{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/onp/onp06.htm","path":"neu/onp/onp06.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/onp/onp06.htm","text":"LIKE THE Vikarsb\u00e1lk and Hildibrand\u2019s Death Song, this essentially monologic lay belongs to a category which forms a masculine counterpart to the feminine retrospective poems of the Edda, such as Helreith Brynhildar and Guthr\u00fanarhv\u01ebt: at the point of death, or in the beyond, the speaker lets pass in review the events of his life. This conventional situation conditions a lyric-elegiac mood; which finds especially beautiful, if somewhat facile and not very original, expression in our poem. And inasmuch as there is stress laid on the melancholy \u201cnevermore\u201d of lovers beset by a tragic fate, rather than on deeds of valor, we may even speak of a quasi-Romanticism. Indeed, external reasons likewise point to thirteenth-century origin, when medieval influences made themselves felt in the upper levels of Northern society, and French romances and lais were being translated voluminously.\nTwo versions exist, both derived from one now lost\u2014the one in a MS of the Hervarar saga; the other, both longer and better, in the Orvar Odds saga, which accordingly has been rendered here. However, the lay does not fit organically into the latter saga.\nPiecing together the accounts in both sagas, the story of Hi\u00e1lmar is as follows: Angant\u00fdr, a ferocious Viking chief, makes a Yuletide vow that he will wed beautiful Ingibiorg, the daughter of King Yngvi at Uppsala in Sweden, or else die. But when he appears there, the princess rejects him in favor of Hi\u00e1lmar, right-hand man of the king, whom she loves. Thereupon Angant\u00fdr challenges Hi\u00e1lmar to single combat, next summer, on the island of Samsey. There, Hi\u00e1lmar and his companion at arms, the redoubtable Orvar Odd (or S\u00f3ti), encounter Angant\u00fdr and his eleven berserker brothers. Hi\u00e1lmar slays Angant\u00fdr, notwithstanding the latter\u2019s invincible sword Tyrfing, but is mortally wounded himself. Orvar Odd (or S\u00f3ti), protected by a magic silk shirt, is the sole survivor.\n| S\u00d3TI said: | | \n| 1 | \u201cWhat ails thee, Hi\u00e1lmar?\u2003Thy hue is pale. Great wounds, I ween, do weary thee; thy helmet is hewn, thy hauberk eke: at an end is now, atheling, thy life!\u201d | \n| HI\u00c1LMAR said: | | \n| 2 | \u201cWounds have I sixteen,\u2003is slit my byrnie, dim grows my sight, I see no longer: to my heart did hew, venom-hardened, Angant\u00fdr\u2019s sword slashing sharply. | \n| 3 | \u201cShall fair ladies\u2003never learn that I, from blows me shielding, backward turned me; nor shall ever Ingibiorg taunt me, in Sigt\u00fana1 sitting, that from sword-blows I fled. | \n| 4 | \u201cUnwilling nowise,\u2003from women\u2019s converse, from their sweet songs I with Soti fared, hastened to join the host to eastward, went the last time forth from friends so dear. | \n| 5 | \u201cLed me the white-browed\u2003liege\u2019s daughter to the outmost end of Agnafit.2 Is borne out thus that back I would not wend from this war: so the wise maid said. | \n| 6 | \u201cFrom Ingibiorg\u2014\u2003came ill-hap swiftly\u2014 I fared forth, then, on fated day: a lasting sorrow to the lady, this, since not e\u2019er after each other we\u2019ll see. | \n| 7 | \u201cTo have and to hold\u2003I had five manors; on that land to live misliked me, though. Now, robbed of life, I lie here, spent, by the sword wounded, on S\u00e1ms-isle\u2019s shore. | \n| p. 28 | | \n| 8 | \u201cTake with thee, Soti\u2014\u2003my wish it is\u2014 my helm and hauberk to the hall of the king. Will it wring the heart of the ruler\u2019s daughter when shattered she sees what shielded my breast. | \n| 9 | \u201cThe red-gold ring\u2003from my right arm draw, to Ingibiorg bring it, in her bower sitting. Will yearn for me the young maiden, since not e\u2019er after each other we\u2019ll see. | \n| 10 | \u201cI see sitting\u2003in Sigt\u00fana hall the women who warned me of wending thence. Will not ever after ale nor warriors Hi\u00e1lmar gladden here in this life. | \n| 11 | \u201cQuaff with the king\u2003the crowd of housecarls their ale gladly in Uppsala; doth the mead many men overcome, but me overmaster here many wounds. | \n| 12 | \u201cFlies from the South\u2003the famished raven, flieth with him the fallow eagle; on the flesh of the fallen I shall feed them no more: on my body both will batten now.\u201d | \n1 Between Uppsala and the present Stockholm.\n2 This is a low flat point south of the present Stockholm.","title":"HI\u00c1LMAR\u2019S DEATH SONG","type":"page"}