SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

The Lay of Attila 19
would have spared of the Huns after their defeat - their
womenfolk - should have been subjected to slavery:
their Amazonian arrogance should have been humbled;
women who normally despised womanly tasks should have
been set to subhuman labour, imposed on serfs only when
beasts were lacking.s" These practised wielders of shields
should now drag the harrow like oxen. In six brief lines
the poet has concentrated Guorun's vision of triumph and
humiliation, sour with hatred and extravagant with
despair.
A third passage comparable with these in intensity is
the description of Gurinin's grisly feasting of the Huns
(stanza 35). Here again the poet's force and economy are
evident, but this time all is explicit. By his use of two
words - skceoao«, nauoug - he ronvey:: the woman's
surexcited haste and strain of mind: she rushed, darted,
to bear them drink. This is not the formal and dignified
giving of the goblet by the queen in due order round the
hall, as in Heorot:
Ymbeode pa ides He!minga
dugupe ond geogope drel ;£ghwylcne,
sincfato sea!de. (beowulf 620 fl.)
Gui5nin's haste seems almost joyful, she is 'bright-faced'
as she serves the wine. The poet gives a new vividness to
what might have been simply a conventional phrase for
'woman', in scirleita, by using it at such a terrible moment.
Her face gleams with triumph, just as, later, when she
strews gold before the servants, she is radiant, gaglbiarta,
'gosling-bright'. The dsemonic mood is on her - she is
afkdr dis - with a fearful strength ot will that is not
human. Here dis is not only the epic title, 'lady',
balancing iofrom, 'princes', next to which it is placed:
dis associates her with supernatural power; she has
become, like the disir, one who controls the fate of men.
Fastidiously - valOi - she selects the delicious morsels
28 Cf. Landndmabok ch, 6, where the serfs of Hjorleifr Hroomarsson , who
possesses only one ox in Iceland, are set to drag the plough.