by Tom Birkett
141
197 Is amlaid atracht Find Fáil,
Is amhlaidh a d’éirigh Fionn Fáil
ocus a ech féin ’na láim,
Agus greim aige ar a each lena láimh,
slán uile et ir chend iss choiss
Bhí go huile slán idir cheann is chois
bái cach anim ’na écmais.
Gan ainimh gan éalang.
201 Lodsam coscíth anfand ass,
Ghluaiseamar linn go tuirseach fann,
tucsam aichne arar neol ass,
Bhí aithne agus eolas na slí againn,
lodmar ciarbo chían iarsain
Ghluaiseamar, cé gurbh fhada ár n-aistear,
cosin t ra ig ic B er ramair.
Go dtí an tráigh ag Bearramhain.
205 Roiarfaiged dín scela,
Iarradh orainn scéala,
ní bái dúin dluig a ṡéna:
Níorbh fhéidir a shéanadh,
“fuarammar”, ar Find, “diar fecht
“Fuaireamar,” arsa Fionn, “ónár dturas
imned ar arn-óigidecht.”
Imní de bharr ár n-aíochta.”
209 ISiat sin dorala rind,
Is iad do tharla romhainn ná
na tri fuatha a hIbarglind,
Na trí ainspioraid a hIubharghleann,
do digail ḟ oirn a sethar,
D’imir díoltas orainn mar gheall ar a siúr,
diarb’ aínm Cullend cræslethan.
Darbh ainm Cuilleann Chraosleathan.
213 Lodsamar ar cuaird selgga
Ghluaiseamar ar cuairt seilge
morthimchell insi Elgga,
Mórthimpeall Inis Ealga,
sirmís mór sliab is mór mag,
Chuardaímis mórán sléibhte agus maighe,
mór n-amreid is mór n-oenach.
Mórán ceantar aimhréidh is mórán aonach.
Oenach. Aonach.
The following Modern English translation of ‘Find and the Phantoms’ by Whitley
Stokes is reprinted from Revue Celtique 7 (1886), 289–307:
1
Today the king went to a fair,
The fair of Liffey with its splendour.
Pleasant it is to every one who goes thither!
Not so is Guaire the Blind.
5
Not “Guaire the Blind” was I called
On the day we went at the king’s cal ,
To the house of Fiachu who wrought valour,
To the fortress over Badammar.
142
Tadhg Ó Síocháin
9
(It was) Oenach Clochair that Find greatened,
And the champions of Ireland on every hil top.
Munstermen from the plain greatened it,
And Fiachu son of Eogan.
13
The champions’ horses were brought, it is known,
And the Munstermen’s horses, into the great contest.
They ran three clear races
On the green of Mairid’s son.
17
A black horse belonging to Dil son of Two-Raids
Was in every game that he played.
Unto the rock over Loch Gair
He won the three prizes of the meeting.
21
Thereafter Fiachu asked the horse
Of the king, of his grandfather:
He promised him a hundred of every (kind of) cattle
To be given to him in recompense.
25
Then the wizard there uttered
A good answer to Eogan’s son:
“Take my blessing: take the horse,
And bestow it for thy honour’s sake”.
29
“There for thee is the black swift horse”
Saith Fiachu to the prince of the champions,
“There is my famous chariot,
And there is a horse for thy charioteer.”
33
There is a sword, the pledge of hundreds,
There is a shield from the lands of Greeks,
There is a spear with a spell of venom,
And my silvern weapons.
37
There for thee are three hounds – fair their colour –
Feirne and Derchaem and Dualath,
With their col ars of yellow gold,
With their chains of white bronze.
41
If thou preferrest to have somewhat
O son of Cumal , O overking!
Thou wilt not go hence without a gift,
O prince of the fierce champions!”
45
Then Find rose up:
Thankful was he to Eogan’s son:
Each blessed the other:
Gal ant was their rising together.
Find and the Phantoms
143
49
Thereafter Find went forward
We went with him, three score hundred,
Unto Cachér, to Cluain-dá-loch,
We all went from the meeting.
53
During three days and three nights – it was a festival –
We all abode in Cachér’s house,
Without lack of ale or food
For the hosts together with their overking.
57
Fifty rings were given him,
Fifty horses and fifty cows:
Find gave the price of his ale
To Cachér son of Caril .
61
Then Find went over Luachair
To the strand at Berramain.
Find rested with Ireland’s champions
Over the bank of the fair-watered lake.
65
Find went to gallop his black horse
On the strand at Berraman.
I and Cailte through wantonness
We raced against him, it was deception.
69
As the king saw (us)
He smites his horse to Tralee,
From Tralee to Lerg Daim glais,
Over Heatherfield and over Findnais.
