Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/367

the various stories in which the hero is slain. The Lay of Kara (Karuljoth) is lost, although, as has been pointed out, parts of the Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II may be remnants of it, but we find the main outlines of the story in the Hromundar saga Greipssonar, whose compilers appear to have known the Karuljoth. In the saga Helgi Haddingjaskati (Helgi the Haddings'-Hero) is protected by the Valkyrie Kara, who flies over him in the form of a swan (note once more the Valkyrie swan-maiden confusion); but in his fight with Hromund he swings his sword so high that he accidentally gives Kara a mortal wound, whereupon Hromund cuts off his head. As this makes the third recorded death of Helgi (once at the hands of Alf, once at those of Dag, and finally in the fight with Hromund), the phenomenon of his rebirth is not surprising. The points of resemblance in all the Helgi stories, including the one told in the lost Karuljoth, are sufficiently striking so that it is impossible not to see in them a common origin, and not to believe that Helgi the son of Hjorvarth, Helgi the son of Sigmund and Helgi the Haddings'-Hero (not to mention various other Helgis who probably figured in songs and stories now lost) were all originally the same Helgi who appears in the early traditions of Denmark.