who had made many vaunts, and was mindful of verses,
stored with sagas and songs of old,
870bound word to word in well-knit rime,
welded his lay; this warrior soon
of Beowulf’s quest right cleverly sang,
and artfully added an excellent tale,
in well-ranged words, of the warlike deeds
875he had heard in saga of Sigemund.[1]
Strange the story: he said it all,—[2]
the Wælsing’s wanderings wide, his struggles,
which never were told to tribes of men,
the feuds and the frauds,[3] save to Fitela only,
880when of these doings he deigned to speak,
uncle to nephew; as ever the twain
- ↑ In the Nibelungen Lay this adventure is told of Siegfried, son of Sigmund, who is son of Wæls. In the Volsunga Saga (Wælsings) Sinfiotli (=Fitela) is son to Sigmuad by his sister Signy. See the introduction to Deor’s Song, below. Beowulf is thus ranged at once with heroes of Germanic legend.
- ↑ Literally, “he told the whole story, . . . much of it unknown. . .”
- ↑ That is, betrayals, treacheries.
by the epic, guma gilphlæden, means “a man laden with vaunts” and not simply “a warrior who had made many vaunts and performed them, that is, covered with glory,”—and the former rendering is preferable,—then yet another accomplishment of the Germanic warrior is indicated. He could probably sing his beot, or vaunt, in good verse. Specimens of such a vaunt, sung, however, by a North American Indian at the war-dance, and improvised to the rhythm of the bystanders’ choral singing, can be studied with some application to the Germanic problem,—for the cruder forms of improvisation, to be sure, and not for a finished chant of adventure like this in question, which is followed by traditional verse dealing with the Germanic heroic legend.—It is told of William of Orange, a hero of medieval song, born about 754, that when he was riding as a monk through the forest, he caused a song in praise of his own deeds to be sung by a retainer who rode in his train.—The Canterbury pilgrims were keeping old custom when they told tales as they rode; but improvisation in verse was no longer expected.
