures; it is added that "they own the whitest shield from Kíarr's hall
(Guðrúnarkviða II. 25; Atlakviða 7). Consequently, the previously pointed out connection
between the persons appearing in Völundarkviða and those in the Gjukung-saga appears
here. The fathers of the swan-maids who love Völund and his brothers reappear in the
Sigurd songs as heroes who had already left the scene of action, and who had owned
immense treasures, which after their death are in the possession of the Gjukungs via
inheritance. This also follows in that the Gjukungs are descendants of Gjuki-Slagfinn,
and that Slagfinn and his brothers are Niflungs, heirs of Hlöðvér-Ivaldi, who was
gullauðigr mjök (Skáldskaparmál 4). 126
Like his sons, Ivaldi originally stood in a friendly relation to the higher reigning
gods; he was their oath-sworn man, and from his stronghold near the Elivogar, Geirvaðils
setur, he protected the creation of the gods from the powers of frost. But, like his sons,
and before them, he fell into enmity with the gods and became "a perjurous hapt." The
features from the myth of Ivaldi which were preserved in the heroic poems and shed light
on the relation between the moon-god and him, are told partially in the account of
Gevarus, Nanna's father, in Saxo, and partially in the poems about Walther (Valtarius,
Walthari) and Fin Folcvalding. From these accounts it appears that Ivaldi abducted [748]
a daughter of the moon-god; that enmity arose between them; that, after the defeat of
Ivaldi, Sunna's and Nanna's father offered him reconciliation, and that the reconciliation
was sealed by oath; that Ivaldi broke the oath, attacked Gevar-Nokkver and burnt him;
that, during the hostilities between them, Slagfinn-Gjuki, though a son of Ivaldi, did not
take the side of his natural father, but on his foster-father‘s side; and that Ivaldi had to
pay for his own deeds with ruin and death.
Concerning the point that Ivaldi abducted a daughter of Gevar-Nökkver and
married her, the Latin poem Waltarius manu fortis, Nibelunge Noth, Biterolf, Þidreks
Saga af Bern, and Boguphalus (Chronicon Poloniæ) 127 relate that Walther fled with a
princess named Hildigund. On the flight he was attacked by Gjukungs, according to
Waltarius manu fortis. The chief one of these (in the poem Gunthari, Gjuki's son)
received in the battle a wound that pushes "to the thigh-bone." 128 The statement
concerning the wound, which Walther inflicted upon the chief Gjuking has its roots in the
godsaga where the chief Gjukung, i.e. Gjuki himself, appears with the bynames (Hengest,
Geldr, öndur-Jálkur) alluding to the wound inflicted. In the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem
125 Rydberg does not mention Kíarr again in this work. Kíarr is said to rule the Völum (Valir) in Hlöðskviða
1: en Völum [réð] Kíarr. Egilsson, LP, (1931), s.v. Valir, defines them as 1) Galler, Vælskmænd, om
indbyggerne især i Frankrig, Völum (réð) Kíarr, Hervararsaga V, 1 ―1) Gauls, Welshmen, of the residents
especially in France‖; om Cornwalls indbyggere, en V. skjalfa, ―used of Cornwall‘s inhabitants in
Merlínúspá I, 23. 2) træl, (thrall) egl. ‘hærtagen vælsk mand‘, v-a mengi, Sigurðarkviða skamma 66. In
Hárbarðsljóð 24, and elsewhere their home is called Valland, the meaning of which Rydberg discusses in
Investigations into Germanic Mythology, Vol. II, Part 2, p. 121-122.
126 ―very rich in gold.‖
127 As translated by Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, pp. 158-159.
128 Waltharius ll. 933-937: Iam magis atque magis irarum mole gravatus /Waltharius clipeum Gerwiti
sustulit imum,/ Transmissoque femur penetraverat inguine ferrum; ―Now Walter more and more oppressed
by the weight of/ His wrath, cut through the lower part of Gerwit‘s shield;/ The weapon, piercing Gerwit‘s
groin, lodged in his thigh.‖ [Kratz tr.]