READING HALL

BIOGRAPHY UNIVERSAL LIBRARY

ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS, AND HIS PREDECESSORS

CHAPTER IX

Death of Attila

66. Erroneous statement of Jornandes.

Having returned home, Attila sent an embassy to Marcian to demand tribute, whereupon Apollonius was despatched across the Danube from Constantinople to appease his anger. It does not appear whether he pacified him by gifts at that time, but money was probably paid.

Jornandes states that Attila proceeded afterwards by a different route from that which he had before followed to re-enter Gaul, and again attempt the reduction of the Alans on the Loire; but that Torismond king of the Visigoths was prepared to assist them, and defeated him once more on the same Catalaunian plain, forcing him to return home ingloriously. Notwithstanding the assertion of that writer, who lived in the century next after the events he related, the concurrent testimony of the Roman Chronicles, and the date of Attila’s death make it certain that the story was as false, as it is improbable. It must have originated in the circumstance of king Torismond having succeeded to the throne during the victory of Chalons, which might therefore have been truly said to have been gained first by Theodoric, and after his fall by Torismond; and an interval of time being erroneously placed between the exploits of the father and the son, the same events were supposed to have occurred again at a later period. Gregory of Tours however relates that the Alans themselves were defeated by Torismond not long before his death, which took place in this same year, but he makes no mention of any Huns in Gaul at that period.

67. Death of Attila.

If the life of the Hunnish conqueror had been prolonged many years beyond this time, it appears as certain, as any event that human foresight can anticipate by the consideration of existing things and past experience, that the Roman empires of the West and East must erelong have been reduced to unconditional surrender of their authority, and that, without the intervention of some great and unexpected deliverance, Christianity, which had so lately become the law of the empire, must have been nearly stifled in Europe; but it pleased the Divine wisdom to cut short the life of Attila at the very moment, when the predictions concerning the termination of the Roman power, at the expiration of its 1200th year, seemed about to be accomplished by his elevation to the thrones of both Caesars, and the revelation of Antichrist was expected in his person; and with his life the mighty fabric which he had consolidated was immediately dissolved.

The innumerable offspring of his multifarious concubinage claimed participation in the inheritance of his power. They did not however succeed in wresting it from the children of Creca, who were his lawful successors, but the great warriors amongst his vassal kings were too valiant and preponderant to be long constrained by influence less authoritative, than that of Attila. The Gothic kings threw off the yoke; and Gepidian Arderic, who had been the faithful counselor and companion of Attila, and the bulwark of his authority, struck the fatal blow to that of the young princes, whom he defeated in a great battle near the river Netad, which is not identified, and took possession of all Dacia.

From that moment the ascendancy of the Huns was utterly extinguished. Ellac, the eldest of the princes fell in the battle, and Dengisich and Irnach fled to the shores of the Euxine. In the following year (455) Dengisich having the chief power amongst the Huns, in concert with Irnach, attacked the Goths as refractory vassals, but they were utterly defeated by Walamir, and a small remnant escaped to the strong defenses called Hunniwar in Pannonia. Irnach fled into Asia to a part of the Hunnish dominions called lesser Scythia, and his subsequent career was too insignificant to have been recorded.

Odoacer, who was destined to put an end to the Roman empire in the West a few years after, was a person of no great distinction in the Hunnish court at the time of the death of Attila; and Theodoric, soon afterwards king of Italy, was born from a concubine of one of the Gothic kings two years after his death nearly on the day of the victory gained over the Huns by Walamir. The account of a cotemporary writer preserved by Photius, states that he was the son of Walamir, who had prognosticated the future greatness of his son, by the emission of sparks from his body, a phenomenon by which the horse of Tiberius and the ass of Severus, (probably Libius Severus) are said by him to have presignated the elevation of their riders. Malchus and some other writers call him the son of Theodemir. Gibbon has followed the latter, and does not appear to have known the doubt which exists on the subject. A coin of Theodoric having the head of Zeno on the reverse, appears to testify, that, like Odoacer, he held the crown of Italy in nominal subordination at least to the Eastern emperor.

68. Nibelungenlied.

The particulars of the death of Attila are involved in considerable obscurity. The chronicler Marcellinus, who wrote in the next century, asserts that he was murdered by a concubine, suborned by the patrician Aetius, and indeed it is difficult to believe that any great act of political villainy should have been committed at that time without the privity of that unprincipled statesman. Jornandes cites from the lost history of Priscus, that Attila, according to the custom of his nation, (probably meaning only the privilege of its kings) having added to the innumerable multitude of his wives a very beautiful girl called Hildico, which is merely another form of the name Hilda, after indulging in great hilarity at the wedding, lay upon his back oppressed with wine and sleep; that a redundancy of blood, which gushed from his nose, having found a passage into his throat, put an end to his life by suffocation; and that inebriety thus terminated all his glories. This story was doubtless promulgated by his murderers, but is highly improbable, when we consider the great abstemiousness of Attila, recorded by Priscus; and, as marriage was to him a circumstance of very frequent occurrence, it is not likely that he should have departed from his usual habits of sobriety on this occasion.

