Malone - 1926 - Agelmund and Lamicho

8/13/2019 Malone - 1926 - Agelmund and Lamicho

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Agelmund and LamichoAuthor(s): Kemp MaloneSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 47, No. 4 (1926), pp. 319-346Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/289994

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AGELM[UND AND LAMIICHO.It is the purpose of the present paper to examine with somecare the story of Agelmund and Lamicho (or Lamissio), astold by Paulus Diaconus in his Historia Langobardorum,Book I,sees. 14-18. Paulus wrote his Historia toward the end of the

eighth century. There is another work, however, which dealswith the same events and is over a century older than Paulus'swork. I refer to the anonymous Origo Gentis Langobardorum.Since moreover Paulus used the Origo as one of his sources, itwill be convenient to begin with that work. I quote from G.Waitz's edition in the Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica:

Est insula qui dicitur Scadanan . .. in partibus aqui-lonis, ubi multae gentes habitant; inter quos erat gensparva quae Winnilis vocabatur. Et erat cum eis muliernomine Gambara, habebatque duos filios, nomen uni Yboret nomen alteri Agio; ipsi cum matre sua nomine Gambaraprincipatum tenebant super Winnilis. . . . Ab illo temporeWinnilis Langobardi vocati sunt. Et moverunt se exhindeLangobardi, et venerunt in Golaidam, et postea possideruntaldonus 1 Anthaib et Bainaib seu et Burgundaib; et dicitur,quia fecerunt sibi regem nomine Agilmund, filium Agioni,ex genere Gugingus. Et post ipsum regnavit Laiamicho(v. 1. Lamicho) ex genere Gugingus. Et post ipsum reg-navit Lethuc (v. 1. Leth), et dicitur, quia regnasset annosplus minus quadraginta. Et post ipsum regnavit Aldihoc,filius Lethuc. Et post ipsum regnavit Godehoc. Illo tem-pore exivit rex Audoachari de Ravenna. . . et venit inRugilanda et impugnavit Rugos et occidit Theuvane regemRugorum. . . . Tunc exierunt Langobardi de suis regioni-bus, et habitaverunt in Rugilanda annos aliquantos. Posteum regnavit Claffo,filius Godehoc. Et post ipsum regnavitTato, filius Claffoni. Sederunt Langobardi in campis Feldannos tres. Pugnavit Tato cum Rodolfo rege Herulorum,et occidit eum .... Et occidit Wacho, filius Unichis,Aldonus 'half-free.' See ,W. Bruckner, Sprache der Lazngobarden,p. 201. 319


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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.Tatonem regem barbanem 2 suum. ... Mortuus est Wacho,et regnavit filius ipsius Waltari annos septem farigaidus:3isti omnes Lethinges fuerunt.4

From this account it would appearthat in early days two royaldynasties ruled over the Langobards: first the line of the Gu-gings, to which Agelmund and Lamicho belonged; and secondlythe line of the Lethings, which began with Leth or Lethuc andended with Waltari. When did these kings live? The warbetween Odoacerand the Rugians is represented, by the authorof the Origo, as having taken place in the reign of Godehoc.Now we know of this war from other sources, and it is usuallyput in the year 487.5 This gives us a date for Godehoc. More-over, Procopius gives a full account of the war between theLangobards and the Eruli,6 and we are able to say with assur-ance that Tato flourished at the beginning of the sixth century.If now Godehocreigned in the 480's, and if his grandfather (orfather) Leth ruled the Langobards for something like 40 years(as the Origo says he did), then Leth's reign presumablybegansomewhere in the 430's, if not earlier, and Agelmund andLamicho are to be put in the early part of the fifth century orthe end of the fourth. As for Gambaraand her sons Ybor andAgio (i. e., Pig and Sword), these look like mythical figuresof some sort: divinities or cult objects. Agelmund, the firstking, is apparently made son of Agio much as the early Englishkings traced their ancestry to Woden.Paulus gives us a much more detailed account. I quote onlythat part of his story which concerns Agelmund and Lamicho:

14. Mortuis interea Ibor et Aione ducibus, qui Lango-bardos a Scadinavia eduxerant et usque ad haec temporarexerant, nolentes iam ultra Langobardi esse sub ducibus,regem sibi ad ceterarum instar gentium statuerunt. Reg-s Barbanem ' paternal uncle.' Bruckner, p. 202.8 Farigaidus 'childless.' Bruckner, p. 203.Scriptores Rerum Lacngobardicarwm et Italicarum Saec. VI-IX,

pp. 3 f.On the authority of the so-called Cuspiniani Anonymus. Cf. T.Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders2 II, 100, for some account of thismonument.6De Bello Gothico II 14 (ed. Haury, Vol. II, pp. 208 ff.).

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.navit igitur super eos primus Agelmund, filius Aionis, exprosapia ducens originem Gungingorum, quae aput eosgenerosior habebatur. Hic, sicut a maioribus traditur,tribus et triginta annis Langobardorumtenuit regnum.15. His temporibus quaedammeretrix uno partu septempuerulos enixa, beluis omnibus mater crudelior in piscinamproiecit negandos. Hoc si cui inpossibile videtur, relegathistorias veterum, et inveniet, non solum septem infantulos,sed etiam novem unam mulierem semel peperisse. Et hoccertum est maxime aput Aegyptios fieri. Contigit itaque,ut rex Agelmund, dum iter carperet, ad eandem piscinamdeveniret. Qui cum equo retento miserandos infantulosmiraretur hastaque, quam manu gerebat, huc illucque eosinverteret, unus ex illis iniecta manu hastam regiam con-prehendit. Rex misericordia motus factumque altius ammi-ratus, eum magnum futurum pronuntiat. Moxque eum apiscina levari praecepit, atque nutrici traditum omni cumstudio mandat alendum; et quia eum de piscina, quae eorumlingua 'lama' dicitur, abstulit, Lamissio (v. 1. Lamisio)eidem nomen inposuit. Qui cum adolevisset, tam strenuusiuvenis effectus est, ut et bellicosissimus extiterit et postAgelmundi funus regni gubernacula rexerit. Ferunt hunc,dum Langobardi cum rege suo iter agentes ad quendamfluvium pervenissent et ab Amazonibus essent prohibiti ultrapermeare, cum earum fortissima in fluvio natatu pugnasseeamque peremisse, sibique laudis gloriam, Langobardisquoque transitum paravisse. Hoc siquidem inter utrasqueacies prius constitisse, quatenus, si Amazon eadem Lamis-sionem superaret, Langobardi a flumine recederent; sin veroa Lamissione, ut et factum est, ipsa vinceretur, Langobardiseadem permeandi fluenta copia praeberetur. Constat sane,quia huius assertionis series minus veritate subnixa est.Omnibus etenim quibus veteres historiae notae sunt patet,gentem Amazonum longe antea, quam haec fieri potuerint,esse deletam; nisi forte, quia loca eadem, ubi haec gestaferuntur, non satis historiographis nota fuerunt et vix abaliquo eorum vulgata sunt, fieri potuerit, ut usque ad idtempus huiuscemodi inihbimulierum genus haberetur. Namet ego referri a quibusdam audivi, usque hodie in intimisGermaniaefinibus gentem harum existere feminarum.2

