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The Death of Turgesius 49
whom Giraldus Cambrensis got it, as he himself acknowledges."
And, as Chadwick pointed out," practically the
same story is told by Widukind of Corvey in his account
of the early history of the Old Saxons." Here, then, we
have several accounts which include the concealment of
weapons with treacherous intent on an occasion of
feigned friendship. As potential sources of Gerald's
account of how Turgesius was assassinated, they all
have a grave deficiency: they lack the element of disguise
which is found in such distinctive form in the Turgesius
story. In this respect, the Norse PrymskviOa is a
preferable parallel: there Thor, having lost his hammer,
disguises himself as a bride and, accompanied by Loki
disguised as the bride's handmaid, travels to ]Qtunheim,
and, having recovered his hammer, slays Thrym and all
the wedding party. In other respects" however IrrymskviOa
does not strike one as a very likely source of
Gerald's account, even assuming he could have had
access to it."
More satisfactory analogues are to be found in classical
literature. For instance, in an epitome of Aristotle's
treatises on Greek constitutions we read of Promnesus's
son, the tyrant of Cephalonia, that he claimed the ius
primae noctis over all his newly-married subjects. One of
them, Antenor, disguised as a woman and with a sword
hidden under his cloak, gained entry to the tyrant's room
and killed him.I?
• O'Meara's edition, 143; his translation, 53.
• H. Munro Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (1907; 1924 reprint),
39. Cf.]. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (1950), 386, note 24.
7 Widukindi Res Gestae Saxonicae I, 6 (ed. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptorum III (1939), 418-9).
• On the conflicting views as to the date of P1'ymskvioa, see Peter Hallberg's
article in Arki» for nordisk jilologi LXIX (1954), 51 ff., and most recently
R. Kvillerud, 'Nagra anmarkningar till P1'ymskvioa', Arkiu LXXX (1965),
64 ff,
• It is interesting to note that the similarity has been noticed by the Irish
poet, Austin Clarke. His prose romance, The Singing-Men at Casbel (1936)
includes (218-9) an effective combination of the account of the death of
Turgesius (as found in Gerald or in Keating's History) with Thor's adventure
as found in Prymskvioa.
10 Aristotle, fro 611, 64, in V. Rose's edition of the Fragments. Cf. Sophie
Trenkner, The Greek Novella in the Classical Period (1958), 136-7.