With it is loosely connected
(_c_) _The Ermanric Cycle_.--The oldest references to this are in Latin
and Anglo-Saxon. The Continental German version in the _Thidreks Saga_
is late, and, like that in the Edda, contaminated with the Sigurd
story, with which it had originally nothing to do.
(_d_) _Helgi_.--This cycle, at least in its present form, is peculiar
to the Scandinavian North.
All the above-named poems are contained in Codex Regius of the Elder
Edda. From other sources we may add other poems which are Eddic, not
Skaldic, in style, in which other heroic cycles are represented. The
great majority of the poems deal with the favourite story of the
Volsungs, which threatens to swamp all the rest; for one hero after
another, Burgundian, Hun, Goth, was absorbed into it. The poems in this
part of the MS. differ far more widely in date and style than do the
mythological ones; many of the Volsung-lays are comparatively late, and
lack the fine simplicity which characterises the older popular poetry.
_Voelund_.--The lay of Voelund, the wonderful smith, the Weland of
the Old English poems and the only Germanic hero who survived for
any considerable time in English popular tradition, stands alone in
its cycle, and is the first heroic poem in the MS. It is in a very
fragmentary state, some of the deficiencies being supplied by short
pieces of prose. There are two motives in the story: the Swan-maids,
and the Vengeance of the Captive Smith.
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