{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/onp/onp10.htm","path":"neu/onp/onp10.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/onp/onp10.htm","text":"THIS FINE fragment is an offshoot of the South Germanic, and ultimately Gothic, heroic motif best known to us from the famous old German lay in which the greatest tragedy conceivable to the Germanic mind, kinsman slain by kinsman\u2014son by father\u2014has found classic expression. There, Hiltibrant, the grey-haired warrior, returning from long exile, meets his fiery young son Hadubrant, recognizes, and makes advances to him but is rebuffed and, to save his honor, is compelled to fight and slay him. In the Old Norse poem it is Hildibrand who is slain, by his half brother, \u00c1smund; and the previous death of Hildibrand\u2019s son at his own hands (stanza 6) is right only as a kind of rudiment. The lay is found, in a much mutilated condition, in the Asmunda saga kappabana (\u201cthe Saga of \u00c1smund, Slayer of Champions\u201d), a fornaldarsaga which must have existed in the twelfth century about as it has come down to us, since it is found in a very similar form in Saxo\u2019s Danish History1 which was composed toward the end of that century. This version also contains a Latin paraphrase of the lay, in hexameters, agreeing with our fragment down to verbal details; so that a tentative reconstruction of certain lines and stanzas is justifiable.\nThe saga tells how King Buthli\u2019s daughter, Hild\u2014in the lay and in Saxo she is called Dr\u00f3tt\u2014by the fortunes of war is married successively to two kings. Her sons by these, Hildibrand and \u00c1smund,2 grow up in ignorance of one another. Both become great warriors. Hildibrand is attached to the Hunnish court, \u00c1smund becomes the champion of two Saxon lords whose realm has been reduced by Hildibrand. He takes up Hildibrand\u2019s standing challenge to single combat; but as Hildibrand through a description has recognized \u00c1smund he avoids him and sends his berserkers instead. Only when these have all succumbed does he issue forth himself to the struggle which he knows will be fatal to one or both of them. Wounded unto death, Hildibrand addresses the victor:\n| 1 | (\u201c\u2009\u2019Tis time to tell,\u2003on turf as I lie, felled by the sword, what fate was ours: unlike our lot in life hath been, to Hel fare I while whole thou livest.)3 | \n| 2 | \u201cNot easy is it\u2003ever to know who will be born his brother\u2019s slayer.4 Did Dr\u00f3tt bear thee in Danish lands; myself she bore in Sweden\u2019s realm. | \n| 3 | (\u201cBy the same mother\u2003suckled we were; yet neither the other knew as brother until the twain, trusting their weapon, for the fray eager, fought the other:)5 | \n| 4 | \u201cTrusty broad-swords\u2003twain were forged\u2014 heirlooms from Buthli; now one is broken. So deftly had the dwarfs forged them as none e\u2019er did or will do, hereafter.6 | \n| 5 | \u201cBy my head, broken,\u2003my buckler stands, (round-shaped, shining, but shattered now;)7 on it are scored eighty notches for doughty men given to death by me. | \n| 6 | \u201cMy liefest son\u2003lies by my head,8 the after-heir whom I did have\u2014 * * * unwittingly in war I slew him. | \n| p. 54 | | \n| 7 | \u201cOne boon, brother,\u2003I beg of thee\u2014 one boon only albeit one which slayer not often to slain man grants:10 in thy weeds of war wind my body! | \n| 8 | \u201c(Have hateful norns\u2003knit our fate-thread: to fight against fate the fey one avails not:)11 lifeless shall I now lie on the ground, slain by the sword, sorely wounded.\u201d | \nAccording to the saga, \u00c1smund\u2014ill-pleased with his deed\u2014fulfills his brother\u2019s dying wish. But when he returns from the combat he scornfully remarks about the \u201codd custom\u201d of sending two men against one.12 Of the four stanzas put into his mouth, the fourth stands out with peculiar vigor.\n| ASMUND said: | | \n| 1 | \u201cI little bethought me of laws like these\u201413 that me, single-handed, many would challenge when as their champion the Huns chose me,14 eight times over, for the atheling\u2019s realm. | \n| 2 | \u201cI grappled with one,\u2003and again with two\u2014 with four and five of their followers; with six and seven at the same time, then, and one against eight: a wonder I live! | \n| 3 | \u201cBut then wavered,\u2003wincing, my courage when eleven warriors me alone bestead, ere that in my sleep said to me wraiths15 that I should dare to do battle. | \n| p. 55 | | \n| 4 | \u201cThen came the hoary16\u2003Hildibrand, the Hunnish warrior; nor he my match:17 I marked on him, his helmet beneath, a deadly wound, dealt with the sword.\u201d18 | \n1 Book VII.\n2 In Saxo, Hildigerus and Halfdanus.\n3 Supplied by the translator after Saxo, lines 1-7.\n4 I accept E. A. Kock\u2019s emendation.\n5 Do., after lines 10-16.\n6 Two wondrous swords to which, however, a curse had been attached, had been forged for Buthli by two dwarfs. They came into the possession of the half brothers. In the duel, Hildibrand\u2019s is shattered.\n7 Supplied after lines 18-19 of Saxo\u2019s paraphrase.\n8 The recurrence of \u201cby my head\u201d renders the line suspicious. In Saxo\u2019s verses the dying Hildeglr\u2019s shield is adorned with the figures of the warriors he had slain\u2014among them his own son: \u201cin the middle (panel) stands the picture of my son, drawn with great art, whom this hand of mine snatched out of life.\u201d In the saga, Hildibrand is represented as slaying his son in the berserker rage which overcomes him before going to meet \u00c1smund.\n8 There is nothing in Saxo\u2019s version to suggest a lacuna here.\n10 It being customary, rather, that the victor despoils the vanquished of his armor.\n11 Freely supplied by the translator after Saxo\u2019s lines 31-34.\n12 Which is dishonorable, according to the code of the single combat.\n13 Adopting Detter\u2019s and Heinzel\u2019s emendation of the passage.\n14 The strange contradiction in this line might, possibly, be interpreted ironically as meaning that they picked him as their opponent.\n15 In the original d\u00edsir, tutelary spirits in the shape of women, guiding and warning one.\n16 This epithet shows the same, older, conception as the Lay of Hiltibrant where Hiltibrant is called \u201calter Hun\u201d; whereas in the saga he is represented as youthful, notwithstanding his having a grown son.\n17 Or \u201chard to overcome.\u201d The line seems corrupt.\n18 F. J\u00f3nsson\u2019s emendation.","title":"HILDIBRAND\u2019S DEATH SONG","type":"page"}