Samson (heroic saga)

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The name of the heroic figure of Samson could from the Celtic name Samo Gnatus descended, which means as much as "conceived in the summer", but on the other hand, as described by Samson's hair style (see. Thidrekssaga ) to the Old Norse form SAMR = blackish, dark, refer to dark gray .

Lore

In the old -west Norse Thidrekssaga and the old Swedish Didriks-Krönikan (Dietrichschronik) , which according to their own statements should go back to German sources, Samson is named as the hero and grandfather of Thidreks af Berne ( Dietrich von Bern of the German heroic saga).

The second chapter of the Blómstrvallasaga, which has been handed down from the 17th century but originated between 1450 and 1550, confirms in its second chapter the information about the sons of Samson, who was Rodgeirr , Jarl over the Salern (i) borg , and his brother, obviously taken from the Thidrek saga Brunsteinn is said to have slain.

In the Faroese Ismal song, Samson is named as his father. After August Raßmann , his protagonist appears derived from the Ermanarich legend.

Regarding the origin of a heroic tradition about Samson, Raßmann also points out that two Old Danish Samson songs, which are closely related in terms of content, and Old Swedish manuscripts derived from them from the 16th and 17th centuries make the Old Low German origin of the heroic figure Samson very likely, who was after the kidnapping of a king's daughter 35 Kills persecutor (Version B), but leaves the king who finally agrees to live. According to the old Swedish version C, Samson also kills his mother, who revealed his secret whereabouts to the king's courtiers.

The knight saga Samsons saga fagra , written at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century at the earliest, names their Samson a son of King Arthur. The oldest manuscripts AM 343a and AM 589b of this tradition date from the 15th century. While the first part of the saga reflects motifs from Lancelot , the second part is more reminiscent of the genre range of Lygisögur - Fornaldarsögur , Icelandic adventure poetry in prehistoric sagas . The Karlamagnús saga also counts a Samson among its characters. Neither tradition, however, shows any convincing parallels to Samson's motives for action after the Thidrek saga.

Friedrich Panzer names no fewer than 50 Samsons (Samsun, Sanses, Sanson) in French epic from Ernest Langlois' reference work on central characters in the Chansons de Geste .

Literary biography

Thidreks saga

Samson's heroic traits are not unlike a robber baron who comes to a woman by means of bride robbery . As the old Swedish tradition reports in its opening chapters, the knight Samson comes from Salerna ( Salerni ) in Appolij . He desires the daughter Hildisvid of the local ruler Jarl Rodgeir and, with her consent, kidnaps her into a forest, where he builds his accommodation. The Jarl pursues Samson with a large contingent, but everyone is killed by him. Later he slew in droves the followers of Rodgeir's brother Brunstein , who has since been made king. He, too, is killed by Samson, who is elected duke in Salerni and finally made king there. At an already graying age, Samson wants to crown his heroic deeds with the conquest of Bern, whose ruler Jarl Elsung he initially blackmailed with bold but rejected claims for tribute . Samson then moves against Bern, which he finally takes over after Elsung's own decapitation by surrendering the Bernese resistance . Subsequently, Samson determined his son Thetmar as the new king of Bern and made his son Aki Duke (Jarl) of Fritila , seat of the Örlung . In his last project of conquest, Samson, accompanied by his son Erminrik , to whom he has long ceded the Spania ("Hispania") area he once conquered, moves against Rome. However, Samson dies on the way there.

progeny

With Hildisvid , Samson has two sons, Erminrik and Thetmar . With a concubine, Samson fathered his third son Ake. Thidrek or Didrik af Bern comes from the connection between Thetmar and Jarl Elsung's daughter Odilia .

The Old-West Norse and Old Swedish manuscripts (information in brackets) name Samson's seven grandchildren:

Erminrik's sons Fidrek ( Frederik ), Reginbald ( Regbald ) and Samson ( Sampson ), Aki's sons Edgeir ( Eggerd ) and Aki ( Ake ) and Thetmar's son Thidrek ( Didrik ). As another grandson of Samson, both traditions (Mb 316 and Sv 267) again indicate a Thetmar ( Detmar ), which, according to narrative chronological contexts and the life cycle of Samson's son of the same name, would have to be attributed to a mistake with a son of Thidreks.

Samson's saga fagra

Samson is one of two children of King Arthur, who ruled England, and his wife Filipia (in other manuscripts Silvya ), the daughter of a Hungarian king. Samson's sister Grega is described as a clever, beautiful and courtly virgin. According to tradition, the strikingly beautiful Samson has an impetuous disposition, but cleverness is one of his personal qualities in need of improvement.

King Arthur takes care of Samson's upbringing with the clever and popular knight Salmon , whose wife Olimpia comes from Britannia (probably French Brittany) and had left rich possessions there at the time. Due to the illness and death of his foster father, Samson returned home to his parents at the age of 13; his devoted foster mother drives back to her property in Britannia .

