There is an English version of
_Voelsunga_ by Magnusson and Morris (London, 1870) and a German version
of _Voelsunga_ and _Norna-Gest_ by Edzardi.
_Nibelungenlied_. (Page 11.)
Editions by Bartsch (Leipzig, 1895) and Zarncke (Halle, 1899);
translation into modern German by Simrock.
_Signy and Siggeir_. (Page 13.)
Saxo Grammaticus (Book vii.) tells the story of a Signy, daughter
of Sigar, whose lover Hagbard, after slaying her brothers, wins her
favour. Sigar in vengeance had him strangled on a hill in view of
Signy's windows, and she set fire to her house that she might die
simultaneously with her lover. The antiquity of part at least of this
story is proved by the kenning "Hagbard's collar" for halter, in a
poem probably of the tenth century. On the other hand, a reference
in _Voelsunga Saga_, that "Haki and Hagbard were great and famous
men, yet Sigar carried off their sister, ... and they were slow to
vengeance," shows that there is confusion somewhere. It seems possible
that Hagbard's story has been contaminated with a distorted account
of the Volsung Signy, civilised as usual by Saxo, with an effect of
vulgarity absent from the primitive story.
In a recently published pamphlet by Mr. W.W. Lawrence and
Dr. W.H. Schofield (_The First Riddle of Cynewulf_ and _Signy's
Lament_. Baltimore: The Modern Language Association of America. 1902)
it is suggested that the so-called First Riddle in the Exeter Book
is in reality an Anglo-Saxon translation of a Norse "Complaint"
spoken by the Volsung Signy.
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