Rune Poems - House of Dubhros

the Heroic Poems 41
different. Contrast with Waldhere A the corresponding
passages
of Waltharius :
v. 544: In terramque cadens effatur
talia tristis:
"
Obsecro, mi senior, gladio mea colla secentur,
11
Ut quae non merui pacto thalamo sodari
"Nullius alterius patiar consortia carnis "
;
v. 1213: " Dilatus jam finis adest; fuge domne propinqiuint ;
and pitSriks saga, c. 243: Herra, harmr er pat, er Jyu skallt.i.
beriaz vi& .adj. riddara.
1
Rid hcelldr aptr ocfor&a J>inu liui.
Nor is it likely that the grotesque ending of Waltharius
found a place in the English version. Moreover it appears
that Waldhere encountered first Hagena, then Guthhere,
whereas Guntharius and Hagano made a combined attack
upon Waltharius.
It may be advisable to say something on the historical
bearings of the story, discussed at length by Heinzel, Althof,
and Clarke, Sidelights on Teutonic History in the Migration
Period, pp. 209-231.
Aetla (Attila) is of course the great king of the Huns
ob. 453, the flagella Dei, who terrorised Europe for some
twenty years until defeated by
Aetius on the Catalauuian
plains ; cf. Chambers, Widsith, pp. 44-48.
Guthhere (the Gunnarr Gunther of the Old Norse and
Middle High German Nibelung cycles) is the historical king
of the Burgundians, who in the year 411 set up the Emperor
Jovinus and, as a reward for surrendering his puppet, was
allowed to occupy the left bank of the Rhine. For twenty
years he ruled at Worms : then, perhaps under pressure
from the Huns, he invaded Belgic Gaul and was thrown
back by Aetius (435). Two years later he was defeated and
slain by the Huns, and the sorry remnants of his people
took refuge in the modern Burgundy. He is the Gundaharius
of the Lex Burgundionum issued by his successor Gundobad
in 516; cf. Chambers, Widsith, pp. 60-63.
In Waltharius however he is represented as a Frank,
Hiltgunt and Herericus as Burgundians; for, since in the
tenth century Worms was Frankish, Chalon-sur-Sa6ne
Burgundian, Ekkehard applied the political geography o