Samson desires the Irish hostage Valentina , a daughter of King Garland, at his father's court . She returns to Ireland to present Samson's advertisement to her father. Since there is no answer, Samson complains to his father about inaction and therefore goes on a three-year war and booty voyage against Vikings and other foreign peoples with five ships. Valentina , who in the meantime has gone to Britannia with her father , is missing there after repeated attempts at seduction, told in an exceptionally magical way. The Irish king informs Samson of the loss of his daughter, but his odyssey-like search for the king's daughter fails and she is finally declared dead. Samson then woos the daughter Ingina of Jarl Finnlaug from Britannia , where he learns in a fairytale, adventurous solo that Valentina is still alive thanks to the caring actions of his foster mother Olimpia . Since Samson's father and King Garland have in the meantime no longer heard from Samson and Valentina , who has now found him again , her father advertises by mutual agreement for Ingina , has a marriage run with her and finally agrees to Samson and Valentina's marriage.

After the second part of the saga, a story about that coat that, according to the Möttuls saga, is able to reveal the unchastity of its wearer - embedded in the story about a heroic Sigurd as the illegitimate son of King Gudmund zu Glaesisvellir , which is said to be northeast of the Baltic States - is reported in the last chapter of the saga with geographical references about Samson's family:

progeny

Samson's daughter Herborg marries Sigurd , a son of Ulf , the great-grandson of the same name of King Gudmund . This Sigurd rules as Duke (Jarl) over the Franconian Empire. After the death of his brother-in-law Ulf, Samson takes over his kingdom in England. Valtari , the other son of Samson and Valentina , receives the kingdom called Vestfal from his father , marries the daughter Gertrud des Jarls von Brunsuick (Braunschweig) and becomes Jarl von Hollzsetu (Hollstein). Samson's great-grandson Sigurd , son of the second Ulf , who was fathered by Samson's son-in-law Sigurd , is said to have defeated Harald the Bloody and subsequently chosen the daughter of Cecilia of the King of Sicily as his bride.

Geographical and literary historical interpretations

Thidreks saga

Roman fortress in Thon-Samson on the southern edge of the Hesbaye (Haspengau)

According to the southern or Romanesque interpretation of the scenes, Thidreks Bern is supposed to represent Verona on the Adige. The Italian Salerno is assumed for Salerni and Apulia further east for Appolij . However, a northerly and geographically more conclusive action area is also possible. In this respect, Salerno would be the name for a Salian seat , the Appolij region the southern Dutch moorland de Peel . According to the theses on the historical reality of the Thidrek saga by Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg , Samson's original seat is in today's Sauveniere (originally Salvenarias ) in the southwestern Hesbaye . A few kilometers away is a small town that still bears the name Thon-Samson today. From there, Samson conquered the Thidrek saga and according to old Swedish tradition, Bern, which Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg claims to have identified with Bonn . A considerable part of the older German source research already prefers the area around this Rhenish Verona cisalpina as the residence of Dietrich, behind which a Frankish Theodoric in the form of the Merovingian King Theuderich I is supposed to stand compared to an Italian legendary milieu around Theodoric the Great .

Further identifications that are geostrategically conclusive to a Rhine-Franconian spatial image also relate to the conquests of Samson's sons Erminrik and Ake , whose realm the manuscripts z. B. denote with Aumlungaland , Omlungaland and Ørlungaland . In the Middle High German heroic saga Aki and his sons are located as Harlungen in Breisach and the Amelungen assigned to them in research literature are on the one hand historically correct as the ancestors of Theodoric, but on the other hand those Ørlung appear in the northern area as a people between the Amel and the Ahr ; see. also (H) ARLUNGEN in the area of ​​the Roman fort Brisiacum in the area of ​​today's Bad Breisig . In the conquest of Samson and Erminrik against Rome , Ritter-Schaumburg sees the final Frankish conquest of Trier, which was apostrophized as Roma secunda in late Roman times (second half of the 5th century).

reception

Already Peter Erasmus Müller wants for the Samson story in the Thidrekssaga historical parallels to the Norman conquest of southern Italy have recognized. He is succeeded by Wilhelm Müller , who also advocates historical borrowings from the Norman-Italian historiography of the 11th century. Hermann Schneider names the historical Roger of Salerno , ruler of the Principality of Antioch , as a possible namesake for Samson's employer Jarl Rodgeir . However, it contradicts the views of Richard Heinzel , Otto L. Jiriczek and Waldemar Haupt, who assume a reception of Samson from a tradition with Low German and French traits (dated around the year 1200) in apparently adopting Danish heroic songs ( Kämpeviser ). Schneider also rejects the viewpoints of Peter Erasmus and Wilhelm Müller as well as Waldemar Haupt and Friedrich Panzer's view of authoritative narrative allusions to the imperial era of the 12th century and the conquests of Lothar III, regarding historical influences on the saga . on the other hand, refers to the parallels shown by Panzer to Robert Guiskard , the brother of Roger I. As Panzer cites from his studies of Norman historiography in southern Italy, Robert, who is said to have conquered Salerno in a striking way like Samson, was also used for this and last when Duke ruled over Apulia (and Calabria) , not only testifies to his amiability towards the downfall and his powerful voice in the fight against his enemies, but also a major campaign that he undertook at an advanced age after a phase of peace and on which he (on insular Greek soil, cf. the description of Erminrik's empire). According to the Byzantine historian Anna Komnena , Panzer adds to Guiskard's appearance that Guiskard's unusual height and shoulder width as well as his physical beauty are highlighted. Both conquerors are said to have had noticeably long hair and an unusually large beard, but Guiskard's hair color is said to have been blonde. In spite of all this, Schneider appreciates the fundamental gap between the Samson story (“fable”) and Norman-Italian historiography “ so great that it cannot be bridged with the catchphrase  “ poetic stylization ”. "

