BOOK I.
Grettir
and Boots.
Parallel-
isms be-
tween the
Grettir
Saga and
other
myths.
the clue in their own hands, is clear from the sentence in which, speaking of the events which followed Grettir's death, they tell us that " the Sagaman here has taken an incident, with little or no change, from the romance of Tristram and Iseult."^ If, as they think, the chapters in which this incident is related were added to the tale, and if this part of the story be substantially the same as that of a romance which is known to be mythical ; if further, as they say, the whole Saga " has no doubt gone through the stages which mark the growth of the Sagas in general, that is, it was for long handed about from mouth to mouth until it took a definite shape in men's minds," ^ a presumption, to say the least, is furnished that other incidents in the Saga may be found to be of a like nature. If we take the sentences which tell us of Grettir's childhood, how he had scant love from his father who set him to watch his home- geese, how he was fair to look on, red-haired and much freckled, how he would do no work or spoilt all that he did ; how, when placed on board a boat, he " would move for nought, neither for baling, nor to do aught for the sail, nor to work at what he was bound to work at in the ship in even share with the other men, neither would he buy himself off from the work,"^ how, when he does some great thing, the remark is " we wotted not that thou wert a man of such powers as we have now proved thee,"* how he goes disguised to the wTestling match, and when Thorbiorn Angle pushes and tugs hard at him, moves not a whit but sits quiet, yet wins the victory, — we have before us the Goose-girl and the Boots of Teutonic story, the Boots who sits among the ashes in the " irony of greatness," biding his time, — the disguised Odysseus, patiently enduring the gibes of the suitors and the beggar Arnaios. When the Saga tells us that on coming back from a Thing, " Grettir lifted a stone which now lies there in the grass and is called Grettir's heave," and how "many men came up to see the stone and found it a great wonder that so young a man should heave aloft such a huge rock," it relates a well-known legend in the myths of Theseus and of Sigurd in the Volsung tale. When Grettir is driven forth from his home without arms and his mother draws forth from her cloak the fair sword which has gained many a day, we see before us Thetis and Hjordis bestowing on their children the magic weapons which reappear in the hands of Arthur and of Roland. In the
' For the romance of Tristram, see Pofular Romances of tlie Middle Ages, and Introduction to Comparative Mythology, 326-330.
- P. xv
» P. 41. « P. 58.
