ABSTRACT
The translators challenge attention to their work as the great Epic of the North as the tale of Troy is the great Epic of the South, and certainly there are points of contact. The tale of Troy was the property of the whole Greek race, and the tale of the Volsungs and Niblungs is the property of the whole Teutonic race. Both introduce the heroes of many divisions of the race which subsequently became separate states. In both, mythical and legendary elements are inextricably entangled. Weare sure that Sigurd slaying Fafnir is the same as Apollo slaying Python; we are sure that Briseis and Chryseis must be cosmical impersonations of some kind, for they appear in India as well as in Greece. But when we try to carry the cosmical interpretation through, we find the same difficulty in both; the story is rooted in geography, and in the tale ofthe Volsungs and Niblungs the proper names coincide with those ofhistorical characters so often that it is hard to believe that all the coincidences are accidental. It is not surprising that the ethnographical patriotism of the translators has made them overlook the reasons why stories which have such a similar place in the history of the Greek and Teutonic race have such a dissimilar place in the history of Greek and Teutonic literature; why Homer, as represented by Dictys and Dares, has been so much more to Englishmen than the Edda and Nibelll1'lge1'llied. It is probable that the Greek race was more
highly gifted for artistic purposes than the northern; it is certain that the society of the Homeric age was artistically richer than the society of the Icelandic sagas, for it was more complex and Inore regular. These Icelandic compositions are largely influenced by a spirit of naive 'historical veracity, a desire to get as quickly as possible through all that is remembered of the traditional facts. This tendency is not without its value; it excludes inartistic loitering,' and sobriety is always impressive. But a literature of this kind is not suggestive, it does not germinate; it begins and ends in ballads, and the compilations that come between are scarcely epical-even in dimensions. Volsunga Saga is constructed like all Icelandic stories on the principal of beginning the Trojan War with Leda's Egg, and the Return of Diomed with the Death of Meleager, yet it is not a quarter of the length of either the Iliador the Odyssey, which deal each with a single episode of the tale of Troy.