Sigonius and Callimachiis state the name of the lady to haye been Hildico, but Olaus, Thurocz, and Bonfinius, call her Mycolth, daughter of the king of Bactria, and Ritius varies that name to Muzoth, while Diaconus, the Alexandrine Chronicle, and Johannes Malalas simply call her a Hunnish prostitute, by which opprobrious term the Christian writers would probably have styled any of his subsidiary wives. Johannes Malalas also says that the girl was suspected of having murdered him, but that others assert he was murdered by his sword-bearer at the instigation of Aetius. He is said to have struck his foot painfully, as he entered the bridal chamber, on which, addressing himself, as it was supposed, to the angel of death, he exclaimed, “If it be time, I come”; and on the night of his marriage his favorite horse died suddenly.

The most ancient legends of Germany and Scandinavia are filled with the adventures of Attila, and of the ever memorable Hilda (the Hildico of Jornandes) in a variety of forms, and with much confusion of circumstances and appellations. The celebrated old German lay of the Nibelungians treats of this matter. A great part of the poetical Edda of the Scandinavians is occupied with the detail of these transactions, and the old sagas called Volsunga, Wilkma, and Nifflunga Saga, are records of the same. A careful consideration of the old Scandinavian documents, together with the undeniable evidence of Priscus, that Attila ruled over the Northern islands, makes it pretty clear, that the Danes have no real history previous to the occupation of their territory by Attila, and that most of their ancient traditions are reminiscences of that mighty conqueror, (who was in some respects the Odin of the North, as he was also the Arthur of Great Britain) or at least blended with them.

69. Attila identified with Odin.

In the Heltenbuch we read of the emperor Otnit, certainly meaning Attila, and attributing to him a name almost identical with Odin. Odin or Woden having been worshipped by the Scythian tribes in Asia, and probably being one with the sword-God, of whose type Attila had possessed himself, the name would be naturally bestowed upon Attila by those who acknowledged his divine title. An ancient medallion represents Attila with teraphim or a head upon his breast, and Odin was said to have preserved the head of Mimer cut off which gave oracular responses.

Attila is named Sigurd in several Scandinavian legends; Sigge is a name for Odin, and Sigtun his place of abode, all being connected with the word Sigr, victory. Sigi the son of Odin acquired dominion in France according to the prose Edda, and Volsunga saga says he was king of the Huns. The Edda states also that Sigi’s brother Balldr, who fell by an act of fratricide, (meaning Bleda) ruled in Westphalia. Those statements actually designate Attila, who was looked upon as the son or incarnation of the sword-god, being the only Hun who ever had power in France. It must be borne in mind that, while the oldest Northern legends connect Odin with the Huns, the existence of that nation was unknown in Europe till 78 years before the death of Attila.

The Edda of Snorro states that Hlidskialf was the throne of Odin, and in Atla quida st. 14. the same name is given to the tower or dwelling-place of Attila. That Valhall was the residence of Odin is universally known; the abode of Attila bears that name in the Edda, Atla mal in Gr. st. 14. In the same Edda, in Sigurd. quid. Fafh. 3. st 34, Hilda says that Attila compelled her to marry against her will; and in Brynh. quid, she says that Odin condemned her to involuntary wedlock. In Brynh. quid. 1. st. 14. and in Volospa it is said that Odin conversed with, and obtained responses from the head of Mimer cut off, but, in Wilkina saga c 147, Sigurd, who is unquestionably Attila, kills Mimer. That Odin and his followers were Asiatics, or Asians, as they are styled in the Edda, perfectly accords with the origin of the Huns who had so lately entered Europe; nor does there appear to be the slightest ground for the suggestion of the Danish historian Suhm, that Odin was a person driven out of Asia into the North of Europe by the conquests of Mithridates, except the antiquity which, without proof, he was desirous of giving to the events detailed in the Scandinavian records; whereas it is most probable that no such individual bearing the name of Odin ever existed in the North of Europe, though that opinion may not be palatable to the Danish antiquarians. Attila is called in the Edda the son of Buddla, a name which seems closely connected with Buddha, the Asiatic title of the God Woden or Odin. Buddla is stated in Fundinn Noregur to have conquered Saxony and established himself there, but not to have been himself a Saxon. The exclamation attributed to Attila, “Lo, I am the hammer of the world”,' has evident reference to the Scandinavian hammer of the God Thor; and, as he is identified with the war-god, his sister and wife Hilda is the war-goddess, of the Northern nations.

