lillllilllil fyxmll Hmwmtg |f fltog 06^ Cornell University Library PT 211.D59 1884 Great epics of rned ' aeval ., 1 G , e ,t™i r !, 3 1924 026 140 727 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026140727 The Great Epics OF MEDIEVAL GERMANY. &n Outline of tfjet'r Contmta anb ^igtorg. BY GEORGE THEODORE JDIPPOLD, Ph.D., INSTRUCTOR IN GERMAN IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1884. Copyright, 188%, By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. ?M WILLIAM F. WARREN, PRESIDENT OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 3Sg Hjj autfjnr. J. /rtf PREFACE. The period of the Middle Ages has been graphi- cally designated by Ludwig Uhland as a night of a thousand years. Yet, as the great poet remarked, this night was illuminated by brilliant stars. It will be our object to cast a glance at some of them, and see how their light shone through the darkness which enshrouded all Europe at that memorable epoch. The very life and soul of nations, and particularly of ancient nations, is expressed in their poetry ; thus, when we attempt to study the very life and soul of Mediaeval Germany, and try to grasp its world of ideas, we must turn to its poetry. As is indicated on the titlepage, only the great epics of Mediaeval Germany will be considered in this volume, and nothing but an outline of their con- tents and history is to be given. Such a sketch ought to be the mirror in which the main features of the subject are faithfully reflected; in fact, in VI PREFACE. whatever manner we may endeavor to call up before our eyes the picture of the past, it is only through a mirror, as it were, that we can behold its living forms. Although no claim is made to present here any- thing like a history of Mediaeval German poetry, it will be found that the subject, as it comes within the scope of the plan announced, has been more fully treated on the following pages than in any work hitherto published in this country or in England. It is believed that the space and consideration de- voted to the poems are in just proportion to their importance. The Introduction is intended to convey merely the most indispensable information in regard to Old German poetry. In the remarks on the Nibe- lungen Lied and on Gudrun, I am of course under general obligations to the works of the great scholars who made a specialty of the subject. Whenever I have been particularly indebted to any one, the fact has been stated in the proper place. It will be suffi- cient here to refer to the well-known names of Lach- mann, the brothers Grimm, Mullenhoff, Zarncke, Bartsch, Easzmann, Simrock, Hermann Fischer, and Heinrich Fischer. In the sketch of the -development of the Arthur Saga I have been under special obliga- tions to the works of San Marte (Schulz), and for PREFACE. Vll a few of the suggestions contained in Parzival, I have availed myself of Simrock's introduction to the poem. The translations in this volume are, unless other- wise stated, my own. It is hoped that the attempt which has been made on the following pages to awaken and strengthen- the interest in Mediaeval German literature will not fail to attain its object. G. T. D. Boston University, Sept. 1, 1882. CONTENTS. Page Introduction xi CHAPTER I. Outline op the Nibelungen Lied. — Past I. . . . 1 CHAPTER II. Outline or the Nibelungen Lied. — Part II. . 24 CHAPTER III. I. The Nlbelung Epics and Sagas in the North. — II. The Lay op Siegfried 48 CHAPTER IV. The Relations between the Northern and the Ger- man Nlbelung Traditions, and the Influence op History on the Saga .... ... 82 CHAPTER V. I. The Mythical Elements op the Nlbelung Story AND THEIR COMBINATION "WITH THE SaGA AND X CONTENTS. Page History. — II. The Lament.— III. The Manu- scripts and Authorship op the Nibelungen Lied. — IV. The Metre. — V. Translations. — VI. Geebel's Brunhild. ....... 117 CHAPTER VI. Gudrun. — Outline op the Poem 159 CHAPTER VII. Outline op the History op " Gudrun " . . . . 191 CHAPTER Vin. Parzital. — I. Sketch op the Development op the Arthur Saga, and its Connection with the Legend op the Holy Grail. — II. Outline op the Poem 219 CHAPTER IX. I. Tristan and Isold. — II. Iweln 259 Notes 291 INTRODUCTION. Nearly four thousand years ago there was dis- played one of the most memorable and interesting scenes in the world's history, — the commencement of the parting scene of a great brotherhood of na- tions, when on the table-lands of Central Asia the common ancestors of the Hindus, Persians, Greeks, Eomans, Kelts, and Slavonians bade each other fare- well. The Hindus pressed forth, under the shadows of the towering Himalaya, through the Penjab into East India ; the Persians moved on in a northwesterly