SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

The Lay of Attila 15
stantial description again - dynr var {garoi, droslom
of prungit - and longer lines. Gurinin is now the centre
of the drama, and the language becomes close and vivid.
The death-journey of Gunnarr stands out metrically
and stylistically from the surrounding stanzas in a way
that suggests design rather than accident. As Gering
pointed out, the chronology of the action from the
wheeling out of the chariots to Atli's return is in perfect
order in the text as it stands, and it is therefore doubtful
whether any of the stanzas are interpolated.o Nor is
there any feature of metre, word-order or diction that
cannot be paralleled elsewhere in the poem. The fact
that four lines appear to be defective (29/2, 29/5-6, 32/1)
need not discredit the whole sequence.
The formality of style fits well the formality of the
journey itself. It has the appearance of a ritual procession
rather than of a piece of gratuitous brutality on the
part of the Huns. Gunnarr is not roughly flung, bound,
upon a horse, but placed in a chariot. He is drawn in this
chariot, ceremonially, like a sacrificial victim, by a horse
- traditional drawer of the car of the sun that passes
into the world of the dead - to be cast into Myrkheimr,
to the powers of the underworld, which the serpents
embody, into some enclosure or cavern out on the moors,
which men believed to be the entrance to the dark world
of the dead.s" The same link between funeral chariot
and serpents is seen on the Oseberg wagon in the carving
of a man contending with snakes. Atli rides a horse
'with ringing mane', glaummpnom; does this mean that
there were bells, or rattles, adorning his horse's mane?
Jangling metal rattles are found attached to carved
wooden animal heads in the Oseberg grave: they had the
ritual purpose, it is thought, of frightening away evil
22 Sijmons and Gering", ed. cit. 356.
23See O. Nordland, 'Ormegarden', Viking XII (I948), IOI (though I see no
need to suppose that the name Myrkheimr reflects the Christian conception of
Hell); also E. Kuster, Die Schlange in der griechischen Kunst und Religion,
61 f. and passim.