According to Olaus Magnus, Hother (the same who according to the oldest mythology of the North killed Balder son of Odin, from jealousy, on account of a woman), was set on the throne of Sweden by his brother Attila; and Attila succeeded Hothinus, that is Odin. This Hother, according to Vegtam’s quida (known as the Descent of Odin), in the verse Edda, was brother to Balder, as he is above stated to have been brother to Attila. Hother himself according to Vegtam’s quida was killed by Ali, (sometimes called Vali) who in the old Swedish version is Atle, that is Attila, and in the Latin Atlas, another form of his name, son of Odin and Rinda; therefore all the three were brothers.

I entertain no doubt that this famous tale of fratricide refers to the known murder of Bleda by his brother Attila, with a duplication of the act of fratricide, like that which occurs in all the tales of the murder of Attila himself; the cause assigned for the first act of fratricide being jealousy, for the second, revenge. Olaus Magnus states in his appendix, that Attila hated the Danes so, that he set a dog to reign over them, (which has some reference to the account in the Provencal romance that Attila was himself begotten by a dog, and had canine features) and that he was betrayed by his wife, who robbed him, and fled from him, and conspired with his son against him. In p. 827, we find another Attila king of Sweden, who also conquers the Danes, and dies by murder. Olaus compiled his work from vernacular legends, and in these fables we cannot fail to recognize the reminiscences of the mighty Hun, and his close connection with Odin, and the earliest mythology and story of the north; and they are confirmatory of the fact asserted by Priscus, that he did rule over the maritime countries of the Baltic. But the Scandinavian mythology not only begins with Attila, either, doing the same things that are averred concerning Odin, or called his son, but it also ends with him; for the prose Edda concludes with stating that this Ali, Atle, or Attila (who is stated in c 15. to be the son of Odin, powerful in military valor, and in archery, which was the special weapon of the Huns), is to survive with Vidar the God of silence, after the destruction of all the other Gods, and reign as before upon Ida; that is, that Attila was expected to come again in power, as appears by so many accounts of him both under his own name and the romantic name of Arthur. He is the son of Odin, taken as the sword-god or spirit of war and victory; he is Odin himself, looking to his achievements upon earth. The strange tale of the deception of the Jews in Crete in the reign of Attila, by a person pretending to come in the power of Moses as he did, throws some light on the assertion that Ali or Attila was ultimately to reign on Ida, the Cretan mountain, which was a type of that in Asia.

70. Identified with Sigurd. Scandinavian Fundinn Norregur

In the Scandinavian legends the catastrophe of Attila’s life is told and repeated under different names with some variation. In the first place he appears as the son of Sigmund, possessing a celebrated sword called Gram, and a wonderful grey horse Grana, under the name Sigurd, a Hunnish king, superior to all his contemporaries in martial prowess, the vanquisher of many kings in France, sojourning for some time with the Burgundian monarch, betrothed to and lying with Hilda, surnamed Bryn-hilda, the sister of king Attila, fraudulently giving her up to Gunnar or Gunther, prince of Burgundy, and espousing the daughter of Hilda surnamed Grim or Chrim-Hilda, and murdered at the instigation of the revengeful woman he had forsaken by one of the Burgundian (otherwise called Nibelungian) princes, but not before he had slain one of his assailants, and after his death she burns herself, together with much wealth and many of her slaves. 

He next appears in the same legends as Attila (Atli), son of Buddla, a king victorious over the Saxons near the Rhine, espousing Hilda, surnamed Grim or Chrim-Hilda, the widow of Sigurd, and having not only the same wife, but the same sword Gram and horse Grana, and his wife excites another Burgundian prince to murder him, having previously served up to him at supper her own children by him, after which she attempts to destroy herself. Then she is conveyed to the court of another king who had married her daughter Hilda, called Svan-Hilda, where another catastrophe takes place, a child of the same name as before, Erpur, is killed, and she likewise orders a pile for the purpose of burning herself. The first half of the old German Nibelungenlied relates the adventures of the person called Sigurd by the Scandinavians, under the name Sigfried, his marriage with Chrim-Hilda, and his murder by the revenge of Bryn-Hilda.

The second part relates the marriage of the widow to Attila king of the Huns, her attempts to avenge the death of Sigfried on the Burgundian princes, and her destruction by Theodoric. It is strange that the Danish historian Suhm, although in his chronology he has made these events coincide exactly with the era of Attila, appears never to have suspected, or did not choose to perceive, that the Attila mentioned in the Sagas and Edda was the renowned king of the Huns; nor did it ever occur to him that Sigurd king of the Huns could be no other person. On the contrary, he supposes the Attila there mentioned to have been a petty king over some Huns settled in Groningen. That Attila, brother of Brynhilda and son of Buddla, was Attila king of the Huns is certified by the Nibelungenlied and the copious detail of his adventures in Wilkinga saga; and the Danish editors of the late edition of the tragic Edda are satisfied of that simple fact, though they see no further into the unravelling of their confused traditions concerning him.