direction ; while the other wave of population rolled in over the continent and islands of Europe. The noblest treasures which these nations carried with them into their new abodes were the songs that had resounded in the green forests and on the wide- stretched pasture-grounds of their former common home, — poems like the Veda hymns, which portray the faithful picture of a primitive race of men who in their unguided aspirations deified and adored the phenomena of the natural world. These songs were the dawn of poetry, emerging from the night of Xll INTRODUCTION. prehistoric darkness ; they were a dim foreboding of the bright sunlight which afterwards broke forth in full splendor in the early epic literature of the Hin- dus, Persians, Greeks, and Teutons, when the ancient mythical elements had been interwoven with the his- tory or saga-lore of world-renowned heroes. Of a character very different from these poems, which are of popular growth, is another class of epic literature which is not based, as it were, on the spontaneous expression of a nation's life, — not the poetic document of popular feeling and tradition, — but is the creation of individual artistic genius. Thus, while the popular poet or the compiler of popu- lar lays disappears behind his work, and is nothing but the guardian of the national treasure, the com- poser of the so-called art-poems takes individual shape in his productions, and often enriches his material with new inventions. The distinction between these two classes of epics is particularly marked in Medi- aeval German poetry, and is therefore commonly em- phasized by German writers, especially by A. Vilmar in his " History of German Literature ; " it has also been adopted by others, — for instance, by Bayard Tay- lor in his excellent " Studies in German Literature." Yet, in spite of the general difference of the two kinds of epic poems, it must be admitted that the distinction does not hold good in every particular, and cannot be carried out too rigidly. Both classes exerted some influence on each other, and the spirit which per- meated Germany during the Middle Ages smoothed somewhat the contrast between them. Again, they INTRODUCTION. XU1 may be said to have a similar origin from the fact that the cultivation and preservation of the ancient traditions was chiefly due to the poets and singers in the retinue of the early German kings, especially dur- ing the fifth and sixth centuries, when the old heroic lays were sung at the royal banquets and on similar occasions, while the so-called art or court poetry (Jtunftyoefte ; £ijfifdje 5)oefte) of a later era, whose chief representatives are Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gott- fried von Strassburg, and Hartmann von Aue, was likewise particularly cherished at the royal courts and at the castles of the nobility. Many of the sing- ers of the old popular lays were at the same time warriors of great renown, and the composers of the art poems belonged chiefly to the lower nobility ; thus both were, generally speaking, of the same rank in the society of their times, and the art epics are in this sense merely a new form of the early heroic poetry. Yet the subject matter of the former was mostly taken from foreign sources, especially from French poems and legends, while the theme of the an- cient lays consisted pre-eminently of national myths and sagas, from which originated afterwards, by the blending of different saga-cycles and by the addition of historical facts, the greatest popular poem of Me- diaeval Germany, — the Mbelungen Lied. Little is known of the very earliest epoch of Ger- man poetry, and this scanty information is derived mainly from the writings of Tacitus. He relates that the Germans celebrated in ancient lays their earth-born god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, the XIV INTRODUCTION. supposed ancestors and founders of their race. In their battle songs they invoked especially their god of war, to whom Tacitus gives the name of Hercules ; and the issue of the contest was surmised from the sounds of the war song, which was called barditus (from Old Norse bardhi, meaning a shield), as by holding the shield near the mouth the sounds reverberated with great force and the warriors were aroused to martial ex- citement. There were also some lays in honor of Ar- minius, the leader of the Cherusci, who freed Germany from the Eoman yoke ; although they have perished, the memory of the great chieftain has been preserved by the Eoman historian, whose race was the inveter- ate enemy of the Germans. According to Jornandes, who wrote about the middle of the sixth century, the Goths had very ancient songs in which the exploits of