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.16. Igitur transmeato Langobardi de quo dixeramus

flumine, cum ad ulteriores terras pervenissent, illic pertempus aliquod commorabantur. Interea cum nihil adversisuspicarenturet essent quiete longa minus solliciti, securitas,quae semper detrimentorum mater est, eis non modicamperniciem peperit. Noctu denique cum neglegentia resoluticuncti quiescerent, subito super eos Vulgares inruentes,plures ex eis sauciant, multos prosternunt, et in tantumper eorum castra dibachati sunt, ut ipsum Agelmundumregem interficerent eiusque unicam filiam sorte captivitatisauferrent.17. Resumptis tamen post haec incommoda Langobardiviribus, Lamissionem, de quo superius dixeramus, sibiregem constituerunt. Qui, ut erat iuvenili aetate ferviduset ad belli certamina satis prumptus, alumni sui Agelmundinecem ulcisci cupiens, in Vulgares arma convertit. Pri-moque mox proelio commisso, Langobardi hostibus tergadantes, ad castra refugiunt. Tune rex Lamissio ista con-spiciens, elevata altius voce, omni exercitui clamare coepit,ut obprobriorum quae pertulerunt meminissent revoca-rentque ante oculos dedecus, quomodo eorum regem hostesiugulaverint, quam miserabiliter eius natam, quam sibireginam optaverant, captivam abduxerint. Postremo hor-tatur, ut se suosque armis defenderent, melius esse dicens,in bello animam ponere quam ut vilia mancipia hostiumludibriis subiacere. Haec et huiuscemodi dum vociferansdiceret, et nunc minis nunc promissionibus ad tolerandaeorum animos belli certamina roboraret; si quem etiamservilis conditionis pugnantem vidisset, libertate eum simulcum praemiis donaret: tandem hortatu exemplisque prin-cipis, qui primus ad bellum prosilierat, accensi, super hostesinruunt, pugnant atrociter, et magna adversariosclade pros-ternunt; tandemque de victoribus victoriam capientes, tamregis sui funus quam proprias iniurias ulciscuntur. Tunemagna de hostium exuviis praeda potiti, ex illo iam temporead expetendos belli labores audaciores effecti sunt.18. Defuncto post haec Lamissione, qui secundus regna-verat, tertius ad regni gubernacula Lethu (v. 11. Lethuc,Leth) ascendit. Qui cum quadraginta ferme annos reg-nasset, Hildeoc (v. 1. Hildeoch) filium, qui quartus in

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.numero fuit, regni successorem reliquit. Hoc quoque de-functo, quintus Gudeoc (v. 1. Gudeoch) regnum suscepit.7Before proceeding with the discussion, it may be well to givean analysis of the story as told by Paulus:

1) The Langobards chose Agelmund, son of Aio, as theirfirst king.2) Agelmund reigned thirty-three years.3) During his reign a certain harlot gave birth to a litterof seven boys.4) She threw them into a fish-pond, to drown them.5) Agelmund, happening to ride by, stopped to look at thedrowning litter.6) He stirred them about with his spear.7) One of the boys clutched the spear.8) This impressed the king, and he had the boy fished outand cared for.

9) He named him Lamissio, i. e., 'the fish-pond man.'10) Lamissio grew up and became a great warrior.11) On one occasion Agelmund and his army tried to crossa certain river.12) His passage was disputed by Amazons.13) It was agreed that the matter should be settled by aduel between Lamissio and the strongest of theAmazons.14) Lamissio killed his opponent; the fight took place in theriver itself, the antagonists apparently swimming asthey fought.15) Lamissio thus won for the Langobards a passage acrossthe river.16) The Langobards now settled in the lands beyond theriver.17) There followed a long period of peace.18) The Langobards, lulled into a false security, werecaught unawares by the Vulgares in a night attack;the Vulgares slew Agelmund and carried off hisdaughter into captivity.

7Waitz, pp. 54 ff.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.19) The Langobardseventually recoveredfrom the disaster.20) They chose Lamissio as their king.21) He entered upon a campaign against the Vulgares.22) In the first battle the Langobards were put to flight,and sought refuge in their camp.23) There Lamissio, by a fiery speech, restored theircourage.24) Led by Lamissio, they attacked the Vulgares, and over-threw them; the campaign thus ended with a second

battle as successful as the first had been disastrous.25) From this time on the Langobardswere bolder in war-making.26) Lamissio died, and was succeededby Leth, who reignednearly 40 years.The story as we have it in Paulus is obviously the saga ofLamicho; the other charactersare subordinatedto him through-out. In considering the saga we may as well begin at the begin-ning, i. e., with the birth story. The story belongs to a typewhich J. Grimm long ago sketched for us:

Sichersten aufschlusz gewihrt uns also der mythus vonden Welfen. . . . Die an manchen orten auftauchende sagemeldet von drei, sieben, zwilf auf einmal gebornen knab-lein, die, weil sich ihre mutter fiirchtete, oder eine bSseschwieger es veranstaltete, ausgetragen und ersauft werdensollten, durch dazwischenkunft des vaters aber, dem mansie fur blinde welfer angab, zur rechten stunde gerettetwurden. Hiernach empfangen sie den namen Welfe,Hunde oder Eitelwelfe, Eitelhunde und werden stammherrnberiihmter geschlechter. Auch die abweichung kommt vor,dasz man die neugebornen drillinge dem priester spottischals hunde oder welfe zur taufe dargetragen habe.8

Paulus departs from this sketch in more than one particular,it is true. Thus, his Agelmund is not stated to be the father ofLamicho. But here the Origo gives us an indication that Paulushas omitted something, for it tells us that Lamicho, likeAgelmund, was a Guging, and from this we may reasonably8 Gesch. d. deut. Spr. (4th ed.) II 395. Cf. R. Much, ZfdA LXII 121 f.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.infer that the author took the two kings for blood kinsmen,perhaps father and son as in Grimm. Again, when Paulus tellsus that Agelmund rescued only one of the hapless brood, he maybe reporting an old and legitimate variant of the tale. Hedeparts entirely from Grimm's model, however, in the etymologywhich he gives for the hero's name. He derives Lamissio froma Langobardish lama 'fish-pond,' whereas the name ought tomean ' whelp ' or ' dog' to accord with Grimm's type. Paulus'setymology, though rejected by Mommsen9 on the ground thatlama is an Italian word, is accepted by Bruckner, who defendsthe Germanicism of lama.0 But we shall soon see that thisword, whatever its provenience,has nothing to do with the hero'sname. Paulus's is only a popular etymology, of course, and hasno authority. Let us begin, then, with the evidence, not withPaulus's etymological conjectures.The name occurs in a variety of forms: Laiamicho, Lamicho,Lamissio, Lamisio. But the last three are phonetically identi-cal, as ch, ssi, si are merely various ways of writing the samesound, viz., the sound of ch in Germanwords like ich.ll We mayconfine ourselves,then, to the first two forms, both of which occurin our oldest and hence most authoritative monument, the Origo.Of the two readings, Waitz puts Laiamicho into the text. Thereading Lamicho, however, in view of its support in the Historia,must also be taken into account. Our problem is that of recon-ciling the two readings. This cannot be done by starting fromPaulus's lama. Such a method of reconciliation amounts tothrowing Laiamicho, the better reading, out of court, and basingthe etymology exclusively on the one reading Lamicho. A truereconciliation can be effected in only one way. Laiamicho mustbe regarded as the earlier, Lamicho as the later form. Thephonetic change involved is the loss of the semi-vowel j inintervocalic position. In Old High German an intervocalic jis preserved not infrequently, if the preceding vowel is long; ittended to vanish even in this position, however. There is someevidence that a similar situation existed in Langobardish, which,after all, is in many important respects a High Germandialect.12

