20 The Dolmen-Mounds of Brittany. (January, 
Professor Stephens’s work for the following translation from 
the ‘‘ Elder Edda ;”— 
“The Elder Edda.”—Sigrdrifumdl, verses 33, 34; Ed. 
P. A. Munch. ‘Translation (quoted from the Fore- 
word of Professor Stephens’s ‘‘Old Northern Runic 
Monuments of Scandinavia and England.’) 
Rede ninth rede I thee :— 
rescue the lifeless, 
a-field where-er thou find them ; 
whether sank he on sick bed 
or Sea-dead lieth, 
or was hewn by hungry weapon. 
O’er the breathless body 
a Barrow raise thou, 
hands and head clean washen ; 
comb’d and dried eke 
in his kist fare he, 
and bid him softly slumber. 
The fine picture of raising the grave mound over the folk- 
lord, as found in our noblest English epic, ‘‘ Beowulf.” 
After his awsome kamp (battle) with the fire-drake, which he 
slays, but at the cost of his own life, the dying Weg- 
munding’s last words are :— 
Further on, 
My life-day’s now over. 
Bid my good barons 
to build me a Low— 
fair after fire-heap— 
at the flood-dasht headland. 
A Minne shall it stand there 
to my mates and landsmen, 
high-looming 
on Hroneness. 
so that seafarers 
sithance shall call it 
Biowulf’s * Barrow, 
as their beak-carv’d galleys 
out of hazy distance 
float haughtily by. 
_after some fragmentary lines describing 
Beowulf’s (life-brand) burning of jus body (showing that in- 
cremation was prevalent), the lay tells us :— 
Gan then to make them— 
those Gothic heroes— 
A Low on the lithe, 
lofty and broad, 
by the fearless foam-plougher 
seen far and wide, 
till on the tenth day 
towering stood there 
the battle-chief’s beacon. 
* Beowulf, near end of Fitte 38. 
a 
ee ee eee 