their early kings and heroes were related. At that almost prehistoric era of Germany there existed also at least the germs for the material of two sagas which afterwards, though greatly transformed, became re- nowned in songs and tales. These are the saga of Siegfried, the Nibelung, and the saga of the wolf and fox, Isengrim and Eeinhart. The condition of the German tribes was deeply affected by the migration of the races and by the introduction of Christianity. The influence of both these agencies, by which Germany was at the same time brought into close connection with the Eoman world, will be considered hereafter, as far as it is ne- cessary for our purpose. In this place it is sufficient to state that the clergy sought to destroy the old INTRODUCTION. XV native poetry, as it took more or less of its inspi- ration and material from the ancient belief of the people. The church was generally aided in these endeavors by the princes and nobles ; yet in spite of their combined efforts it was not possible to eradi- cate at once and entirely the old religion. Many traces of it can be seen even at the present day in the customs and manners as well as in the supersti- tions and festal plays of the common people. It was only after Karl the Great caused the old heroic songs to be collected, that the clergy began to pay some attention to native poetry ; moreover the church- men of the tenth and eleventh centuries reproduced some of the ancient sagas in Latin, as we see from Waltharius and a few other poems of that time. Since the sixth century there is abundant evidence of the existence and development of the great Ger- man hero-sagas. At that epoch there appeared in tradition the famous personages of the Gothic king Herrnanric ; of Dietrich von Bern, the historic Theodoric the Great ; of Siegfried, the Nibelung ; of the Burgundian Gunther ; of Attila, the king of the Huns ; and many other saga-renowned heroes with their champions. Yet, although we know from the historians and chroniclers of that time and from Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic poems, that the deeds of those heroes were celebrated in song, there is but very little in German literature that has been trans- jnitted to us from that era in the form in which it then existed. Moreover, of the two poems which we possess from that period, the one is not complete, and the XVI INTRODUCTION. other is composed in Latin. The first is the " Lay of Hildebrand " (Hildebrandslied) ; the second is called " Waltharius de Aquitania " (Walther von Aquitanien). The Lay of Hildebrand was written down at the beginning of the ninth century, and its contents be- long to the saga-cycle of Dietrich von Bern. Accord- ing to tradition Dietrich had been driven from his home and realm by his enemies, whose leader ap- pears here as Otacher, the historic Odoacer, whereupon he went with his valiant and faithful friend and weapon-master Hildebrand to Attila's court, to seek there help and protection. After the contest, which is depicted in the last part of the Nibelungen Lied, and the defeat of Odoacer, they returned home. There, at his departure thirty years ago, Hildebrand had left a youthful wife and a little son. The latter was named Hadubrand, and in the meantime had grown up to manhood. As soon as Hildebrand with his retinue entered his native country he was con- fronted by his son and his warriors. Before they engaged in combat, Hildebrand asked the name of his adversary ; and when he learned that it was his son who opposed him, he sought to avoid the con- test. He offered him his golden bracelets, which were a gift of Attila and an ornament the like of which was much coveted by the German warriors of that time. But Hadubrand refused them, and retorted, "Gifts shall be received with the spear, sword point against sword point; thou art an old cunning Hun, who meanest to deceive me in order to kill me the more surely with the spear." He also INTRODUCTION. XV11 added that seafarers had brought him the tidings of Hildebrand's death. Hildebrand exclaimed: "Woe is me ! ruling God ! woful fate will be accom- plished. Sixty summers and winters I have wan- dered about. .-. . Now my own son will strike me dead with the sword, or I shall be his slayer. . . . But he would be the most cowardly of the Ostrogoths who would now refuse the combat, since thou hast so great a desire for strife." Then father and son hurled their spears, made from the wood of the ash-tree, against each other, and grimly fought with their swords so that the shields were hewn to pieces by their blows. Here the poem breaks off. The contest probably ended with the death of the son, as might be inferred from a comparison with similar sagas ; for instance, with the Persian story of Eustum and Sohrab, told by Firdusi and rendered into beautiful English by Mat- thew Arnold.