SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

32 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
to its very core. The much discussed word heptisax
loses much of its importance, because it may have
belonged to an older stratum, not affected by Celtic
influences. At any rate it may appear from a poem such
as Beowulf, that an Anglo-Saxon poet, because he was born
on originally British soil, feels and reacts in a way different
from his kinsmen on the Continent.
But this was not the starting-point of my discussion.
I wished to know if Celtic influences are to be found in
the plot or the motifs of a tale in Germanic literature.
A case in point seems to me the story of Siegfried. This
may seem at first sight rather startling, for we are
accustomed to consider this heroic tale as a typical
example of Germanic epic poetry. Still a careful
examination of the component elements of Siegfried's
story leads us to the conclusion that it has several
motifs rather extraneous to the common Germanic heroic
tradition but which at the same time betray astonishing
analogies with Irish ones. Let us take some of these
cases, which may be culled as well from the Germanic
sources as from the Scandinavian (Edda as well as
V blsung« saga). Siegfried puts the sword that the dwarf
has forged for him to the test, by cutting with its edge
a tuft of wool floating down the Rhine into two pieces.!'
In the Irish literature this motif is often to be found: here
it is usually a hair, by which the test is made.P In
German epic tradition this motif belongs especially to the
tale of Siegfried. To be sure, it is found too in the Low
German tradition of the tale of the smith Velent, but it
seems to me not improbable that this is a loan from the
Siegfried tradition. At any rate the device of putting a
sword to the test by cutting through a tuft of wool
belongs to the region of the Lower Rhine, where since very
11 Cf. Reginsmal, prose after str, I4: Pat var sva hvast, at hann bra !,vi ofan
i Rin ok lit reka ullarlagii fyrir straumi, ok t6k i sundr lagoinn sem ratnit,
12 The motif is to be found in the Togail Bruidne Dd Derga ; it is told of the
sword of Socht mac Fithil (frische Texte III i I99) and even of Cuchulainri's
famous spear in the Acallam na Senorach (frische Texte IV i I94 I. 6986: the
spear is so sharp co tesefad each eorran dib finda a maghaid in tsrotha).