That Sigurd the Hunnish king of the Edda and Sagas, the Sigfried of the old German poem, was Attila, appears indisputably from the following considerations:—He had the same wife, the same sword, and the same horse; he was king of the Huns, and the greatest warrior of his age; he was engaged with the Burgundians, partly in alliance and partly in warfare; he vanquished many princes on the French side of the Rhine: all which applies to Attila. He was exactly contemporary with Attila, according to the chronology of those who did not suspect their identity. He was not only married to, but murdered by Hilda, as well as Attila.

It is utterly impossible that such another king should have existed at the same period, and been engaged on the same theatre of action with similar success, and under like circumstances, without coming into collision with him, and that no vestige of such a character should appear in the authentic histories of the times, still less could there have been such another Hunnish king at the same time. His identity with Attila is proved by his renown and achievements, as well as by the catastrophe of his life; and in a still more striking manner by the assertion of Brynhilda in the Edda,  that, if Sigurd had lived a little longer, he would have obtained universal dominion.

In Sinfiotla lok is found another form of the story of Attila. Sinfiotl is the son of Sigmund the Volsungian; he and Gunnar woo the same person, on which account he slays Gunnar, and in his turn is murdered by Borg-Hilda, said there to be sister to Gunnar.

In Oddrunar Gratr there is another version of the tale. Gunnar is surprised in an intrigue with Oddruna, sister of Attila, whereupon Attila puts him to death in a cellar filled with vipers, and has the heart of his brother Hagen cut out. In Oddruna, sister of Attila, intriguing with Gunnar, may be recognized, under another name, Brynhilda, sister of Attila, fraudulently married to him. In Atla mal and Ada quida, Attila is said to have decoyed the Burgundian princes to his court to avenge the death of their sister Brynhilda, who had burnt herself after they had killed Sigurd, to have cut out the heart of Hagen, and thrown Gunnar amongst the vipers, in consequence of which his wife, the sister of Gunnar, killed his children and himself, and tried to commit suicide. In the Nibelungenlied, instead of being decoyed by Attila, they go treacherously, at the instigation of Hilda, to murder Attila, and are put to death as above stated.

Volsunga saga treats fully of the history of Sigurd, and subsequently of Attila; and at the end thereof as well as in Regner Lodbrok's saga, the name of Kraka is given to Aslauga, the daughter of Sigurd, which tallies with that of Kreka, the principal wife of Attila, recorded by Prisons. In Wilkina or Niflunga saga, Attila appears under the name of Sigurd Swein, and the Burgundian father of Gunnar is called Alldrian instead of Giuka. After the death of Sigurd Swein his widow is married to Attila, who being disgusted with her atrocities, permits Theodoric to kill her with the sword in his presence, to prevent her, as he states, from murdering Attila; whereby Sigurd Swein is distinctly identified with Sigurd Sigmundson, and with Sigfried of the Nibelungenlied, whose widow is killed in the same manner by Theodoric. Afterwards a younger Burgundian prince, Alldrian, son of Hagen, entices Attila into a cavern in a lonely mountain, where he discovers to him the amassed wealth of the Nibelungians and of Sigurd, and succeeds in blocking him up in the cavern, and tells him to satiate himself with the riches he had desired. Alldrian then returns to Bryn-Hilda the widow of Gunnar, who had caused the death of Sigurd and receives him with high favor on account of his having slain Attila. This account tallies with that of the enclosure of king Arthur in Mount Etna, where he was supposed to be still living, and from whence he was expected to return and rule once more upon earth. In the same saga the affairs of king Arthur are mixed up with those of Attila, and in an earlier chapter Attila sends a messenger to woo Herka (perhaps the same name as the I Kreka of Priscus, wife of Attila, and called Cerca (by his Latin translators) under the feigned name of Sigurd.

In Saemund’s Edda, Sigurd is called the Southron, agreeing with the appellation of halls of the south given in another passage thereof to the residence of Attila. The legend of Hedin is a confused inversion of the Attilane tragedy. The same enchantress Hilda is the occasion of bloodshed; Hedin, a name nearly identical with Odin, representing Attila, and Hagen, his antagonist, bearing the same name as one of the Burgundian conspirators. The tale is an inversion of the conflict between Attila and the Burgundian princes. That it belongs to Hunnish history, and not merely to the Scandinavian population, is clear, because Saxo Grammaticus says that Hedin fought a battle which lasted three days with the king of the Huns.