* The story in the Gallic poem of Conlach and Cuchullin bears also a great resemblance to the German lay. The latter was preserved, in the fragmentary shape in which we possess it, by a very fortunate chance. At the beginning of the ninth century two monks of the famous convent of Fulda, who perhaps had been warriors before they withdrew from the world, as often happened at that time, wrote what they remembered of the great poem on the first and last blank leaves of their Prayer-book. It seems that they alternately dictated and wrote. Since the thirty years' war the manu- script has belonged to the library at Kassel. It is * Into German by Biickert. XV1U INTRODUCTION. composed in the Low German language, yet with many High German forms. Therefore some scholars suppose that it was originally written in the High German language, and transformed into the Low Ger- man by the copyist. The Lay of Hildebrand was sung by the people for many centuries, and about seven hundred years after the composition of the original work it was revived in a new form by Kas- par von der Eoen. The latter's poem, although in- ferior to its model, is not devoid of a certain beauty in the description of the events. The title is " The Father and the Son " (Der Vater mit dem Sohn). In this version of the story Hildebrand defeats Hadu- brand in the combat, and both return together to the wife and mother. Bayard Taylor characterized the importance of the ancient Lay of Hildebrand in a very appropriate manner when he says : " As we find the first written basis of the language in the Gothic Gospels of Ulfilas, so we find the first surviving relic of a native autochthonous German literature in the Song of Hildebrand." In the Vilcina Saga * Hilde- brand overcomes and wounds his son, whereupon the latter yields ; but when he is about to give up his sword to his father, he treacherously aims a blow at his hand. Then Hildebrand exclaims, " Not thy fa- ther, but a woman, taught thee this blow." " Waltharius de Aquitania," or " Waltharius manu fortis," is written in Latin hexameters, and based on a German poem of the tenth century which has been lost. The Latin epic was composed in the convent of Saint * Page 56. INTRODUCTION. XIX | Gall by the monk Eckehard I. (who died in 973), or by his contemporary Geraldus, or by both together, and was afterwards revised and remodelled by Ecke- hard IV., a monk of the same convent, who died about the year 1060. Although this work is written in the Latin language, the power inherent in the German epic poetry of that time and the grandeur of the old hero sagas are still visible under the foreign garb. The contents of the poem, which belongs to the saga- cycles of Attila and Gunther, are briefly as follows. King Gibich ruled at Worms on the Ehine over the Franks, and had been forced to submit to the power of Attila. As Gibich's son Gunther was then very young, Hagen was sent as a hostage to Attila's court, .together with a great treasure. Burgundy had also been compelled to yield to the might of the Huns, as well as Aquitania, the realm of the Visigoths. The king of Burgundy had to surrender his only daughter Hildeguhd to the victors, while a simi- lar fate overtook the king of Aquitania, who was obliged to part with his son Walther. Both Hilde- gund and Walther were held as hostages at Attila's court in Pannonia (Hungary) ; but they, as well as Hagen, were kindly treated by the powerful chief. Hagen and Walther distinguished themselves by great valor, while Hildegund enjoyed the confidence of the queen, who intrusted the royal treasure to her care ; yet all three longed for their homes and friends, and thought of flight. Hagen, after hearing that Gibich had died, and that Gunther refused to pay the tribute, escaped and safely arrived at Worms. XX INTBOPUCTION. Later Walther fled with Hildegund and the treas- ure of the Franks. When they reached the Ehine near Worms, they gave to the ferryman, to set them across the river, the last fishes which they had, and which came from the Danube. The ferryman carried them to the royal cook, and when they were served at table, Gunther exclaimed that such fishes were not found in Frankland. Then Hagen said, " Walther has returned from the land of the Huns." Contrary to Hagen's advice, Gunther determined to pursue Walther and despoil him of his treasure. Walther, after crossing the Ehine, reached the Vosges (Wasichenwald), and there in a narrow defile of the mountains the contest took place. Hagen, despite Gunther's scornful remarks, took at first no part