Skapt mun gnesta, skio ̨ldr mun bresta, sing the Valkyries as they weave their
web of war, ‘shaft shall clash and shield crash’ (Darraðarlióð 3, Edd. min. 59).
Útsteinn challenges the sons of Úlf to battle with these words: ‘Up we must
rise, out we must go, and forcefully strike shields’ (Edd. min. 71 no. 2). When
Hiltibrant and Hadubrant have concluded their dialogue, they discharge their
spears ‘in sharp showers’ (scarpen scurim) and then engage hand to hand:
do stoptû tosamane, staimbort chludun, ‘then they stepped together, the
painted shields resounded’.^94
We met the ‘shower’ or ‘rain’ metaphor in Chapter 2 in connection with
various kennings for descending missiles. It is not restricted to the type of
phrase discussed there. Besides the verse just quoted from the Hildebrandslied,
it can be found in several passages of Old English poetry,^95 as well as in the
Maha ̄bha ̄rata:
tau tu tatra mahes
̇va ̄sau maha ̄ma ̄trau maha ̄rathau
mahata ̄ s ́aravars
̇
en
̇
a parasparam avars
̇
ata ̄m.
Those two great bowmen then, great heroes, great car-warriors,
rained on each other with a great arrow-rain. (MBh. 6. 112. 17)In the Indian epics the clouds of arrows are often represented as obscuring
the sun. Nothing like this occurs in Homer, but Hesiod describes the
Hundred-Handers as ‘over-shading’ the Titans with their bombardment of
three hundred rocks, that is, darkening their sky. There are occasional later
Classical parallels, as well as an earlier Babylonian one.^96
Common to Greek, Indic, and Serbo-Croat epic is the motif that at a
certain stage it becomes difficult for the combatants to see what they are
doing, either from the dust of battle or because of an abnormal darkness
that descends on the battlefield.^97 ‘Son did not recognize father, nor brother
brother’ (MBh. 6. 44. 2 f., 44 f., cf. 55. 37 f., 89. 23); and likewise in D–email’s
(^94) Hildebrandslied 65, translation uncertain; some adopt Wackernagel’s conjecture chlubun,
‘clove’. Cf. also Cath Cairnn Conaill, ed. W. Stokes, ZCP 3 (1901), 208, ‘when edges shall be
against edges | and shields against shields’.
(^95) Elene 117 fla ̄na scu ̄ras, ‘showers of arrows’, cf. Guthlac B 1142. Snorri observes that ‘missiles
are frequently referred to as hail or snowfall or storm’ (Skáldsk. 49).
(^96) MBh. 4. 31. 6, 33. 18, 48. 19, 53. 26, 35; 5. 181. 31; 6. 42. 17, 51. 22, etc.; Rm. 3. 27. 9; Hes. Th.
716, Hdt. 7. 226, [Aesch.] fr. 199, Lucr. 2. 628; V. Pisani, ZDMG 103 (1953), 135 f. = Schmitt
(1968), 166–8; West (1997), 297. In Herodotus it is the Persian archers who are said to blot out
the sun, and Pisani, who overlooked the Hesiod passage, thought that it was a specifically
Indo-Iranian image that the Greeks picked up from Persian ideology.
(^97) Il. 5. 506 f., 16. 567, 17. 366–77 ~ 644–50; MBh. 3. 168. 14; 6. 42. 26, 53. 5, 67. 24; 7. 138;
Salih Ugljanin in SCHS i. 111 and 193, D–email Zogic ́, ibid. 261 f. (translations of texts in SCHS
ii, no. 4. 1634ff., 1646; no. 18. 1164 f.; no. 24. 1296 f.). Babylonian and Assyrian parallels in
West (1997), 212.
480 12. Arms and the Man