Orentel's father is called Eigel, king in Trier. In Vilkinasaga we find the archer Egil, Volund's brother, mentioned by the name-variation Eigill. The German Orentel's patron saint is Wieland, that is, Volund. Thus in the Orentel saga as in the Volundarkvida and in Vilkinasaga we find both these names Egil and Volund combined, and we have all the more reason for regarding King Eigel in Trier as identical with the mythological Egil, since the latter, like Orvandel, is a famous archer. Below, I shall demonstrate that the archer Orvandel and the archer Egil actually were identical in the mythology.
But first it may be in order to point out the following circumstances. Tacitus tells us in his _Germania_ (3): "Some people think, however, that Ulysses, too, on his long adventurous journeys was carried into this ocean (the Germanic), and visited the countries of Germany, and that he founded and gave name to Asciburgium, which is situated on the Rhine, and is still an inhabited city; nay, an altar consecrated to Ulysses, with the name of his father Laertes added, is said to have been found there." To determine the precise location of this Asciburgium is not possible. Ptolemy (ii. 11, 28), and after him Marcianus Heracleota (_Peripl._, 2, 36), inform us that an Askiburgon was situated on the Rhine, south of and above the delta of the river. _Tabula Peutingeriana_ locates Asceburgia between Gelduba (Gelb) and Vetera (Xanten). But from the history of Tacitus it appears (iv. 33) that Asciburgium was situated between Neuss and Mainz (Mayence). Read the passage: _Aliis a Novæsio, aliis a Mogontiaco universas copias advenisse credentibus_.
The passage refers to the Roman troops sent to Asciburgium and there attacked--those troops which expected to be relieved from the nearest Roman quarters in the north or south. Its location should accordingly be looked for either on or near that part of the Rhine, which on the east bordered the old archbishopric Trier.
Thus the German Orentel saga locates King Eigel's realm and Orentel's native country in the same regions, where, according to Tacitus' reporter, Ulysses was said to have settled for some time and to have founded a citadel. As is well known, the Romans believed they found traces of the wandering Ulysses in well-nigh all lands, and it was only necessary to hear a strange people mention a far-travelled mythic hero, and he was at once identified either as Ulysses or Hercules. The Teutonic mythology had a hero _à la_ Ulysses in the younger Orentel, Odr-Svipdag-Heremod, whom the Beowulf poem calls "incomparably the most celebrated traveller among mankind" (_wreccena wide mærost ofer wer-theóde_). Mannhardt has already pointed out an episode (Orentel's shipwreck and arrival in Yse's land) which calls to mind the shipwreck of Odysseus and his arrival in the land of the Pheaces. Within the limits which the Svipdag-myth, according to my own investigations, proves itself to have had, other and more conspicuous features common to both, but certainly not borrowed from either, can be pointed out, for instance Svipdag's and Odysseus' descent to the lower world, and the combat in the guise of seals between Heimdal and Loke, which reminds us of the conflict of Menelaos clad in seal-skin with the seal-watcher Proteus (_Odyss._, iv., 404, &c.). Just as there are words in the Aryan languages that in their very form point to a common origin, but not to a borrowing, so there are also myths in the Aryan religions which in their very form reveal their growth from an ancient common Aryan root, but produce no suspicion of their being borrowed. Among these are to be classed those features of the Odysseus and Svipdag myths which resemble each other.