in the attacks on his friend, but from a neighboring hill looked down upon the combats of the warriors. Walther defeated and slew Gunther's champions one after the other, and .each encounter is depicted with great vi- vacity. The poet gives a fine delineation of the char- acter of the combatants. Each warrior uses different arms, and each victory differs from the others. Vil- mar does not speak in too laudatory terms when he says that some of the scenes of battle are not sur- passed by any descriptions that can be found in the Homeric poems. At last Gunther went to Hagen to induce him to take part in the combat. Hagen thought of his sincere friendship for Walther, and hesitated for some time, although his nephew had been slain by Walther. Yet, since all their friends had fallen, he advised Gunther to depart from the INTRODUCTION. XXI place, bo that "Walther might think they had returned to Worms. Then, after he had left his strongly fortified position in the defile, they could pursue him and attack him from the rear. They did so, and in this last combat, in which two fought against one, Gunther lost a foot, Walther his right arm, and Hagen an eye and some of his teeth. The fight be- ing ended, the heroes were reconciled, and Hilde- gund with trembling hands bound up their wounds. Walther returned home and celebrated his wedding feast with Hildegund. After his father's death he reigned thirty years in peace and glory. As we have shown that there are a few instances in which the clergy tried at times to revive the old na- tional lays, we may now devote a very brief space to the consideration of another class of epics, — to ec- clesiastical poetry in the proper sense of the word, the material of which is taken from the teachings of Christianity and especially from the Holy Scriptures. The most important works here are the old Saxon allit- erative epic " Heliand," and Otfried's Old High Ger- man " Harmony of the Gospels," also called " Krist," which is the first work composed in rhymes. The Heliand (Heiland, Saviour) was written by a Saxon singer who is reported to have been a peasant, that is, an uneducated layman. The work was undertaken at the request of Louis le Debonnaire (Ludwig der Fromme), and was accomplished between the years 825 and 835. According to tradition a supernatural voice had aroused the poet to compose sacred songs, and it is very probable that the story of the Anglo- XX11 INTRODUCTION. Saxon Csedmon was here transferred to the author of the Heliand. The poem is a very remarkable work, and shows a beautiful blending of the ideas of Chris- tianity with the spirit of ancient Germany. It is a truly Christian epic in which the characters and situations are Saxon. Vilmar says correctly : '' When the Lord begins the Sermon on the Mount, the whole scene is depicted in those grand forms in which the council of the German kings, princes, and dukes took place before the eyes of the army and the people." The poem is throughout truly German, as it is truly Christian ; the language is vigorous, simple, and beautiful. It seems that the author availed himself especially of the " Harmony of the Gospels" by the Alexandrian Ammonius, whose work was based chiefly on St. Matthew. An epic very different from the Heliand, and .composed about thirty years later, is Otfried's " Krist." Otfried was probably a Frank and a pupil of Hrabanus Maurus, yet he wrote his poem in the Benedictine convent of Weissenburg in Alsace. He was a scholar, and his work contains many mystical and moral interpreta- tions which were fully in accordance with the spirit of the clergy of his time. We may here again quote Vilmar, as he admirably expresses the character of Otfried's production : " While there [in the Heliand] we hear the whole Saxon nation with one mighty voice sing the glory of Christ, the Shepherd of the people, we have here but the voice of an individual monk, who appears in almost every portion of his work with his I ; he relates rather than sings, and INTRODUCTION. XX111 although his narration is often very good, very appro- priate and feeling, and at times he relates with a sublime voice and a lofty soul, yet he merely relates, describes, and depicts the scenes, and often becomes tame, feeble, and diffuse in telling what there [in the Heliand] was expressed in brief, powerful, and strik- ing words. The poem as a storehouse of the German language is invaluable, and its value is, if possible, increased by the extraordinary care and accuracy de- voted to the metrical part." We may here briefly notice another poem, generally known under the name of the " Ludwjgslied." Its author was a clergyman, and he describes the victory of the West Frankish King