9 Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fur iltere deutsche GeschichtskwndeV 68.10 Bruckner,pp. 44, 275. 1 Bruckner,p. 156. la Bruckner,p. 135.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.We may thus postulate a long vowel before the j and a sound-change Lajamicho > Larmicho. But the Germanic lama, if itexisted, had a short stem-vowel,13while the Romanic lama is ofcourse to be excluded in any case. Paulus's etymology, there-fore, cannot be right.What is the true etymology of the name? Ldjamicho seemsto be a diminutive of *Lajamo, formed by the addition of afamiliar suffix, the Langobardish equivalent of English -ca,Icelandic -ki. The name *Ldjamo, in turn, is obviously com-pound; with it may be comparedthe extant Langobardish nameAgimo.14 The two names have in common a second element -mo.The first element of *Ldjamo seems to be an extended base*ld-ja-. What did this base mean? The simple base *ld-probably occurred in West Germanic, in a verb *ldcjan bark,revile '- Gothic laian 'revile.' Cf. Icelandic la 'scold.' Thesame base with suffixal -m appears in Old Icelandic lcimingr' lemming,' which accordingto Torp originally meant 'barker.' 15The extended base, compounded with -m, presumably meantmuch the same thing. The name *Lajamo, then, probablymeans 'barker,' that is, 'dog,' for dogs are the barkers parexcellence. And the extant diminutive form Ldjamicho means'little dog.' We thus have to do here with a nickname; thetrue name of the hero has not survived to us.The imperative of our West Germanic verb *ldjan woulddoubtless be *ldi > *lai. This survives, perhaps, in the OldEnglish ejaculation ld. The New English Dictionary gives noetymology for Id. The editors by their silence seem to agreewith Skeat, who tells us that the word is " a natural interjection,to call attention." But since Skeat compares it with the Latinli-trdre 'to bark,'16 we have some support from him in con-necting ld with a West Germanic *ldjan 'to bark, revile.' Thesemantic development is parallel to that of Modern Englishdamn, which in the imperative has come to be a simple ejacula-tion, almost or quite as meaningless as an Oh The Modern

13 Bruckner, p. 183.14 Bruckner, p. 218.15Nynorsk Etymol. Ordbok sv. Lemende; cf. R. Much, ZfdA LVII 153,and (for IE material) Uhlenbeck, Etymol. Wb. der gotischen Sprachesv. laian.1I W. W. Skeat, An Etymol. Diet. of the English Language sv. lo.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICGO.English lo 'look' is probably not derived from the Old Englishejaculation, in spite of the phonetic correspondence.Is the nickname 'dog' appropriate to a king of the Lango-bards? There can be no doubt of its appropriateness, in viewof the researchesof R. Much, who has made it appear altogetherprobable that the Langobards were the Hundingas (i. e., 'dog'ssons') of Widsith, and that the feud between Wulfings andHundings of which we learn in the Edda was a feud betweenWulfings and Langobards.17 The Northern monuments havegiven us some account of this feud, from the point of view ofthe Wulfings. Paulus, I think, is telling us of the same feudin his story of Lamicho, but he tells the tale, of course, fromthe viewpoint of the Hundings.Paulus gives the name Vulgares to the opponents of theLangobards. This of course means the Bulgars, but Paulus isclearly wrong here, since the Bulgars did not appear in Europeuntil 479 A. D.,18 whereas Agelmund and Lamicho flourishedcirca 400 at latest, as we have seen. When Paulus says Vulgares,then, he is obviously interpreting some other name. In 1889,R. Much took up and elaborated an earlier conjecture of K.Miillenhoff's that Vulgares here stands for the Huns.l1 But wehave no evidence that the Langobards ever waged war with theHuns (much less the Bulgars), and if they ever had, one wouldexpect the Hunnish name to maintain itself in the Langobardishtradition concerning such a war. I wish to venture an entirelydifferent explanation of the Vulgares of Paulus. We know thatthe Wulfings, the 'wolf's sons,' were the great rivals of the Lango-bards in their early history. Now the name Wulfing can be madeinto a contemptuous epithet by putting it into the feminine:*Wulging 'son of a she-wolf.' Compare Icelandic ylgr 'she-wolf' and note the English phrase son of a bitch. If in theLangobardish tradition the name of their opponents had beenhanded down in this contemptuous form, what would Paulusmake of it? Since he wrote in Latin, he would Latinize thename, of course, and since he was writing a history, he would

17 ZfdA LVII 160 f., LXI 109 f., LXII 120 ff.18 Joannes Antiochenus 211. 4 (Frag. Hist. Graecorum edd. C. and T.Muller IV 619i); cf. Hodgkin III 121.19ZfdA XXXIII 9 ff.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.seek to identify the tribe with some tribe whose historical ex-istence was otherwise attested. In other words, he would actmuch as historians act today, when they deal with such mate-rial. Now the name would presumably appear in Langobardishtradition as *Vulgingas, where Vulg- is the base, -ing- the suffixand -as the ending.20 Of all the tribal names which have comedown to us from the early Middle Ages, the name Vulgares, andthat name only, bears any resemblanceto our *Vulgingas. Wemight well expect it of Paulus, then, to make the identification,and to substitute the " pure " Latin form in place of what hewould consider the corrupt popular form Indeed, we may gofurther. Vulgares can be analyzed as Vulg-ar-es. Here baseand ending correspond neatly enough to base and ending of*Vulgingas, while -ar- might readily be identified with theGermanic suffix -(v)aar-, widely used in tribal names, and capa-ble, like -ing-, of interpretation in the vague sense 'people.'-Wemay compare the following story from the Edda: Helgi theWulfing, after doing a little spying at the court of his enemy,king Hunding, takes refuge with his foster-father Hagall. But

Hundingr konungr sendi menn til Hagals at leita Helga.En Helgi matti eigi fortaz annan veg, en t6k klaei ambottarok gekk at mala.21And a little further on, in the verse, Helgi is called Ylfingaman ' maid of the Wulfings.' Evidently the Hundings hadsome excuse for giving to their opponent a feminine epithet.Before entering upon a comparison of the relevant Northernmonuments with the Langobardish story of Lamicho, it is de-sirable to compare these monuments with one another, and toreconstruct, so far as possible, the primitive Scandian versionof the wars between Hunding and Wulfing. In essaying thistask I build, of course, on the researches of many predecessors.I may mention in particular Sophus Bugge's epoch-makingbook, The Home of the Eddie Poems, and Rudolph Much's im-portant essays in vols. LVII and LXI of the Zeitschrift fiirdeutsches Altertum. In the following I will present in a con-tinuous narrative, and in highly condensed form, the material,

