SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Two Renderings of "Waking of Angantyr" 83
[HERVOR. Awake Angantyr, Hervor the only daughter
of thee and Suafu doth awaken thee. Give me out of the
tombe, the hard'nd sword, which the dwarfs made for
Suafurlama. Hervardur, Hiorvardur, Hrani, and
Angantyr, with helmet, and coat of mail, and a sharp
sword, with sheild and accoutrements, and bloody spear,
I wake you all under the roots of trees. Are the sons of
Andgrym, who delighted in mischief, now become dust
and ashes! Can none of Eyvors sons now speak with me,
out of the habitations of the dead! Harvardur, Hiorvardur!
so may you all be within your ribs, as a thing that is
hang'd up to putrifie among insects, unless you deliver
me the sword which the dwarfs made ****and the glorious
belt.
ANGANTYR. Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise
the dead, why dost thou call so? wilt thou run on to thy
own mischief? th[o]u art mad, and out of thy senses, who
art desperatly resolved to waken dead men. I was not
buried either by father or other friends. Two which lived
after me got Tirfing, one of whome is now possessor
thereof.]
The second of these renderings occupies pp. 5-9 of
Odes. By the Rev. Joseph Sterling. London: Printed for
T. Payne, Mews-Court, 1794. This is a quarto pamphlet
of 20 pages, of which pp. 2 (reverse of title), 10 and 20 are
blank. It contains three items, each with its separate
dedication. "Ode from the Hervarar Saga" is dedicated
to the [znd] Earl of Moira, a distinguished Irish peer;
"Ode to Plynlymmon Hill" appropriately enough to
Thomas Johnes, Esq., of Hafod (then occupied on the
translation of Froissart); and "Hymn to Love. From
the Second Book of Oppiari's Cynegeticon" to Mrs
Parkyns; she can be identified with Elizabeth Anne, the
beautiful, witty and wealthy wife of Thomas Boothby
Parkyns who was in 1795 raised to the Irish peerage as
Baron Rancliffe. The introduction (p. 4) shows that
Sterling's version is based on pp. 56 ff. of Hervarar Saga