THE LEGEND OF TYRFING | Tyrfing Ragnarok | Hervor and the Sword

THE LEGEND OF TYRFING 

Introduction 

 Tyrfing, Tyrfing, or Tyrving (the name has an uncertain origin and is probably related to Terwingi) is the magical sword of Norse mythology that appears in the Tyrfing cycle, including the poetic Edda poetry called Hervararkviða and the story of Hervarar. It has been. This name is also used in Saga to refer to the Goths.

Our Story

Page 147, line 16 — The legends of Tyrfing and the kindred of Arngrim form the contents of the Hervarar Saga, or Hervor’s Saga, a “saga of antiquity” belonging to the thirteenth century; it contains, however, a rich supply of poetic fragments which serve to carry the legends back to a much earlier period. These lays deal chiefly with the combat on the island of Samsey, with Heidrek’s and Gestumblindi’s riddling match, and with the strife between Angantyr and Lod. The saga has come down to us in various redactions, which differ not a little from one another, particularly as regards the homes of the persons concerned in the action. Of greatest importance are the two old manuscripts, the Hauksbók [H] and the Gammel kongelig samling 2845, 4to [R], which Sophus Bugge edited and published in Norrøne Skrifier of sagnhistorisk Indhold, 3dje hefte, 1873, in which, however, lacunae have to some degree had to be supplied by means of later paper manuscripts. The narrative as given above follows “H,” the most complete manuscript; yet the story of Heidrek’s boar has been drawn in part from “R.” According to “H,” Arngrim is son to a daughter of Starkad Aludreng (cf. p. 221), and Bolm is here localized in Halogaland (in reality it is a place in Småland, the island of Bohn in Lake Bolmen). According to “R,” Sigrlami, king of Russia, gets Tyrfing from the Dwarfs, Sigrlami’s descent from Odin not being mentioned in this source; Sigrlami gives the sword to Arngrim, his ranking captain, who is married to his daughter Eyfura. Of the combat on the island of Samsey there is an account also in Orvar-Odd’s Saga (see p. 236). Saxo too knows this legend; in his version Arngrim fights against the Finns in order to win the friendship of Frodi the Peaceful; he succeeds in his purpose and weds Eyfura (Ofura), who is here presented as the daughter of Frodi. In another passage Saxo refers to a certain Gestumblindi (Gestiblindus) as king of the Goths, though without mentioning the riddling match. Arngrim, Eyfura, and their sons are mentioned also in the Eddie poem Hyndluljóð (“to the eastward in Bolm”). As late as the seventeenth century legends relating to the combat of the Vikings are said to have been current on the island of Samsø. The saga may be divided in several sections, which group themselves about the fragmentary lays discussed above. The first section contains the narrative of the battle of Samsey and of Hervor’s incantations at her father’s barrow; both accounts are based on sundry verses. The next section contains the history of Heidrek, in which only the story of the riddling match is couched in verse. It forms a transition to the last section, on the battle between Angantyr and Lod, which also rests on a series of verses (called by recent scholars the “Lay Of the Battle With the Huns”). Yet the entire group of legends seems not from the first to have formed a complete whole. The legends of the sons of Arngrim, of the battle of Samsey, and of the life of Hervor depict the Viking Age; the scene is the Baltic and its littoral; the events are not historical. On the other hand, the place names in the last section of the saga appear to point to times and localities totally different. Heidrek, we read, ruled over Reidgotaland, which in the verses goes by the name of Goðþjóð. The neighboring kingdom is Hunaland, from which it is separated by the frontier forest Dark Wood (Myrkviðr). When Lod sets forth to demand his patrimony, he rides toward the west to meet Angantyr; and when Hervor is preparing to defend her stronghold against the Huns, she looks for their coming from the south. Hunaland was thus thought of as lying to the south-east of Gotar land, and the Goths and Huns in question must have belonged to the time of the great migrations. Indications leading toward the south-east are also to be found in the name Danparstaðir, the first element of which word is the ancient name for the Dnieper River (Danapris), and likewise in the name Harfaðafjoll, which must be the Germanic name for the Carpathians. As to the details there is little unity among scholars. See on this matter Otto von Friesen’s last article, Rökstenen (Stockholm, 1920), p. 108 ff., which lists much important older literature. O. von Friesen (who to a great extent follows Gudmund Schütte’s article Anganty-kvadets Geografi in Arkiv för nordisk filologi XXI, p. 30 ff.) thinks of the Goths of the Hervarar Saga as living in the valley of the Vistula, and thus finds points of agreement with the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith: the scup Widsith visits Wyrmhere (i.e., Ormar) while the army of the Rædas (cf. the name Reidgotaland) in the forests of the Vistula are defending their ancient domains against Atli’s men (i.e., the Huns, seep. 184 ff.). According to von Friesen’s view we have to do with a struggle between the Huns and a Gothic (Ostrogothic) kingdom north of the Carpathians not mentioned by the older historians. According to earlier scholars (Heinzel, Über die Hervarar-Sage, in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien; Philosophisch-historische Classe 114, 1887) we have to do with the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. — The later narrators and scribes who dealt with the legend were apparently at a loss to fix the locality of events dating from so remote a period. Many of the place names occurring in the last section of the saga were unfamiliar to them, and therefore they fixed upon wholly erroneous localities. At a relatively late period Reidgotaland was understood to be the mainland of Denmark, for which reason one version of the saga says that Reidgotaland “now is called Jutland.” Through this reasoning Danparstad also came to be looked for in Denmark, and from this name was thus formed “Danp,” who in the Eddic poem Rígsþula and in Snorri is mentioned among the earliest Danish kings. According to certain German scholars (Heusler and Ranisch, Eddica minora, Dortmund 1903, p. VII ff.) the “Lay of the Battle with the Huns” dates from the time of the composition of the Eddic poems, while according to Finnur Jónsson (Litteratur-historie 2 II, 1, p. 142) it belongs to a materially later date. The riddling match in the central section of the saga reminds very much of the Eddie poem Vafjþrúðnismál (p. 100), which no doubt served as a model; the decisive riddle is the same in both poems. The saga thus consists of a series of mutually independent legends which have been unified by the aid of the Tyrfing motive; similar motives are employed in the Volsung Cycle, — the sword Gram and the treasure of Andvari. This unification is certainly older than the complete saga as we have it, since Tyrfing is to be found in all of the older poetic fragments employed in the composition of the saga. A fixed point for the dating of this agglutination of materials appears in the words of Hervor (in one of the verses) to the effect that she would rather possess Tyrfing than rule over “all Norway”; this phrase points to a period antedating the union of the Norwegian kingdoms into one. In this connection, reference may be made once more to the riddle poem, which appears to presuppose Vafjþrúðnismál.