The ancient chronology of the Danes respecting the inhabitants of Scandinavia is in a great measure founded upon Fundinn Noregur or Norwegian origins, a genealogical work in the old Scandinavian tongue, evidently written in the reign of Harald Harfager, who first united all Norway under the dominion of an individual (in 888 according to Suhm), for the purpose of showing that through his female ancestors he was descended from all the great families of the North; from Odin, through one line, from Buddla, the father of Attila and Brynhilda through another, from Sigurd through another, from Norr, Gorr, &c. The Danish historians have shown much want of discernment in believing this fabrication. The falsehood of these genealogies, which were forgeries of great political importance to Harald, may be at once demonstrated by the descent from Sigurd, whose death, if he be considered as Attila, took place in 453, and, taken as he is by the Danish historians, is placed a very few years earlier, that is just long enough before to give time for the last events of his life to be acted over again under the name of Attila. Yet the pedigree gives, 1. Sigurd; 2. Aslauga, his daughter by Bryn-Hilda, married to Regner Lodbrok; 3. Sigurd the snake-eyed; 4. Aslauga, his daughter; 5. Sigurd the hart; 6. Ragn-Hilda, mother of Harald Harfager; allowing only five generations for the space of 435 years between the death of Sigurd, taken at the latest period, and the monarchy of Harald, which makes each person in the pedigree 87 years old at the time of the birth of the child that succeeds. Such an absurdity throws complete discredit upon the whole tissue of genealogies, evidently a clumsy fabrication to reconcile the North to the usurpations of Harald, and it strikes at the root of the whole frame of ancient Danish story. 

In a note to a short poem at the end of Helga, I apologised for a supposed confusion in my Icelandic translations between Aslauga, the daughter of Sigurd Sigmundson, surnamed Fafnisbana, who lived in the fifth century, and Aslauga, wife of Regner Lodbrok, daughter of Sigurd Swein, asserted to have lived in the eighth. I now retract that apology, into which I was misled by the disingenuous chronology of Suhm. The Fundinn Noregur distinctly says that the wife of Regner was Aslauga, the child of Brynhilda daughter of Buddla, and of Sigurd Fafnisbana, who lived, by the assent of all writers, in the fifth century, and who was no other than Attila; and Nifflunga Saga, relating his death and the vengeance of Bryn-Hilda, calls the same person by the name of Sigurd Swein. The Danish historian, finding himself thwarted by the gross anachronism in the false pedigree of Harald, attempted to bolster it up by splitting the same individuals into separate persons in different centuries, ringing the changes on the names Sigurd and Aslauga; to such a degree could nationality and a desire to uphold the truth and authenticity of Scandinavian legends warp the understanding, and even apparently the candor, of an antiquarian, whose disquisitions were too minute to allow a probability of his not having suspected the imposture. The story of Regner Lodbrok is a blending of the adventures of the grand­father of king Harald Harfager (a northern sea-rover, killed in the eighth or ninth century by Ella in Northumberland), with some of the celebrated Attilane reminiscences concerning Hilda, Sigurd, and Aslauga, who may have been the younger Hilda; and consequently we read that the sons of Regner, with a great army, proceeded in his lifetime to Luneberg in Saxony, with the intention of marching against Rome, but abandoned the expedition on further consideration, a passage from the life of Attila, ridiculously misapplied to the offspring of a Northern pirate. The name Regner appears to have been Hunnish, for Agathias mentions that Regnar, general of the Goths, who attempted to assassinate Narses, was not a Goth, but of the tribe of Bittores, a Hunnish race. Regner Lodbrok himself is stated to be the son of another Sigurd (Sigurd Ring) and another Hilda (Alf-Hilda), so incessantly are the changes rung upon these feigned names of the sera of Attila. It appears that the poetical Edda had been written long enough before the reign of Harald Harfager for the particulars related in it to have obtained credence, and before the names Dane and Denmark were established in the north of Europe, probably at the close of the sixth century.

71. Result of a comparison of various traditions.

It will be observed that, in all the various versions of the catastrophe which cut short the life of this mighty potentate, a revengeful woman of the name of Hilda bears a conspicuous part; that some false play, by which she was dishonored, seems invariably to be the cause of her virulence, and that the Burgundian family are always mixed up in the transaction, with great confusion between an elder and a younger Hilda. Both Cassiodorus and Prosper Aquitanicus testify in their chronicles the fact that Gundicar or Gunnar, the Burgundian, was slain by the Huns not long after his treaty with Aetius, showing thereby that the later legends have some foundation in reality. The result of these various relations, taking into consideration that Priscus states Attila to have married his daughter Eskam, seems to be, that he, as told of him under the name of Sigurd, had a daughter by his sister Hilda, who is sometimes called Bryn-hilda, sometimes Hilda i bryniu, or the mailed Hilda, described as a warlike woman and enchantress; that he had betrothed himself to her, but not married her, and that he afterwards compelled her against her will to marry the prince of Burgundy; that he subsequently in 448 espoused the younger Hilda, (sometimes called Chrim or Grim Hilda, sometimes Gudruna or divine enchantress, as the other Hilda is also called Oddruna or enchantress of the arrow head) his daughter by his sister, (Brynhilda, sometimes also called Grimhilda) in consequence of which she, the elder Hilda, excited the Burgundian princes to attempt to slay him; but that he put them to death, and was afterwards murdered by a younger prince of that nation at her instigation; that the catastrophe did not take place on the night of his marriage with Hilda, but at a later period and on the occasion of another wedding, though the previous union with Hilda was the cause of his murder. Coupling these particulars with the account of Priscus, that in 448 he wedded his own daughter Eskam, of other historians that he died on the night of his wedding with Mycolth, and of others that Hilda was suspected of having murdered him, it seems not improbable that Eskam was the younger Hilda, his daughter by his sister whom he had compelled to marry the Burgundian, and through whose revenge his murder was effected, with the aid of one of the Burgundian princes, on the night of his marriage with Mycolth in 453; Gunnar, otherwise called Gunther or Gundicar, having been previously excited against him, and slain after an unsuccessful attempt upon his life. It is very probable, that Aetius was privy to the conspiracy, as Marcellinus has positively asserted.