73
Over Moy-da-eó, over Móin-Cend
Unto Old-yew, over Old-glen,
To the estuary of fair Flesc,
To the pil ars of Crofinn.
77
Over Sruth-Muinne, over Móin Cét,
Over the estuary of Lemain, no falsehood,
From Lemain to Loch Léin,
Both smooth and unsmooth.
81
As to us, we were not slow:
Swift were our leaps,
One of us on his left, one on his right,
There is no deer that we would not overtake.
85
One hand towards Flesc, past the Wood of the Cairn,
Past Mungairit of the son of the Stammering Champion,
Find did not rein in his horse
Till (he came) to the hillock named Bairnech.
144
Tadhg Ó Síocháin
89
As we reached the hillock
It is we that were first at coming to it:
Though we were foremost there
The king’s horse was not very slow.
93
“Night (is) this, end of the day”,
Saith Find himself, no error,
“We three have come hither:
Go forward to seek a huntinglodge [sic]”.
97
To look the king looked forth
At the rock on his left hand,
Till he saw the house with its fire
In the glen before us.
101 Said Find, the prince of the champions:
“There is a house I never saw before!
O Chailte (sic), I never heard of a house
In this glen, though I am knowing”.
105 “We had better go and find out:
There are many things we do not know:
It is a marvel of hospitality, it is better than everything,
&n
bsp; O son of Cumal , O overking!”
109 We three went on to the house,
A night’s journey that was lamentable,
When wailing was found, and scream and cry,
And a household fierce, vehement.
113
A grey giant in front on its floor
Seizes our horses swiftly,
Fastens the door of the house
With iron hooks.
117 “My welcome, O famous Find!”
Saith the giant cruel y:
“(It is) long till thou camest hither,
O son of Cumall of Almain!”
121 We sit on the hard bedrail:
He tends us for one hour:
He flings firewood of elder on his fire:
It almost smothered us with the smoke.
125 A hag abode in the great house
With three heads on her thin neck:
A headless man on the other side,
With one eye (protruding) from his breast.
Find and the Phantoms
145
129 “Make music for the king!”
Saith the giant without sorrow.
“Arise, O folk that are within,
Sing ye a strain for the kingly champion!”
133 Nine bodies arise out of the recess
From the side nearest us,
And nine heads on the other side
On the iron bed-rail.
137 They raise nine harsh shrieks:
They were discordant though uttered together:
The hag replies separately,
And the (headless) trunk answers.
141 Though passing harsh the strain of every one.
Harsher was the strain of the trunk:
What strain of them was not desirable
Save the strain of the one-eyed man?
145 That strain which was sung to us
Would waken the dead out of mould:
It almost broke the bones of our heads:
The concert was not melodious.
149 The giant gets him from us in front,
Lifts on him the fire-wood-axe,
Deftly smites our horses,
Flays, destroys without delaying.
153 “Be silent, O Chailte (sic), as thou art!”
Saith Find himself without falsehood.
“Well for us if he grant (life) to us,
To me and thee and Ossin.”
157 Fifty spits whereon were points
He brought with him of spits of rowan:
He put a joint on each spit separately,
And arranged them by the hearth.
161 Of those not a spit was cooked
When they were taken from the fire.
He brought with him before Find
Raw flesh on spits of rowan.
165 “Take away thy food, O giant!
For I have never devoured raw food.
I will never eat (it) from today till Doom
Because of being foodless for one watch”.
146
Tadhg Ó Síocháin
169 “If thou hast come into our house”,
Saith the giant, “to refuse our food,
It is certain that we shall go against yourselves,
O Cáilte, O Find, O Ossin!”
173 After that we rose up:
We seize our swords hardily:
Each grasps another’s head:
It was an occasion of fighting hand to hand.
177 The fire that lay below is quenched:
Its flame or embers was not clear:
We are driven into a dark black nook,
We three in one place.
181 When we were head to head
And there was no help save Find,
We had been dead, great the deed,
Had it not been for Find alone.
185 We were head to head within
All through the night till morning,
Till the sun lighted up the house
At the time of rising on the morrow.
189 When the sun rose
Each man fal s hither and thither:
A mist fal s into every one’s head
So that he was dead on the spot.
193 For a short time we lay in our rest:
We rise up, and we (are) whole!
There the house is hidden from us:
Every one of the household is hidden.
197 Thus arose Find of Inisfáil,
With his own horse in his hand:
Whole were (we) al , both head and foot:
Every blemish was absent.
201 We fared thence wearily, feebly;
We took our bearings and saw which way we had to go:
We fared, though it was long thereafter,
To the strand by Berramar.
205 They asked of us tidings:
We had no wish to deny it:
“We found”, saith Find, “on our way
Tribulation for our billeting”.