Using the name given to Rodgeir's brother Brunstein , whose royal rule was seized by Samson, Karl Droege identified the Low German author of the ancestral story about the " powerful self-made man who subordinates everything to the drive to power " in the Soest clergy in the 12th and 13th centuries .

The historian Ernst F. Jung cites a excited by the private research francs historical reception of the Merovingian king Childeric I. for conquering figure Samson, but at the same time has further genealogical identifications, such as by Thidreks father Thetmar with Childeric's son Clovis I return. On the geographical perspective of the 5th century, Jung supplements Wilfried Menghin's publication on childish sword excavations and partial sword finds, particularly at the Thon-Samson fortress.

The name Samson also appears in the Merovingian ruler's genealogy.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Jan de Vries : Old Norse etymological dictionary. 4th edition, Leiden 2000.
    See Geir T. Zoëga: A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic , Oxford 1910: swarthy, blackish .
  2. ↑ See as a translation reference the manuscript edition by Henrik Bertelsen (Hrsg.): Þidriks saga af Bern. 2 vols., Copenhagen 1905–1911.
  3. ↑ See as a translation reference the text edition by Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius (Ed.): Sagan om Didrik af Bern. Stockholm 1850.Samlingar utg.af Svenska Fornskrift-sällskapet booklet 14,15,22 = vol. 10.
  4. ↑ For the dating see also Finnur Jónsson : Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie . 3 vols. Copenhagen 1920–1924.
  5. ↑ August Raßmann: The German heroic legend and their home. Hannover 1857, vol. I, p. 326f and (1857) vol. II, p. 346f. with German text translations.
  6. ↑ Helmut Birkhan (ed.): Two knight sagas. Möttuls saga and Samsons saga fagra. With an introduction and translation by Rudolf Simek , Vienna 1982. See pages 19–39.
  7. ^ Friedrich Panzer: Italian Normans in German heroic saga. Frankfurt 1925. p. 99.
  8. ↑ Ernest Langlois: Table des noms propres de toute nature compris dans les chansons de geste imprimées. Paris 1904. pp. 599f.
  9. ↑ Cf. Die Thidrekssaga or Dietrich von Bern and the Niflungen. Translated by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen . (With comments by Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg.) 2 volumes. Der Leuchter, Reichl, St. Goar 1989. See page 532, second footnote.
  10. ↑ Rudolf Simek reminds Samson's fight with the troll woman under the waterfall of the troll fights of the heroes in the old English town of Beowulf ; see. Translation edition Helmut Birkhan (Ed., See above), p. 34.
  11. ↑ See under Thidrekssaga: Dietrichs Bern as the Rhine-Franconian Verona .
  12. ↑ Peter Erasmus Müller: Sagabibliothek med anm. (...) Volume II, Copenhagen 1818, p. 148.
  13. ↑ Wilhelm Müller: Mythology of the German heroic saga. Heilbronn 1886. pp. 152f.
  14. ↑ Richard Heinzel: About the Ostrogoth hero saga. Meeting reports d. Akad. D. Wiss., Vienna 1889, p. 83.
  15. ↑ Otto L. Jiriczek: Deutsche Heldensagen I. Strassburg 1898, p. 150f.
  16. ↑ Waldemar Haupt: On the Low German Dietrichsage. Palaestra 129, Berlin 1914, p. 164f.
  17. ^ Hermann Schneider: Germanic heroic legend. Volume I (Book I), Berlin / New York 1928–1934 and 1962, pp. 284–286.
  18. ^ Friedrich Panzer: Italian Normans in German heroic saga. Frankfurt 1925. On Samson pp. 1-25.
  19. ↑ The same pp. 285-286.
  20. ^ Fine Erichsen: The story of Thidreks of Bern . Thule-Band 22, Düsseldorf – Köln 1969. See introduction on p. 9.
  21. ↑ Karl Droege: On the history of the Nibelung poetry and the Thidrek saga. In: ZfdA 58 (1921), pp. 1-40. See p. 25.
  22. ↑ Ernst F. Jung: The Nibelungen train through the Bergisches Land. Bergisch Gladbach, Heider 1986, ISBN 3-87314-165-5 . See endnote 9, pp. 101-102.
  23. ↑ Wilfried Menghin: Celts, Romans and Teutons. Archeology and history. Prestel, Munich 1980/81.
  24. ↑ See Gregory of Tours : Historiarum libri decem. V, 22.