Ludwig III. over the Normans at the battle of Saucourt in the year 881. The work is of some importance, and is the first secular poem in German, written by an ecclesiastic, probably by Hucbald, a learned monk, who died in 930. Although the Ludwigslied is not devoid of a certain beauty in style and expression, yet upon the whole it cannot be compared with the old epic, as seen in the Lay of Hildebrand ; it has none of the force and majesty of the latter. It is properly a Leich, or song written for music, wherein, as Bayard Taylor very appropriately said, the melody partly determines beforehand what words shall be used. In this place we may make a few general remarks on early German versification. The main principle in German poetry, from the most ancient times down to the present day, is that its metrical composition) is based chiefly on the accent of the words, and not! XXIV INTKODUCTIOH. on their quantity, as in Latin and Greek. In Old German a verse consists of a certain number of accented syllables, while unaccented syllables may stand between the accented ones. As the latter were thus of chief importance, the verses are gener- ally designated by them alone without regard to the rest. In this sense it is true that the German verse was originally composed of eight accented syllables, and was divided into two equal hemistichs, which were separated by a strpng caesura, and connected by alliteration during the earliest epoch and by the rhyme since the latter half of the ninth century. As has been said above, the first work that was com- posed in rhymes was Otfried's " Harmony of the Gos- pels." In the alliterative poetry the above-mentioned rhythm has not always been strictly observed, and the verse's are often too long or too short. In the early rhymed poems the rhyme as a rule is not per- fect ; that is, when the vowels correspond, the conso- nants are different, and when the latter are alike, the vowels do not correspond. These impure or imperfect rhymes are commonly called " assonance." From the tenth century to the middle of the twelfth \ the poetic genius of the German people seemed to be dormant. Folk songs were composed by differ- ent authors who were not without talent, but noth- ing of importance was done to develop national poetry. There was a literature, but it was mainly written in Latin. Yet the old heroic lays of Siegfried and Kriemhild, Hagen and Dietrich, were not en- tirely forgotten ; -these ancient songs lived among the INTRODUCTION. XXV great mass of the people, and were preserved by them despite the indifference or hostility of the courts and the priesthood. A new era began to arise when the great house of the Hohenstaufen ascended the throne of Germany and the Crusades aroused in all Western Europe a mighty flame of enthusiasm. Then com- menced the glorious period of Mediaeval German poetry, a part of which — the great epics — will form the subject of thefollowing pages. THE GREAT EPICS OF MEDIEVAL GERMANY. ERRATA. Page 60, in footnote, for Ziir read Zur. " 63, fourth line from bottom, for Guita-heath read Gnita-heath . " 138, 14th line from top, for Sanct Gallen, read Saint Gall. " 147, 19th " " " paragraph should be numbered IV. " 149, 9th " " " for IV. read V. " 150, 19th " " " for V. read VI. " 173, 16th " " " for Schelde read Scheldt. " 226, footnote, for t p. 321, read t p. 253. " 300, 1 1th line from top, for Nother read Notker. hero is Siegfried, of Santen on the Lower Rhine. 2. The saga-cycle of Burgundy, whose heroes are Gunther, king at Worms, and his hrothers, Gemot and Giselher. Their mother is called Ute (meaning ancestress) ; their sister is Kriemhild ; Gunther's wife is Brunhild ; his chief vassals are Hagen and Volker. 3. The Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich ; ' von Bern ; his principal vassal and weapon-master is old Hildebrand. 4. The saga-cycle of Etzel, or Attila, [ , THE GREAT EPICS OP MEDIEVAL GERMANY. CHAPTEE I. Outline of the Nibelungen Lied. — Paet I. The Mbelungen Lied has been so called from the last line of the poem, " Daz ist der Nibelunge Liet," or rather from the common modern German version of it, "Das ist das Mbelungen Lied." In its present shape it was composed toward the end of the twelfth century. It is based on the combination and blend- ing of four different sources : 1. The Frankish saga- cycle, or the saga-cycle of the Lower Rhine, whose hero is Siegfried, of Santen on the Lower Ehine. 2. The saga-cycle of Burgundy, whose heroes are Gunther, king at Worms, and his brothers, Gemot and Giselher. Their mother is called Ute (meaning ancestress) ; their sister is Kriemhild ; Gunther's wife is Brunhild ; his chief vassals are Hagen and Volker. 