Find and the Phantoms
147
209 Those are they that came against us,
The three Shapes out of Yew-glen,
To take vengeance on us for their sister
Whose name was Cullenn Wide-maw.
213 We went on a hunting round
All about the isle of Elga:
We searched many mountains and many plains,
Many rough places and many fairs.
9
Reawakening Angantýr:
English Translations of an Old Norse Poem from
the Eighteenth Century to the Twenty-first
Hannah Burrows
The Old Norse fornaldarsaga ‘saga of ancient time’ Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks includes a number of stanzas of dialogue between a warrior-maiden, Hervǫr,
and the ghost of her dead father, Angantýr.1 Now often known as Hervarar-
kviða or, in the English-speaking world The Waking of Angantýr, these stanzas gained acclaim as a separate poem, the first to be translated from Old Norse into
English, in 1705.2 Although Hervǫr’s parting words to her father entreat him to
rest peaceful y in his mound, poor Angantýr has since then been revived almost
relentlessly as part of an ongoing interest in the North and its cultural heritage. The poem’s strong female protagonist and supernatural setting have made it particularly
attractive, first within the eighteenth-century burgeoning of interest in northern
antiquity, the sublime and the gothic, and more recently in the context of social and
academic concern with feminism and gender issues,3 and a cultural fascination with
‘Nordic Noir’.
I have translated the stanzas that make up this poem myself, for the Skaldic
Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project, and have worked on them with
contemporary poets for the project Modern Poets on Viking Poetry. In the former initiative, transparency and fidelity to the original are explicit aims; in the latter, literal translations were given to modern poets as inspiration for new cultural
productions, ‘translated’ into their own style and voice. In the past four centuries,
Hervararkviða has appeared in forms that fall at just about every point along this 1 The spellings ‘Hervǫr’ and ‘Angantýr’ are the Old Norse forms normalised to the
early thirteenth century, the likely period of inception of the saga, and are used for general references to the characters. ‘Hervör’ is the later Norse/Icelandic form, while the later English redactors adopted or created a variety of other forms. Specific authors’ usages have been retained when discussing specific texts.
2 Heather O’Donoghue, English Poetry and Old Norse Myth: A History (Oxford, 2014), p. 47.3 For a recent academic example see Miriam Mayburd, ‘“Helzt þóttumk nú heima í millim…”: A Reassessment of Hervör in Light of seiðr’s Supernatural Gender Dynamics’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 129 (2014), 121–64.
Reawakening Angantýr
149
spectrum of possibility. This paper examines the full history of the poem’s life in
English, exploring its versatility through changing literary fashions and the kinds of
‘authenticity’ that matter in these various contexts.
Most of the ‘translations’ considered here are not translations at al , strictly
speaking. Many of the poets and others who worked with the material had little
or no knowledge of Old Norse, working from extant English translations or via
another language such as Swedish or Latin. As such, it is difficult to find adequate
terminology to describe the types of works produced. Already in the seventeenth
century John Dryden (building on predecessors such as John Denham, in turn influ-
enced by French thinking) had ascertained three categories of translation: meta-
phrase (more-or-less literal translation); paraphrase, ‘where the Authour is kept in
view … but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense’, which may also be
‘amplyfied’; and imitation, which takes ‘only some general hints from the Original’.4
I do not adhere closely to these terms in what follows, since they were not created
with the idea of English–English ‘translation’ or reworking in mind. Nonetheless, a
tripartite division of close translation, loose adaptation and new creative product is a useful one to bear in mind. The perceived legitimacy and merit of different types
of ‘translation’ also varies in context: Anna Seward, for instance, clearly values the artistic merit of what she cal s her ‘bold Paraphrase’ above anything more literal.
Early renditions became highly influential in determining what later audiences
thought this and other Norse poems were actual y (literal y) like, leading to close
translations sometimes being criticised for failing to capture the ‘genuine spirit’ of ancient poetry.5 Conversely, with the increasing availability of study resources in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ‘paraphrases’ and creative reworkings all but
died out, only for the internet and other new media to offer a new space for adapta-
tions into the twenty-first century. These issues will be explored in what follows.
The Text
Vaki þú, Angantýr;
vekr þik Hervör,
einga dóttir
ykkr Sváfu.
Selðu mér ór haugi
hvassan mæki,
þann er Svafrlama
slógu dvergar.
(Waken, Angantýr; Hervǫr wakes you, only daughter to you and Sváfa. Give me from
the mound the sharp sword which dwarves forged for Svafrlami.)6
4 Edward Niles Hooker and H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., eds, The Works of John Dryden, 20 vols (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1956–89), I, pp. 114–15. See also David Hopkins, ‘Dryden and his Contemporaries’, in The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, vol. 3: 1660–1790, ed.