 The Wilkina saga contains the detail of a variety of exploits by Attila, his victory over Osantrix king of Denmark, with his gigantic champions Aspilian and his brothers, his conquest of Russia from Waldemar, and the defeat of Hermanric by his arms, some of which events may perhaps be founded in truth, but they are discredited by the anachronism of introducing as his coadjutor, Theodoric of Verona, meaning Theodoric afterwards king of Italy, who was not born till two years after the death of Attila; but, in this and in various other relations be has been confounded with an earlier Theodoric, or the actions of Theodemir the vassal of Attila have been attributed to Theodoric, who was either his son or his nephew. Hermanric the Ostrogoth had been probably dead before the birth of Attila, and the supposed victories over him, and the alleged cooperation of Theodoric, were perhaps connected with the fabulous account of Attila’s great longevity; but the age of 120 years attributed to him by the Hungarian writers, being that of Moses, seems to have arisen out of the notion that he came in the spirit of Moses, and was in fact alter Moses.

72. Funeral of Attila.

According to the statement of Priscus, as related by Jornandes, the attendants of Attila abstained from entering the bridal chamber for a considerable time, thinking that he was pleased to lie late; but at length, after calling loudly in vain, having forced the door they found him dead, and the girl, whom he had espoused, dejected and weeping under the covering of her veil. Thereupon, according to the customary manner of mourning the dead amongst his countrymen, they cicatrized their faces, in order, as the historian says, that he might be bewailed by the blood of men, and not by the tears of women. A silken tent was pitched in the open plain, and there his body was borne and lay for some time in state; while the most distinguished of the Hunnish cavalry careered around him, in the manner customary at the games or tournaments of the Roman circus, in which the horsemen used to be divided into four parties clothed with uniforms of different colors, and they chanted during their evolutions his praise in funereal accents, saying, “Attila, the chief king of the Huns, son of Mundiuc, lord of the bravest nations, endowed with an extent of power unheard of before his time, having alone possessed all the kingdoms of Scythia and Germany, and terrified both empires of the Roman city, having captured or trampled on their towns and having consented to receive an annual tribute, being appeased by entreaties to spare those which were not yet sacked, when he had brought all those things to a prosperous conclusion, ended his life, not by hostile violence or by the treachery of his own people, but in the full enjoyment of the security of his nation, amidst festivities, and without any sense of pain. Who would not esteem such a termination of his life desirable!

After the equestrian exercises had been performed, and the dirge, of which the above substance has been preserved to us, had been chanted, they buried him secretly. He had three several coffins or rather biers, the first decorated with gold, the second with silver, the third with iron, signifying by those symbols that the three metals appertained to so powerful a king; with evident reference to the prophetic monarchies of Daniel, the gold representing the Babylonian, the silver that of the Medes, to both of which he pretended in the title he had assumed, and the iron both the Roman empire, and the deified sword by virtue of which he ruled. He was interred at night, after which a vast heap of spoils was made over his tomb, or rather over his body; and they buried with him arms of his enemies which had been taken in battle, trappings studded with gems, and the banners of various nations.

After this ceremony, the Huns celebrated his funeral rites with profane feasting and wassail, and the supper is said to have been served up in four courses, the first on plate of gold, the second of silver, the third of brass, the fourth of iron, including the third or brazen Macedonian kingdom with the three others which had been before signified; and it is observable that the historians, who have recorded these remarkable facts, do not seem to have had any notion of their apparent mystical intention, and their ignorance of the secret meaning affords strong reason for believing their report.

The slaves by whose labor the grave of the Hunnish monarch was excavated, were put to death as a sacrifice to his manes, and, as Jornandes states, to deter curiosity from prying into and pilfering the wealth which was interred with him; but it is difficult to understand how the place of his interment could be rendered secret, even by murdering the workmen, if the tomb was covered with the spoils of nations, and it is most probable that the spoils were all buried and laid over the site of the body, and not over the tomb externally. With like view to secrecy and security, the body of Alaric had been deposited under the bed of the river Busentinus. The Hungarian writers say that Attila was buried near Kaiazo or Cheveshusa (a Hunnish word of Teutonic origin, meaning Cheve’s house) where the Hunnish kings Cheve, Cadica, and Balamber, were entombed.