3. The Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich von Bern ; his principal vassal and weapon-master is old Hildebrand. 4. The saga-cycle of Etzel, or Attila, 2 THE GREAT EPICS OF king of the Huns, with his allies and vassals ; among the latter, Kiidiger von Bechlaren is the most distin- guished. Our epic, in the form in which it has been transmitted to us, is divided into two parts, each of them containing nineteen songs, called aventiure (ad- ventures). The first part may be named Kriemhild's Love ; the second, Her Eevenge. Paet I. I. -V. — The first stanza of the first song bears witness to the fact that our poem is based on the contents of ancient sagas. In olden song and story high marvels we are told Of heroes of great glory, in toils and labors bold ; Of festal glee and joyance, of woe and weeping drear, Of dauntless heroes' striving, may ye now wonders hear. The second stanza introduces at once the heroine of the great epic, and at the same time foreshadows the great affliction that befell many valiant heroes on her account. In Burgundy was cherished a noble maiden fair ; With her in all the kingdoms naught fairer could compare. The maid, whose name was Kriemhild, became a beauteous wife, Eor whom full many warriors were doomed to lose their life. Our poem takes us now to the famous city of Worms on the Ehine, where Kriemhild grew up at the royal court under the protection of her mother, Queen Ute, and of her three brothers, Gunther, Ger- not, and young Giselher. Gunther, being the eldest, had ascended the throne after the death of his father, MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 3 Dankrat. Of all the renowned vassals, the pillars of the Burgundian realm, grim Hagen of Tronje, kinsman to the royal hrothers, was the most distin- guished ; beside him his friend Volker of Alzey, the " Fiddler good," as he was surnamed, and Dankwart, Hagen's brother, must be mentioned. The twelfth stanza of the first song may be called the real opening of the poem, as what precedes is merely an introduction. Surrounded by great honors, there dreamed Queen Ute's child How she brought up a falcon, strong, beautiful, and wild. Him quickly clutched two eagles, — she had to see his fate, — And here on earth she- never could feel a woe so great. At morn she told her mother, Dame TJte, of the dream; The queen explained its meaning, as it to her did seem : " The falcon thou caressest, a noble man is he ; May God shield him from danger, or soon his end will be." " Why speak to me of husband, beloved mother mine ? The love of wooing heroes I ever will decline ; I will remain so beauteous until my death draws near, Lest love of man should ever bring on me sorrow drear." " Forswear it not so wholly," her mother then replied. " If e'er thy heart shall fully by joy be gratified, It will come from man's wooing ; thou 'It be a peerless wife, If God will ever grant thee to charm a hero's life." " Speak so to me no longer,'* said Kriemhild to the queen. " With many beauteous women it often has been seen How love draws always sorrow behind it in its train. I '11 shun them both with prudence to shield my heart from pain." Thus, as on a fair summer day in a verdant plain a dim vapor appears to be rising at the far distant 4 THE GEEAT EPICS OF horizon, and, gradually approaching, becomes a threat- ening thunder-cloud, carrying destruction to the smiling landscape, so arose in the heart of the fair and innocent maiden a dim foreboding of the coming storm. As Vilmar says, " The shadows of this dream move henceforth athwart the serene heaven of her life and love ; darker and ever darker they hover over the spring days of her first and only love, darker and ever darker over the gay sports and magnificent feasts at the time of her marriage ; with a pale glim- mer the sun shines through the gloomy semi-darkness, until glowing red he approaches his decline, and at last with bloody, glaring splendor sinks into eternal night." The second song of our poem takes us to the stronghold of Santen, on the Lower Rhine in Nether- land, where Siegfried, the son of King Siegmund, had grown up to manhood. At a great festival held in honor of young Siegfried, and after the celebration of a solemn mass in the minster, the young prince and four hundred young noblemen were dubbed knights, whereupon a great tournament followed. Siegfried, having heard of Kriemhild's peerless beauty, deter- mined to woo her, and made ready for his journey to Worms, although his father, Siegmund, and his mother, Siegelind, had endeavored to dissuade him from such a dangerous enterprise. Yet he chose twelve trusty knights to accompany him, and after a journey of six days they arrived, in