20For the ending -as see Bruckner, p. 179.S1 Helgakv,'a Hundingsbana 2.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.the argument and the conclusion. The reader, unless he is athome already in the monuments under discussion, is urged togo to them for the full account; lack of space alone would pre-vent me from reproducing them hereThree characters named ielgi appear in the HelgakcviYur:IHelgi Hj6rvarbsson, Helgi Hundingsbani and Helgi Hadding-jaskati. The last is barely mentioned, however, and we hardlyknow enough about him to take him into account here. Thethree Helgis, and their respective mistresses Svava, Sigrun andKara, are said to be successive incarnations of the same pair oflovers, and are thus identified, after a fashion, by the author(or authors) of the prose parts of the HeigaclviJur. The char-acters in the HelgaAkvi3aHjorvar&ssonar (abbreviated HBUv)that concern us are as follows:

ITmundr SvafnirAtli Eylimi Alfhildr m. Hijorvar3rm. Sigrlinn HlrobmarrSvava Hebinn Helgi AlfrAccording to the story, king IHjrvartr at Glasislundi had threewives; by one of them, Alfhildr, he had a son, HeSinn. Heheard of the beauty of Sigrlinn, daughter of king Svafnir ofSvavaland, and desired her as a fourth wife. He sent his re-tainer Atli, son of Ibmundr, to ask Svafnir for the hand ofSigrlinn. Atli's mission was unsuccessful, however; Svafnirrejected the suit of Hjorvarbr. The king thereupon decided togo himself to Svavaland, accompanied by Atli and, apparently,a force of men. When he arrived he found that another (re-jected) suitor of Sigrlinn's, Hro6tmarr by name, had arrivedbefore him, on the same errand. Hro6marr had killed Svafnirand devastated Svavaland, but since Sigrlinn was well hiddenhe had not found her. Atli found and captured Sigrlinn forhis lord, however, and Hj6rvartr went back home with her intriumph. She bore him a son, Helgi, who fell in love with avallcyrja, Svava, daughter of Eylimi. Svava gave him a sword,and helped him in battle. Helgi, in an expedition to avengethe slaying of his grandfather Svafnir, killed Hro6marr, butwas later killed by HroSmarr's son Alfr. In Helgi's absencehis brother Hetinn, through the curse of a troll-woman, made avow to win for himself Svava, his brother's betrothed. He had

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.hardly made the vow before he repented of it, and, seeking hisbrother out, confided to him what he had done. Helgi, whoknew he was fey, consoled Hetinn, and then went off to hisfatal duel with Alfr. Heeinn swore to avenge Helgi, but weare not informed whether he did so, or whether he finally wonSvava.The persons that concern us in the two HelgakcviJwr und-ingsbana (abbreviated HH 1 and HH 2) are as follows:Sigmundr son of VYlsungr, Sinfjitli Sigmundarson, HelgiSigmundarson by Borghildr; Hogni and his children Sigrun,Bragi, Dagr; Hundingr and his sons Eyjolfr, Alfr, Hjorvartr,Halvartr (and Hemingr); Granmarr and his sons Hobbroddr,Gubmundr, Starkabr. According to the story, Helgi kills kingHundingr of Hundland after certain vicissitudes. He also slaysfour sons of king Hundingr in a second battle, after refusingthem wergeld for their father and thus forcing them to attackhim. According to HH 1 he slays all the sons of Hundingr,but HH 2 mentions a son, Hemingr, who is not reported asslain in either kviJa. He meets the valkyrja Sigrun, who tellshim that her father has pledged her hand to Hobbroddr, andbegs him to save her from this unwelcome suitor. The pairbetroth themselves to each other. A battle follows betweenHelgi and the combined forces of H6gni and the sons of Gran-marr. Helgi wins the fight; :logni, his son Bragi, and all thesons of Granmarr, fall. Helgi later meets his death at thehands of Dagr, who thus avenges the slaying of his fatherHogni.From the prose piece, Frd dauea Sinfjftla, we glean a littlemore information. Besides Sinfjotli himself, the following arementioned in the piece:

Volsungr Eylimi HjalprekrBorghildr m. Sigmundr m. Hjordis m. Alfr.Helgi, HIamundr SigurtrWe learn nothing about Helgi, apart from the names of hisfather and mother, Sigmundr and Borghildr. We are toldthat Sigmundr fell in battle against the sons of Hundingr, andthat his second wife Hjordis thereupon married a certain Alfr,son of Hjalprekr. From the Reginsmal we learn that Lyngvi,

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.son of Hundingr, was the slayer of Sigmundr, and that Si-gurtr avenged his father's death by slaying Lyngvi and hisbrothers.The Sorla[pattr gives us the following genealogical infor-mation: HEeiSrekr ilfhamrHalfdan HjorvartrHogni m. HervSr HjarrandiHildr Hetinn

carried off byFrom other sources we know that HeiSrekr filfhamr (or filf-hebinn) was the son of Gubmundr a Glasisvollum. Halfdanand his son Hogni are represented as kings of Denmark; Hjar-randi, as king of Serkland (i. e., Africa). Hetinn and Hbgniact much like their namesakes in the Helgakcviur, with thedifference, of course, that no Helgi figures in the tale, whichis the familiar story of the HjaTJingavig. This story alsoappears in Snorri,22where the name of Hoigni's kingdom is notgiven, and in Saxo,23who says Hogni was king of Jutland. Tobe compared,further, are Sigubrot IV and V, and the Ynglinga-saga secs. 37 ff. The genealogies there given are as follows:Sogubrot V Ynglingasaga Sogubrot IVHildibrandr HoigniHildir, Hildr Hildir, Hildr m. Granmarr= Granmarr

Hildigunr m. Hjorvarbr Harvarvr ylfingrHildibrandr is king of ReiSgotaland. The Hogni of the Yng-linga rules East Gautland. Granmarr's realm is SuSrmanna-land according to the Ynglinga, East Gautland according toSogubrot IV. Hjorvarbr is represented as a "(sea-king." Hegoes by the epithet Ylfingr, but HildiguSr in her toast, Allirheilir Ylfingar at Hrolfs minni kraka, seems to identify Ylfingsand Skjoldungs. Yet we need not assume that Hjorvarbr wasactually a Skjoldung.24 Granmarr and Hjorvarbr were burnedto death, in their hall, by king Ingjaldr of Sweden, who made

22Skdldskaparmdl cap. 49.28Gesta Dainoum, Book V, ed. Holder, pp. 158 ff.4 See my Literary History of Hamlet, I 104.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.a surprise attack on them one night. According to SogubrotIV, HlarvarFr's son Hj6rmundr eventually became king ofEast Gautland.Saxo identifies Helgi Hundingsbani with Helgi the Danishprince, of the Scylding or Skjoldung race. His opponentHunding appears as son of the Saxon king Syricus. Helgi firstdefeats this Hunding, then challenges him to a duel and slayshim. But Saxo knows also a king of Sweden named Hunding.This king is represented as a close friend of the Danish kingHading. The death of Hunding takes place in a curious fashion.False news arrives of the death of Hading. In honor of hisfriend, Hunding prepares a wake, but unluckily falls into a vatof beer and drowns. When Hading hears of this, he hangshimself rather than outlive his friend. Hunding leaves a son,Regner, whose career is strikingly parallel to that of HelgiHundingsbani, as told in the Helgakvicur. In fact, one maygo so far as to say that Regner is simply Helgi under anothername. Regner in turn leaves a son, Hothbrod, who conquersDenmark. But Helgi frees his country from its foreign domi-nation, and in a naval battle defeats and slays Hothbrod.Students of this material are agreed that we must reckonwith at least three distinct tales: the story of Hildr, the storyof Helgi and the story of the Volsungs. The first goes back(since HeBinn seems to have been a Wulfing) to warfare be-tween the Wulfings, who lived in Pomerania, and their neigh-bors to the east, the Rugians, who lived at the mouth of theVistula. The second goes back to warfare between the Wul-fings and their neighbors to the west, the Langobards (of whomthe Heabobards of Beowulf are a branch). The third is aFrankish story that has no proper connexion with either Wul-fings or Hundings. The confusion of these three tales wasprobablydue, in some measure at least, to resemblances in plot,though other factors, of course, were at work as well.

