I46 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



then Signi told them of her decision to follow her lover to the grave. 

 At a given signal they were to set fire to the palace, then, having made 

 nooses of their garments, they were to hang themselves, thus sharing 

 with their mistress the death of Hagbart. In order to test once more 

 the steadfastness of his loved one, Hagbart begged the hangman to 

 first suspend his mantle from the gallows, that he might have a 

 picture of his death beforehand. The request was granted, and 

 Signi's watchman, believing it to be Hagbart himself, gave the signal 

 to set fire to the building. Hagbart saw the flames and cried out, 

 "The pain of death is naught as compared with the joy that I feel in 

 the fidelity of my beloved. Quick, ye hangmen, seize me, raise me in 

 the air. Sweet it is for me, my Beloved, after thy end to die. Lo, 

 the vow has thou fulfilled, since thou art in death, as in life, my com- 

 panion! Never can our first love die." 



There are no startling conclusions to be drawn from this survey 

 of the saga women. To be noted is, that the treatment of women in 

 the hero-sagas is serious. Nowhere is there anything bordering on 

 lightness. Also, two types, well known to literature, are entirely 

 lacking. There is no victim of a despised love, and no patient 

 Griselda. Dido and Medea, the one dying for a faithless lover, 

 the other living only to wreak vengeance upon one, are without a 

 counterpart among the saga women. Equally out of place in this 

 company would have been the patiently suffering wife. Patience in 

 distress is nowhere lauded as an heroic quality. And meekness under 

 oppression was no more a characteristic for a Germanic saga woman 

 than it is for a twentieth-century heroine. Saintliness had not yet 

 come into fashion. The saga women do, however, include a goodly 

 number of familiar feminine characters, ranging in importance from 

 the mere freothu-webbe of Beowulf to the strongest tragic heroines. 

 Characters of passion and imagination, rather than of intellect, they 

 are, nevertheless, well poised, and courageous to the last degree. 

 To die smiling was the ideal of every Germanic warrior, and the saga 

 heroine went to her death, or to the duty harder than death, with 

 the same brave smile. 



