CHAP. VI
and Saurli and Hamdir slay Erp, because he is his mother's darling.' The two brothers cut off Hermanric's hands and feet; but Erp is not there to smite off his head, and Hermanric has strength to call out to his men, who bind the Niflungs and stone them to death, by the advice of a one-eyed man who tells them that no steel can pierce their panoply. Here the one-eyed man is again the stranger who had left the sword in the oak tree of Volsung's hall, and the men of Hermanric answer to the Achaians in their struggle with the robbers of Ilion. It was time, however, that the tale should end, and it is brought to a close with the death of Gudrun, for no other reason probably than that the revolutions of the mythic wheel must be arrested somewhere. The difference between the climates of northern and southern Europe is of itself enough to account for the more cheerful ending of the Hellenic story in the triumphant restoration of the Herakleidai.
The very fact that in all this story there is, as we have seen, Heio-i scarcely an incident which we do not find in the traditions of other Sagas. Aryan nations or tribes, renders it impossible to judge of the character of Northmen or Germans from the legends themselves. It is pos- sible, of course, and even likely that the poets or narrators have in each case thrown over the characters and events of their tale a colour- ing borrowed from the society of the time ; but that as portraits of actual manners they are gross and impossible exaggerations we are justified in concluding not only from the story itself, but from the recurrence of the myth in many lands unchanged in its essence, and even in its most prominent features. It is thrice repeated in the legends of the three Helgis, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, are mere reflexions, the one of the others. These are the holy ones, or
' The story of this murder has him. A little farther on Saurli stum- worked its way into the traditional bled and fell forward, but saved himself history of ^thelstan and Godwine. At with one hand, and said, ' Here hand the least, it seems impossible to shut helps foot ; better were it that Erp our eyes to the striking similarity of lived.' So they came on Hermanric as these stories ; and as their non-histori- he slept, and Saurli hewed off his cal character in the case of yEthelstan hands, and Hamdir his feet, but he and Godwine has been placed beyond awoke and called for his men. Then reach of questioning, we are the more said Hamdir, ' Were Erp alive, the justified in saying that the old myth head would be off, and he couldn't call has served as the foundation of the out.'" In the story of /Ethelstan and later legend. The Volsung story runs of Godwine we have the same phrases as follows : — " As the three went along, about the hands and feet ; in each case the two asked Erp what help he would a brother is slain, and in each case the give them when they got to Hermanric. loss of this brother is subsequently felt ' Such as hand lends to foot,' he said. as a source of weakness. For the ' No help at all,' they cried ; and pass- several shapes assumed by the legend ing from words to blows, and because see Freeman, N^orman Conquest, ii. their mother loved Erp best, they slew 611-12,