73. Attila identified with the king Arthur of romance.

 The identity of Attila with the Arthur of romance has been pointed out by the author of Nimrod. It is by no means improbable, that, when the arms of Attila extended themselves successfully over the North of Europe, the Saxon sea-kings, whom he, being unprovided with a maritime force, could not reduce under his dominion, may have removed to England in some measure to avoid his ascendancy; and, although we have no reason to believe that Attila ever sent any military expedition into Great Britain, the Scandinavian legends say that his companion Theodoric sent Herbert his nephew thither to king Arthur, who can be demonstrated to be no other than Attila, to ask for the hand of his daughter Hilda in marriage, but there is a story of fraud wherever the nuptials of Hilda are mentioned, and Herbert in this account draws a frightful picture of Theodoric to disgust her, and marries her himself. It may be surmised, that, as it was natural for the Britons, who were sorely pressed by the Saxons, to apply to the great conqueror of Europe, he may have sent them assurances of his good-will and intention of succoring them hereafter, and have initiated them in his Antichristian pretensions and claim to universal monarchy.

From such secret communications the Druidical free­masonry may have originated; and Olaus Magnus, who styles Arthur king over Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Denmark, and the rest of Europe to the Palus Maeotis, which could not have been predicated of any man except Attila, mentions that he instituted certain families or societies of illustrious men, which seems actually to designate lodges of illuminati. 

The following extract from a MS. by the author of Nimrod, which he has kindly communicated, will preclude the necessity of my entering further into this part of the subject. It seems to me clear that the Arthurian fable is a Druidical location of Attila, as bead of the Antichristian power, in Great Britain. “This topic may be handled to better satisfaction by showing to what real man and actions the unreal Arthur of Britain had reference, and why mortals so widely removed from the era of the lower Western empire, as those who seem to revive in his person, have been raised up, like phantoms, to cross our path in history. 

The Arthur of romance was king in AD 452, and the siege perileux in the centre of the round table, bore an inscription that in that year the seat ought to be filled, and the quest of the Saint Grail achieved; yet Arthur failed of doing either. Bearing that date of romance in mind, we must observe that Arthur was armed with a sword brought to him from heaven, in right of which he was (like a second Orion) called Llaminawg, the sword-bearer. The celestial sword was so interwoven with his life, that, until it was flung into the water, he could not depart from this world for his appointed sojourn in Damalis or Avallon.

 It seems to have contained the divine part of his nature. In Tyran le Blanc we read of Arthur imprisoned in a silken cage, having life, but void of knowledge and discernment, save that he could answer all questions by gazing fixedly upon the naked blade of his sword Excalibur. When that was taken from him, he no longer knew, perceived, or remembered anything. 

That sword was his mind and his memory. Ireland, the Hebrides, Iceland, Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany and France, were conquered by Arthur, according to the accounts given in the Bruts and in Romance; he prevailed over the Roman empire of the West, and (as Leslie bishop of Ross says) over that of the East also. Attila king of the Huns claimed sovereignty over the Scythian and Sarmatic nations in right of the sword of Mars, not a weapon used by that God, but an idol of him, immemorially revered in Scythia, though seldom seen upon earth, of which he boasted himself to be the possessor. Most of the Northern nations seem to have been obedient to his power, and both sections of Constantine’s empire were humbled by his arms into the payment of tribute. Arthur is stated to have passed into Gaul, and gained a great victory in Champagne over the roman general Lucius Tiberius, and was marching on to attack the Roman emperor himself in Italy, (whom Geoflrey ap Arthur calls Leo) when the intrigues of Medrawd the Pict, and Guenever recalled him home, and shortly after destroyed him. The Hun fought a great battle in Champagne against the general Flavius Aetius, and soon after marched against Italy, where he was encountered by pope Leo, and by agreement with him,(but for what private reasons I leave for historians to enquire) returned to his own country. This was in AD 452, the very same year in which the Romantic Arthur should have filled the siege perileux, but did not. A few months completed the life of Attila, by means (as it has been supposed) of an unfaithful wife and foreign or domestic treason.It may be asked, is it possible, that two celestial sword-bearers should have been thought, or even feigned, to spring up, conquer Europe, successfully assail the Roman empire, return home,and perish under circumstances so minutely similar, and a perfect correspondence of date? True it is that the Brutic Arthur bears date considerably later than the Romantic, but it also true that the later date is only a cryptographic expression or cypher to denote the earlier one. Arthur, say the Brute, withdrew to Avallon in AD 542, which three figures are merely an anagram of 452”.—“Of Arthur the sword-bearer it is said that he disappeared mysteriously from the earth, to which he was one day to return; Niebelungenlied speaks of the disappearance of the Hun, as doubting whether he was swallowed up by the earth, concealed in the mountains, or carried off by the Devil; and a Norse saga describes him as being enclosed alive in a hollow mountain, amidst accumulated treasures”.—“Alain Bouchard (Grand Chronique de Bretagne, fol. 53) pretends that one Daniel Dremruz or the Red-visaged, reigned in Little Britain from 689 to 730, carried his arms into Germany, was elected king of the Germans, and proceeded to Pavia, where he married the daughter of the emperor Leo,He returned to Armorica where he was the most powerful monarch of all the West. His title is equivalent to Florid-faced (Gwrid ap Gwrid Glau) an Arthurian title. He is said to have descended from the Earls of Cornwall, Arthur’s native province. Like Arthur he had no real existence; like Attila he ended his career of conquest by an Italian expedition, but did not penetrate beyond the north of Italy, during the reign of an emperor Leo who did not exist at the time mentioned. The circumstances identify him with both Arthur and Attila”.—“In a great lake near Nantes is an island called isle d’Un, meaning Hun, in which is a great stone with a hole in it, under which a giant is said to sleep, who contended against Christianity, represented in the person of St. Martin of Tours; and it is traditional that a virgin is hereafter to put her arm through the hole and raise the stone, and resuscitate the giant and convert him. Martin died before the reign of Attila, but was uncle to St. Patric, his contemporary. The sleeping Hun is evidently Attila, and the legend furnishes another proof of his anti-Christian character, and of his identity with Arthur, abiding in, and expected to return from, the island of Avallon”.

