SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
Friedrich Panzer is the most doughty protagonist of the
fairytale theory, and he is mentioned together with such names as
Kaarle Krohn and Aatti on the one hand, and Axel Olrik on the
other, not forgetting the important work of Max Luthi,
all of whom mark milestones in the investigation of the
fairytale. A chapter is devoted to links between heroic legend
and fairytale, and any genetic connection is rightly discounted.
A clear distinction is made between the fairytale hero and the hero
of heroic legend, and between the difference in time-perspectives
of the two genres, and between the types of audience for whom
each was intended. At the same time, contamination of heroic
legend by the fairytale is shown in examples extending from the
world of Hellas down to that of the Nibelungenlied and of the
Poetic Edda, while an example of influence in the opposite direction
is demonstrated by the Russian fairytale on the theme of the
amazon-like bride won unfairly for her husband by his friend on
both of whom she is later revenged: this is derived from the heroic
Brunhild-Siegfried-Gunther constellation as found in the Nibelungenlied
(not the other way round, as Panzer contended).
F. R. Schroder is certainly the greatest name connected with the
idea of a provenance in myth. A lengthy chapter is devoted to
links between heroic legend and myth, and, in addition to a consideration
of F. R. Schroder's ideas, due attention is also paid to
those of Jan de Vries, Otto Hofler and Karl Hauck. The reader
learns of the theory that a religious rite might be secularised, lose
its timeless significance and be reduced to the level of a single
historical heroic event, with psychologically motivated characters,
or else that an historical event might be felt to reflect in its essence
an archetypal myth and be made in the telling to conform more
closely to the pattern of that myth. Neither Otto Hofler's
application of this latter possibility to Siegfried's slaying of the
dragon and to certain aspects of the legends centering on
Theoderich, nor Karl Hauck's different but in the last analysis not
dissimilar attitude towards the Theoderich material are found
acceptable. The first of the two possibilities is found to be
equally at fault, and attempts to account for e.g. the Eddaic Helgi
lays, the Hildebrandslied and Siegfried's death in this way are
dismissed as vain. The author does however believe that the
story told in Beowulf about Ha-ocyn and Herebeald is in fact
dependent on the myth of the Baldr-Hoor story, although he
refuses (perhaps too readily) to draw any general conclusions from
this undoubted fact.
The upshot of these various considerations is that heroic legend
gradually became infused with mythical elements in Scandinavia
and with fairytale elements on the Continent. Stripped of these