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The man from the south cried out with a fell voice,
Cneofri?, the stranger in the hall:
‘Hither upon an errand ?tla sent me
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on unknown ways through the Vistula forest
riding the bit-bridled steed;
he bade me greet well you twain, Gu?here, and ask
that you come covered by your helms to his abode.
There you shall have shield and smooth-shaven lance
15
gold-adorned helmet, a great company of Huns,
silvered saddle, coat of mail most shining,
the finest horse that bears a bridle,
clothes of foreign scarlet, and slender spear.
He said that he would give to you Gnitanheath,
20
give into your power the wide woodland,
shrieking spear and golden prow,
great treasures, the abodes of the Dnieper,
and that forest renowned that is called Mirkwood.’
Then the lord of the Burgundians turned his head,
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to Hagena he spoke: ‘When we hear such things
what does he advise us, the young counsellor?
I have not heard of a gold hoard on Gnitanheath
that we twain did not possess another of as great abundance.
We have seven halls filled with swords,
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the hilts of each of them hewn of gold;
my horse is the most renowned, my sword the best,
my helm the brightest, my battle-shield
plundered from the treasure of the high emperor –
mine alone is better than [those] of all the Huns.’
35
Hagena
‘What did the bride signify when she sent us a ring,
wound it with wolf-hair? She offered us warning!
Fast bound on the ring I found the hair of a wolf,
of the grey heath-roamer:
wolvish, as I think, will be our journey hence.’
40
Notes
1 ?tla, Gu?here: the Old English forms of the Norse names Atli and Gunnar.
2 Cneofri?: the name of Atli’s messenger in Atlakvi?a is Knefro?r: see the commentary on the Lay of Gudrun, stanzas 37–48.
3 Gifeca: the Old English form of the Norse name Gjuki, father of Gunnar: see Appendix A, p.340.
5–6 In a lecture on the text of Atlakvi?a my father took the meaning of the verse at this point to be that there was merriment in the hall among Gunnar’s folk, but the Hunnish envoys sat silent, hiding their thoughts. But his Old English verses may not proceed from this interpretation.
The Old English word melda means one who declares, tells, informs, or betrays. The man in Beowulf who stole the goblet from the dragon’s hoard and led Beowulf and his companions to the lair is called a melda. But I do not know what significance my father gave to the word in this verse.
11 Wistlawudu. This name occurs in the poem Widsith:
ful oft ??r wig ne al?g,
?onne Hr?da here heardum sweordum
ymb Wistlawudu wergan sceoldon
ealdne e?elstol ?tlan leodum.
‘Seldom was warfare stilled, when the host of the Hr?das [Goths] about the Vistula forest had to defend with their swords their ancient dwelling-place from the people of Attila.’
The reference to Wistlawudu is a vestige of very ancient tradition; for it was about the end of the second century that the Goths departed on a vast south-easterly migration from the Baltic coast and the Vistula valley, and at length settled in the plains to the north of the Black Sea. But in Widsith ‘the Vistula forest’ is thought of as the primeval forest separating the territories of the Goths and the Huns, and is to be equated with Myrkvi?r (see the commentary on the Lay of the Volsungs, VII.14 (pp.227–28): in Atlakvi?a Knefro?r says that he had ridden through Myrkvi? inn okunna, Mirkwood unexplored.
20 ?tla’s offer (following Atlakvi?a) of ‘Gnitanheath’, where Fafnir had his lair, as if it were a part of his dominion constitutes a problem to which a number of solutions have been proposed. My father thought it probable that there was an ancient association of Gnitahei?r with a gold hoard, of which we know nothing, and that this caused it to be attracted to Fafnir, that is, became later the name of the region where he had his lair and his treasure. I cannot account for the form Gnitanheath.
27 The word runbora seems not to be recorded in Old English, but I take it to mean ‘one who bears run’ in the sense of ‘(secret) counsel’, hence ‘counsellor’, equivalent to the recorded word r?dbora of the same meaning.
36 Hagena: Hogni.
37 weargloccum ‘wolf’s hair’: in Old English the word wearg was used exclusively of an outlaw or hunted criminal but Norse vargr retained in addition the sense ‘wolf’. From this was derived the name of the Wargs of Middle-earth.
39 The word h??stapa ‘heath-roamer’ occurs in Beowulf,