Let us first examine the story of Hildr. Her father is calledHogni everywhere except in Sogubrot V, where his name isHildibrandr. His kingdom is variously located; the localiza-tions may be tabulated thus:Widsith + Jordanes mouth of VistulaSogubrot V ReiBgotaland

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.Saxo JutlandSnorri's Edda not named, but apparently West GautlandYnglingasaga East GautlandSorlapattr Denmark

I have elsewhere shown25 that Reitgotaland was originally theland of the Gauts, but that from a very early date the name wasapplied also to the old home of the Goths by the Vistula. Thesame name was also in use for Jutland; it was brought thitherby the Gauts who settled there after the overthrow of the Gaut-ish kingdom by the Swedes. The localizations listed abovethus hang together perfectly. Hogni properly belonged in theVistula region, whence his localization in Reibgotaland, theonly Germanic kingdom in those parts which survived the mi-gration period. But since the name was often used for Gaut-land and Jutland, Hogni might easily be transferred, by tradi-tion, to either of these regions. And since Jutland was even-tually incorporated in Denmark, its sovereign would be subjectto interpretation as a Danish king. All the localizations arethus easily explicable on a single hypothesis, viz., that Hogni,originally and properly king of the Rugians, came to be thoughtof, in Scandian tradition, as king of the neighboring Reibgota-land.The story of Hildr is told in full only in Saxo, Snorri andthe Sdrlap/dttr. The chief characters are iHSgni, his daughterHildr and Hildr's lover Hetinn. Snorri represents Hebinnas kidnapping Hildr while her father is away from home.Hogni pursues and finally overtakes the pair. They try theirbest to effect a reconciliation with Hogni, but he repulses themharshly and fights it out with HeSinn. The battle lasts allday. During the night Hildr by her magic revives the dead,and the next day the fight is renewed. This continues indefi-nitely, and according to Snorri it will continue to the end ofthe world. Snorri gives a matter-of-fact account, with littlemotivation, though one gathers that Hildr is a willing captive.Saxo and the Sorlapadttrgive essentially the same story, buttheir tone is decidedly different. Saxo makes Hildr and He-tinn fall in love with each other through mere hearsay, before

26 King Alfred's Geats, printed in Modern Language Review XX 1-11.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.their first meeting No kidnapping takes place; in fact, He-tinn is a blameless hero. The blame is put on certain sland-erers, who make Hogni believe that Hetinn seduced his daughterbefore their betrothal. HSgni himself is pictured as an honor-able, even a generous man, although his folly in believing theslanders is emphasized. He is defeated in his first encounterwith Hebinn. In his second (a duel) he wins, but generouslyspares Hebinn's life, out of pity for his youth and beauty. Inhis third encounter with Hebinn, seven years later, he slays hisopponent, but only at the cost of his own life. Saxo mentionsHildr's resuscitation of the dead, and explains that she did thisout of longing for her lover. Great is the contrast betweenSaxo and the S8rlafPdttr. This monument makes HeSinn'sdeeds even more evil than they appear in Snorri. Neverthelesswe are able to sympathize with Hetinn, for he is bewitched.A wicked sorceressgets him into her power by virtue of a magicpotion, and all his evil deeds are really hers. When he is re-leased from the spell, he does what he can to mend matters-but it is too late. Hogni is portrayed very sympathetically.He is just and generous throughout. The friendship betweenHogni and Hebinn is emphasized. They are represented asswearing brotherhood to each other, and the breaking of thisbrotherly relationship is the central tragedy of the saga. He-tinn's murder of Hervor, Hogni's wife, is the crime whichHogni cannot forgive, and for that one can hardly blame him.

It is well known that the Hildr story influenced the authorsof the HelgakviJur, but the extent of its influence was evengreater than has been generally supposed. Let us first examineHEv and see what we find. Here HeSinn appears as brother ofHelgi. Through the arts of a wicked sorceress he is forced tomake a vow to win for himself Helgi's mistress, Svava. As inthe Sorlapadttr,Hebinn repents bitterly as soon as the sorceressremoves her spell, and makes what amends he can. The Helgiof HHv stands for the H6gni of the other story, of course, andSvAva corresponds to Hildr. The situation differs in thatHelgi is the lover, not the father of SvAva,and the plot developsdifferently because Helgi shows himself as eager as HeEinn tobecomereconciled. Nevertheless, Helgi's fight with Alfr may betaken as a substitute for the fight with Hetinn that the paral-

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.lel with the Hildr story demands. Moreover, the half-brother-hood of Helgi and Hetinn is parallel to the sworn brotherhoodof Hoigniand Hetinn. Finally, Svava as a valkyrja has obviouspoints of resemblance to Hildr, who likewise is a woman ofsupernatural powers. The particular version of the Hildr storyused by the author of HHv was obviously a version close to theSorlapacttr.In the HH the influence of the Hildr story is even moreimportant, and here a version close to that of Saxo was used.Hogni appears in person, with a daughter called Sigrun, therepresentative of Hildr. Helgi stands for Hetinn. Hogni isa rather colorless figure in the HH. He is simply the instru-ment of HoSbbroddr,he rival suitor and true villain of thepiece. As in many a story of this kind, the rival is the father'sfavorite, the hero the daughter's. Ho6broddr takes the placeof the slanderers of Saxo, who influenced H6gni to action con-trary to his own interests and to his daughter's wishes. Sigruinreminds one of Saxo's Hildr by her passionate love for Helgi:she loved him before she ever saw him, and she had a passionatelove-scene with him, in the barrow, after his death. Like theSvava of HHv, she is a valkyrja. HEgni and Helgi fight overSigruin much as Hogni and Hetinn fight over Hildr, althoughthe nightly resuscitation of the dead survives only in the sceneat Helgi's barrow. The kidnapping does not appear, any morethan it does in Saxo. Corresponding to the three encountersbetween Hogni and Hebinn, we have (1) the battle of Freka-stein, in which Hogni and his son Bragi are killed by Helgi;(2) the encounter between Helgi and Dagr (son of Hoigni),in which Dagr is spared; (3) the slaying of Helgi by Dagr, someyears later. Here the victory and the generosity have beentransferred from opponent to hero, in the second encounter, andthe HiIgni of Saxo is represented by both Hogni and his sonDagr, but the relationship is astonishingly close nevertheless.Note in particular the lapse of time between the second and thethird encounter, and the emphasis in both Saxo and HH on theevil fruits of generosity. The oath of loyalty which Dagr tookto Helgi is only slightly reminiscent of the brotherhood-in-armsmentioned by Saxo. Perhaps HeSinn swore to be loyal in apre-Saxonian version of the second encounter. In Saxo, Hogni