74. Conclusions

 It is much to be regretted that the particulars of the life of this conspicuous man have not been more perfectly preserved, but if we assume from what has been premised, that which I firmly believe, that the mythology and the early history of the North originates in Attila, that the Arthurian legends have like reference to him, and that the Antichristian expectations, which had centered in him, continued to be cherished in the mysticism of romances, giving a tinge to whatever literature did not spring from monastic sources, we cannot fail to perceive how great was the depth and durability of his spiritual influence and machinations, as well as his political power; and we may estimate what would have been the grievous consequences, if his career had not been cut short before he had had time to complete the subjugation of Europe and consolidate his Antichristian empire.

His character may be easily traced from his conduct and achievements. Simple and abstemious in his habits, he gave no cause to the humblest of his followers to look with an evil eye on his exaltation. He was hardy, strong, active, and distinguished in martial exercises; silent and thoughtful in his hours of festivity; his determinations were peremptory, their execution rapid and effectual.

Superstition and terror extended his influence, but the happiness of his subjects, his kindness, justice, and success, gave strength to his authority. He afforded safety to all who were overshadowed by his power, while he threatened certain destruction to all who resisted his dominion, and unrelenting persecution to all who fled from it.

The lamentable state of Europe, at the time of his accession, gives reason to conceive the delight, with which the industrious portion of the nations under his government must have hailed its protection; while the rapidity of his conquests, and the belief that he acted under a divine delegation, ensured to him the enthusiastic confidence of his soldiers. Partial and corrupt administration of the laws, tyrannical and ruinous exactions, inroads of barbarous marauders, wavering and imbecile policy, had annihilated the security of every individual within the limits of the Roman empire; and incessant strife, between the various nations who were pressing upon each other and upon the Romans for subsistence, had spread havoc and starvation without its confines over a large portion of Europe; but, wherever the ascendancy of Attila was established, the scene of bloodshed was immediately removed beyond its boundaries; the wealth, which he snatched by force of arms, or extorted by negotiation, from his opponents, continued to flow into his territory, and its interior presented an unexampled scene of contentment and security.

Attila was perhaps the mightiest of those, who have distinguished themselves for a few brief years on the theatre of earthly glory; and, if he had not been cut short in the plenitude of his strength by an overruling Providence, we have every reason to believe that he must erelong have obtained the undisputed possession of Europe, and neither the Persians of Asia, nor the Vandals of Africa, could have offered any serious opposition to the indefinite extension of his empire. But his personal influence was the magic girdle which held together the immense league that had been cemented under his authority, and the moment his commanding talents were removed by a sudden and unexpected death, the power, which had been a single-handed and resistless weapon in his grasp, appeared too mighty to be wielded by any person of inferior qualifications.

The establishment of his government over the habitable world was inconsistent with the spread of Christianity, and the Almighty will, which had sent him as a scourge on the population of the Roman empire, permitted him not to complete the overthrow of true religion; but annihilated by his decease the great fabric he had constructed, which was immediately dissolved by internal conflict in the absence of his absolute and decisive authority. The mighty one was gathered to his fathers; the power of the Huns, which had shed a baleful and meteorous gleam over the age in which he lived, was speedily obscured; their generation was lost, and their name extinguished; and the historian, after searching amongst the records of time for the imperfect relation of his achievements, is left to conjecture the city of his abode, the manner of his death, the place of his interment, and even the language that he spoke, and in which his decrees had been promulgated from the confines of China to the waters of the German ocean.

THE END.