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.and Hetinn kill each other. In HH, where Hlgni has beensplit up into father and son, Helgi kills the father and is killedby the son.HH 2 does not stand alone in giving Hogni a son. We haveseen that he has a son, Hildir by name, in the Ynglinga, andhis doublet Hildibrandr has a son Hildir in Sogubrot V. Thisfragment is too short to give us much information, but onething is clear: the son, not the father, is to make the troublefor Hildr (although here he will simply be carrying out hisfather's instructions). Similarly, Dagr, not Hogni, is the onewho brings Sigrun to grief, and in so doing he was reluctantlycarrying out what he evidently thought to be his dead father'swishes. In the Ynglinga we find a Hildr Hognadottir who isnot betrothed to Granmarr's son (like Sigrun in HH) butmarried to Granmarrhimself. This gives us a hint as to thecourse of events in Sogubrot V, where Hildir is instructed byhis father to marry Hildr his sister langt i brott. Other con-jectures might be advanced, but the material is too meager togive a good basis for them. Suffice it to say that the story ofHildr seems to have had a considerable growth in directionsonly hinted at in the versions extant.The Granmarrof the HH properly belongs among the dwarfs,or, more accurately, among the elves.26 He is from Svarins-haugr, a hill which according to Snorri 27 was the original homeof certain dwarfs (whom he names). The elves lived inside thehill, be it understood. In the Voluspd this hill is called salarsteinn 28 presumably because of Granmarr's palace inside it.The name Granmarr' beard-famousone' is likewise appropriateto a dwarf or elf; these beings, as is well known, made up fortheir small size by growing inordinately long beards. Thefairy hill or elf-mound is a familiar localization of the earthlyparadise, over which Granmarrno doubt originally ruled. Fur-ther evidence is afforded by Granmarr'srelation to GuSmundr.The two are represented as father and son, and since theirnames alliterate the connexion may be ancient. Now the nameGuJmundr, as Much has amply established, has definite associa-tions with an earthly elysium, the so-called Glasisvellir. Gran-

26 See my discussion, Literary History of Hamlet I 40.27 Gylfaginning XIV. 28 Strophe 14, line 3.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.marr and GuSmundr, then, as father and son, go very appro-priately together. Moreover, we have other indications of aconnexion between Granmarr and the Gubmundings. TheGranmarr of the Ynglingasaga is married to Hildr HSgna-d6ttir. But Hogni's wife was Hervor of the Gubmundingfamily, if we follow the Sorlapa[ttr. Again, Hj6rvarSr ylfingrmarries Granmarr's daughter Hildigutr. But according to theSorlapattr HervSr's father was HjorvarSr, and this HjorvarSrcertainly might have called himself "ylfingr," since his fatherJsby-name was Clfhamr. The various monuments do not agree,obviously, on the nature of the relationships. But just as obvi-ously they do agree on the existence of relationships betweenGranmarr and the Gubmundings. Granmarr cannot have beenboth great-grandfather, father-in-law and grandson-in-law ofHj6rvarSr ylfingr, but the evidence may lead us to concludethat the two were probably related in some wayBut there was another tradition about Granmarr. By virtueof his name he could easily be connected with the Bards(whether Lango- or Hea$o-). What name, indeed, could bemore appropriate for a Bard than 'the beard-famous one'?Granmarr's seat, moreover, Svarinshaugr, is to be located inold Bardish territory.29 It is not surprising, then, to findGranmarr as father to HoSbroddr, the poetic representative ofthe Bards, or to StarkaSr, the famous old Bardish warrior. Butthe presence of Gubmundras the third brother is due to a fusionof the two traditions.Let us now address ourselves to the task of separating thestory of Helgi from the story of the Volsungs. Helgi Hund-ingsbani is represented as son of Sigmundr and Borghildr.But this is obviously wrong. Helgi is no Volsung, and henceis out of place as son of Sigmundr. Likewise Borghildr is noproper mother for Helgi. As a character she belongs in thestory of Sinfjotli and so with the Volsungs, while her name,according to Bugge, is to be derived from the Hildburg of theWolfdietrich saga. Who was Helgi's mother? It has often beenpointed out that Sigrlinn and Hjordis have changed places.Sigrlinn correspondsto the German Sigelint, wife of Sigmundr.

29 See S. Bugge, Home of the Eddic Poems, p. 137.3

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AMERICANJOURYAL OF PHILOLOGY.But if Sigrlinn ought to be wife of Sigmundr and mother ofSigurbr, then presumably Hjordis ought to be wife of Hjor-vartr and mother of Helgi. This of course identifies our twoHelgis at once. And the Eylimi of HHv caa now no longerbe kept apart from Eylimi the father of Hj6rdis. Hence SvAvamust seek a new father, and she finds him in king Svafnir ofSvavaland, where she obviously belongs. But if Much is right,Sigrfn's epithet frd Sefafjollum refers to the land of the Sem-nones, the Svebi par excellence, and Sigrun too comes fromSvavaland. The two valkyrjur thus become identical, like theirlovers the two Helgis. Finally, the Hundings obviously haveno business in the TVlsunga. Their feud is with the Wulfings;more particularly, with Helgi Hundingsbani. They probablymade their way into the story of the Volsungs along with theirvictim Eylimi and his daughter.30 If so, the Hrotmarr thatthe first Helgi killed to avenge his grandfather is probably con-nected with the Hundingr that the second Helgi killed for noreason that is apparent (note that both HroSmarr and Hundingrhave a son Alfr, and that Lyngvi Hundingsson's suit, likeHr6omarr's, is rejected).Helgi's family, then, is that of Hjorvartr at Glasislundi.But this character can hardly be separated from Hjirvartr sonof Hei5rekr uilfhamrand grandson of Gu-mundr a Glasis-vollum. Helgi thus probably inherited his epithet "ylfingr"from his father, who in turn owed it to his father's ability toshift into the shape of a wolf (whence his nickname " l6f-hamr"). The Wulfing tribe presumably got its name fromthis epithet, properly applicable, at first, perhaps, only to mem-bers of the royal family, but easily extended. The royal seat'at the amber grove' or 'on the amber fields' probably pointsto a time when the Wulfings (who lived on the Pomeraniancoast) participated in the amber trade and profited by it. Suchnomenclature, however, could easily be given a mythical inter-pretation, the fields or groves of amber being put in an earthlyparadise, and such an interpretation seems in fact to have beenmade from an early date.

"OFor ylimi as victim of the Hundingssynir,ee the Reginsmlt,strophe15.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.The story of Helgi properly begins with the story of Helgi's

father HjorvarSr alias Sigmundr. Here the point of primaryinterest is the manner of the father's death. From the storyof the Volsungs we learn that Sigmundr, together with hisfather-in-law Eylimi, fell at the hands of Lyngvi son of Hund-ingr. Before the fusion of the Helgasaga with the VYlsunga-saga this story was doubtless told, not of Sigmundr, but ofHjiorvarSr. We may compare the account in the Ynglingasaga,where HjorvarSr ylfingr, together with his father-in-law Gran-marr, fell at the hands of Ingjaldr. This Ingjaldr is identifiedwith the Swedish king of that name, it is true, but from theBeowulf we know that Ingeld is a Bardish royal name, and thestory seems to be a fragment of a version of the wars betweenthe Wulfings and the Hundings (Bards). In HHv Hj6rvarSrhimself escapes, though his father-in-law falls. His safety per-haps grew out of the mythical characteristics which he hadacquired; a ruler of an earthly elysium could hardly be madeto die Bugge has pointed out another factor, viz., the influ-ence of certain Frankish stories on the Northern episode, aninfluence which shifted the emphasis to HjorvarSr's wooing.The primitive form of the episode probably ran somewhat asfollows: King Hj6rvarbr the Wulfing and his father-in-lawEylimi (Granmarr) are slain in battle with the Hundings(Bards), who win a great victory and conquer the whole landof the Wulfings. The leader of the Hundings seems to have hadvarious names in the various versions: Ingjaldr, Hundingr,Hro6marr, Lyngvi, the Hundingssynir. The original kingsbanewas probably Lyngvi, as we shall see.Between the first and second episodes we must suppose aninterval of many years. During this time the hero, Helgi, isgrowing up. From the HH it is clear that Helgi grew up inobscurity. The country was incorporated in the domains of theHundings. Much conjectures that Helgi's mother had falleninto the hands of the Bardish king. Certainly Helgi was inthe power of his enemy throughout his boyhood, as is to be seenfrom the opening of 1H 2. From the statement in the proseof HHv that Helgi sat a haugi one may legitimately infer thatthe hero was given the menial task of minding cattle. The in-ference derives support from the Saxonian story of Regner

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.(= Helgi), for Regner too appears as a herdsboy. One maycite also the following verses from BEH1 (strophe 5):

Eitt var at angri Ylfinga niSok peiri meyju er munut fceddi.These lines look like a fragment of some version in whichHelgi's father was slain by an enemy just after his son's birth(or even before his birth), as Sigmundr was slain in the Vbl-sungasaga. One may conjecture that mother and child fell intothe hands of the conqueror, in whose court Helgi was broughtup as a menial.In the second episode Helgi avenges the slaying of his fatherand his maternal grandfather. Our accounts of his vengeanceare all brief. According to HHv he led an expedition againstHr6omarr and slew him. The Reginsmdl tells us how Si-gurSr (i. e., Helgi) fought a great battle against Lyngvi Hund-ingsson and his brothers, and defeated them. Lyngvi was cap-tured alive, and was put to death by torture (the blood-eaglewas cut on him). In the HH we learn that Helgi killedHundingr, and that later, after refusing wergeld to the Hund-ingssynir, he defeated and slew them in battle. The defeat ofthe Hundings seems to have been decisive. The division of thestruggle into two parts-the slaying of Hundingr and the over-throw of the Hundingssynir-is worthy of special notice.The third episode is devoted to Helgi's rape of Sigrun. Rapeis the right word, for he won the lady by force, willing thoughshe was to become his bride. This episode has been so greatlyaffected by the Hildr story that it is hard to determine its origi-nal form. In view of the presence of Bardish antagonists likeHlibroddr and Starkatr, however, we must conclude that therape was part of the struggle with the Hundings. And ifHelgi killed his bride's father in the original tale, we can under-stand how the Hildr story gained entry: in both tales the bridehas to face the same tragic situation. On the other hand, theromantic motivation (rival suitor, favored by the lady's father;hero favored by the lady) can hardly be primitive, and certainlymust be discarded if the father was originally a Hunding alongwith the hero's other opponents in the rape. Not that we need

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.eliminate love from the primitive story. The herdsboy of KingHundingr may well have fallen in love with the king's daughter,and she with him; certain details in the HelgakviYur seem topoint in that direction, indeed. But the root of the matter isnecessarily the feud between Wulfing and Hunding, and thepresent episode must go back to that feud along with the restof the Helgasaga. The rape of Sigrufn,then, was originally in-cluded in episode two, as given above. Helgi carried off thedaughter of Hundingr as part of his scheme of vengeance. Hisfirst stroke was his slaying of the father and his rape of thedaughter. His second stroke was his overthrow of the sons,who sought in vain to avenge their father's death.The fourth and last episode records the fall of Helgi at thehands of the avenger. This avenger was naturally a son of theking whom Helgi had slain: in HHv, Alfr son of Hr6omarr;in HH 2, Dagr son of Htgni. We have seen that the nameHogni came in through contamination with the Hildr story.The name of Hiogni's avenger, too, is late, as Much has pointedout. Nor have we any evidence that Hro6Ymarr nd Alfr arenames that go back to the primitive form of the tale; they arestock heroic names, with nothing to bind them specifically toour story. The name Lyngvi, on the other hand, is highlycharacteristic and deserves careful examination. I think it canbe equated with the Langobardish Laiamicho. The Northernequivalent of Laiamicho would develop through *Ldim- and*Laim- to *Leimke, whence, with shortening and assimilation,to *Lenke. Since the n of *Lenke was velar, not dental, thenative sprachgefiihl would dictate a (phonetically sound) analy-sis of the name into a stem *Leng- and a diminutive suffix 7ce.Alongside the diminutive *Lenke, then, might readily appearan undiminished *Lenge (where the -e is an ordinary weakending, added to the abstracted stem *Leng-). This *Lengewould be considered the original and proper name, whereas*Lenke would be looked upon as only a diminutive. By a regu-lar phonetic process *Lenge would become *Linge in the fre-quent formula *Lenge Hundingsson, where Hund- was the sig-nificant syllable and consequently would take the main stress.s3

1See A. Heusler, Altislindisches Eleementarbuch3, ? 117.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.Finally, by popular etymology *Linge would be associated withthe word *lingua > lyng ' ling,' whence the extant forms Lyngvi(Reginsmdcl)and Lyngi (Voslsungasaga).If Lyngvi really was the same person as the Lamissio ofPaulus, he surely, in the primitive tale, avenged on Helgi thedeath of his father Hundingr, even as Lamissio avenged on theVulgares the death of his foster-father Agelmund. But inthat case, of course, we must assume that the Northern monu-ments have departed from the original story when they repre-sent Sigurbr as slaying Lyngvi. This point cannot be settleduntil we have returned to Paulus, for a time, and to Paulus,accordingly, let us return. The story which he tells, thoughdoubtless closer to history than that preserved in the North,nevertheless cannot safely be taken as so much gospel. TheAmazons in particular are obviously an interpretatio Romana.We cannot be quite sure what stood in their place in Paulus'ssource, but in view of Helgi's woman's clothes, his feminineepithet Ylfinga man and the valkyrjur who aided him in all hisincarnations, we have a right to suspect that the Amazons weremerely the Wulfings in disguise. Paulus seems to have usedtwo sources in compiling his story of Lamissio. One of thesesources dealt with the youth of the hero, the other with theevents immediately preceding and following Lamissio's acces-sion to the throne. The latter source, so far as we can tell,was essentially historical. The former,however,bears every signof poetic elaboration and modification, and this in the directionof the supernatural. Hence the romantic story of the hero'sbirth, and the equally romantic account of his fight with theleader of the Amazons. The birth story clearly grew out of thehero's name (or rather nickname), which, as we have seen,means ' dog.' Similarly, the Amazons seem to be a poetic modi-fication of the enemies of the Bards. These enemies, the Wul-fings, might be called Wulgings, i. e., she-wolf's sons, or, moresimply, she-wolves. And by a romantic or mythical develop-ment these human she-wolves might be turned into a race ofvalkcyrjuror Amazons. Hence Paulus, while he is followingone source, uses the term Amazons to denote the enemies of theLangobards; when he uses his other source, he calls these same

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.enemies Vulgares. The primitive (as distinguished from thePauline) Langobardish story may therefore be summarized:

1) Agelmund, king of the Langobards (= Hundings),overruns the kingdom of the Wulgings; in the battle whichdecides the issue, Laiamicho, the young son (or foster-son)of Agelmund, slays the king of the Wulgings. The Lango-bards (-=Hundings) hold for many years the lands thusconquered.2) The Wulgings rise unexpectedly, slay Agelmund andtake captive his daughter. They restore the Wulgingkingdom.3) The Langobards (= Hundings), under Laiamicho,later attack the Wulgings, to take vengeance, but are badlydefeated and put to rout.4) Finally, through the efforts of Laiamicho, they arebrought to attack the Wulgings once more, and this timewin a decisive victory.For comparison I offer a summary of the primitive form ofthe Helgasaga:1) The Hundings (= Langobards) overrun the Wulfingkingdom; in the battle which decides the issue, Lyngvi, sonof the Hunding king, kills Hj6rvarbr, king of the Wulfings.The Hundings hold for many years the lands thus con-

quered.2) Eventually Helgi, son of Hjorvarbr, attacks and killsking Hundingr of the Hundings and captures his daughter.He restores the Wulfing kingdom.3) The Hundings, under Lyngvi, later attack Helgi, butare badly beaten and Lyngvi himself is killed.4) Finally Helgi falls at the hands of some son of theking of the Hundings. Thus the Wulfings are finally over-thrown.

The chief difference in the two accounts lies in the fact thatHelgi is represented as slaying Lyngvi, while according to theLangobardish version Laiamicho survives and wins the finalvictory. Here, I think, the Northern account has departed

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.from the primitive story. Otherwise the parallelism is so closethat further discussion is hardly needed.But we have not exhausted our literary material. There isa certain amount of information to be had from the followingpassage in the English poem Widsith:117 Eadwine sohte ic ond Elsan, 2Egelmund ond Hungarond pa wloncan gedryht Wij-Myrginga.Of the names in this passage, Eadwine and ZEgelmund are tobe interpreted with certainty as the English equivalents of theAudoin and Agelmund of Paulus. Likewise the researches ofMuch have made it certain that the name Myrgingas was a by-name of the Langobards,originally used, it would seem, by theirenemies, as a contemptuous epithet, but later dignified into atitle of honor, as so often happens with nicknames.32 I havenothing new to offer on the name Elsa, but I certainly agreewith Chamberswhen he says,33" Coming between Eadwine andEgelmund, Elsa ought to be the name of a Lombard hero." 34There remains Hungar. The name is usually equated with thatof Attila's interpreter Onegesius. This interpreter is known tous from Priscus and from a passage in the Acta Sanctorum.85Priscus calls him 'Ovryatnos and gives him a brother Ko&rTTS.In the Acta Sanctorum his name appears in the (Latinized)Frankish spelling Hunigasius (where the h is unorganic, asoften, if we may judge from the Greek). From the spellingswe may conclude that the third vowel in the interpreter's namewas a long open e. This would be represented in Greekby an -t,of course. Among the Franks the sound would become an a, inaccordancewith the familiar West Germanicsound-change. Theneatness of the correspondencebetween the Greek and Frankishspellings forbids emendation to *Hunagaisus, of course, andprevents us from taking the name to be Germanic. Moreover,the name of the interpreter's brother is not only un-Germanicin itself, but has no formal relation of any kind to the name ofthe interpreter, whether by alliteration or by composition. The

82ZfdA LXII 122 ff., 143 ff.38 Widsith p. 220 note sv.34See my discussion, PMLA XL 798.38 Bibliography in Chambers, Widsith pp. 220 f.

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AGELMUND AND LAMICHO.Germanicism of Onegesius is thus more than doubtful. In myopinion Hodgkin was right in supposing that the interpreter ofAttila was a Hun. The -si- spelling is best interpreted, withHodgkin, as equivalent to Modern English sh, and the name isbest englished as Onegash.But who was Hungar? The position of his name in a passagedevoted to the Langobards gives us a right to look for him inPaulus, and we find him, I think, in Agelmund's successorLamicho. The Bungar of the text I derive phonetically froman earlier *Hundgar 'dog-spear,' 3 and find in the name areflexion of the birth-story of Lamicho. The spear which theking stuck into the fish-pond, and which the infant hero withso opportune an inspiration grasped, here reappears; and as for' dog,' the appositeness of that name is by now sufficiently clear.The English name of the hero thus reflects the circumstances ofhis birth, even more completely than the name which has comedown to us through Langobardish tradition. Naturally both arenicknames, but they will have to do us, since the true name hasnot survived.-Bruckner points out that the birth-story whichPaulus attaches to Lamicho appears in Agnellus attached to theLangobardish king Aistulf or Astolf.37 He explains the transferas due to the first element ast- ' stick' of the king's name; thisname-element was associated with the stick or spear in the story.To this the English form of the name affords a good parallel.When did Agelmund and Lamicho live? We have seen thatthey could not have flourished later than the beginning of thefifth century. But there is nothing to prevent us from makingthem much earlier. Between the dynasties of the Gugings andthe Lethings a long series of kings may have reigned, for aughtwe know. Paulus and his sources may have closed the gap with-out warning us of the fact, or they may have said nothingbecause, like us, they knew nothing. The first king of theLangobards, and his immediate successor,were clearly famous instory, and their names and deeds were preserved in memory.But a long line of inglorious kings may have followed, whosevery names perished. Indeed, in Elsa we probably have a king

86FortheOE ossof d between andg, seeK. Btilbring,AltenmgUschesElementarbuch ? 533.7 Bruckner, pp. 23 f. and p. 337.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.rememberedamong the English but forgotten by his own people.And surely his was not the only name that tradition failed topreserve.For our chronology, then, we must turn elsewhere. And infact we find a clue in the Northern monuments. These representthe wars between Hunding and Wulfing as taking place on theBaltic and its hinterland. We must therefore conclude that thehistorical events out of which the stories grew took place beforethe southward migration of the Langobards. The date of thismigration is itself a matter of dispute, and into this dispute itis not my purpose to enter. But if it took place in the latterhalf of the second century, as it may have done,38 hen the storyof Agelmund and Lamicho is an old story indeed, perhaps theoldest that has come down to us from Germanicantiquity.

KEMP MALONE.JOHIs HOPmInsUNIVsBITY.

38 See Hodgkin V 88 f.

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