glittering armor and on richly caparisoned steeds, at the royal castle at Worms. MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 5 As neither Gunther nor any of his vassals about him knew the warriors, Hagen was summoned. To him were known the kingdoms of every foreign land, And he shall now inform us if he does know this band. Hagen gazed from the window on the strangers, and declared that he "flid not know them. Sir Hagen then continued -. " As well as I may ween, Although the valiant Siegfried I never yet have seen, I shall believe most truly, however it may be, That yonder lordly hero none other is than he." Hagen began to relate some events of Siegfried's life, which show that the primitive account of the acquisition of the Mbelung hoard* was still dimly remembered in our poem. He said that Siegfried had once happened to enter all alone the land of the Mbelungs after the old King Mbelung had died. As he rode by a mountain, he met the sons of the king, Schilbung and Mbelung, surrounded by many valiant heroes. The hoard of the Mbelungs had been brought forth from the bowels of the mountain; and as soon as the princes espied Siegfried, they urged him to make a division of the immense treasure of gold and precious stones. Siegfried at last reluctantly complied with their request, and they offered him as reward the mighty sword, Balmung, that had belonged to old King Mbelung. Yet, as Siegfried could not succeed in satisfying the princes, twelve giants, who were in their service, rushed upon him, whereupon he slew them and the royal youths with the sword * Cf. p. 60. 6 THE GREAT EPICS OF Balmung, and overcame seven hundred knights, their vassals. Then the powerful dwarf, Alberich, in order to revenge the death of his masters, turned furiously upon him; but Siegfried overpowered him and thus became the possessor of the hoard, among which were Alberieh's famous Tamkappe, or magic cap of dark- ness, rendering its wearer invisible, and the celebrated wishing-rod.* The treasure was brought back to its former place, and Alberich was made keeper of it, after he had sworn allegiance to Siegfried. Furthermore Hagen related how Siegfried had slain a monstrous dragon, f and had bathed in his blood so that no weapon could do him any harm. At Hagen's advice, Siegfried was cordially received by Gunther and his knights. But as he presumptu- ously challenged the king to a combat, and declared that the victor should possess the land and people of the vanquished, there arose a great uproar among Gunther's vassals. Yet the king and Gemot assuaged their wrath, and Giselher told Siegfried that as long as he chose to ask for anything in a becoming manner, all that they had should be his. Siegfried became of a gentler mood, and was royally entertained at a great banquet. Festal games and tournaments were held in his honor, and he distinguished himself above all others in every kind of chivalry, whether in hurling stones or casting the spear. Thus he passed an en- tire year at Worms without having seen Kriemhild, * The latter is mentioned only in the nineteenth adventure, t Cf. p. 19. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 7 who, gazing stealthily at him from the castle window, had often admired his great beauty and unconquer- able strength. The fourth adventure contains the episode of the Saxon war, in which Siegfried with his own twelve companions and one thousand chosen Burgundians defeated the Saxons and their allies, the Danes. A great festival was held at Worms to celebrate the vic- tory, arid it was then that Siegfried for the first time saw Kriemhild, as she appeared at her mother's side, accompanied by an hundred knights, sword in hand, and by many noble ladies of the court, richly attired. Our poet describes her entry into the festal hall in the following words : — There came the lovely maiden as comes the morning red, Through troubled clouds appearing. Full many a sorrow fled From him who long had loved her, his soul's and heart's desire : He saw the lovely maiden in beauty's full attire. Upon her garment sparkled of gems full many a row ; The light of love shone from hef with rosy-colored glow. Whatever one might wish for, he yet was forced to own That here on earth naught fairer could evermore be shown. Even as the radiant full moon outshines the starry light, When from the clouds she rises in splendor clear and bright, So she excelled in beauty full many a maid and dame : This well might raise the courage of heroes of great fame. Siegfried's heart was filled with joy as he drew near the princess, who blushed deeply, and said with graceful loveliness, — " Be welcome here, Sir Siegfried, most good and noble knight." His soul swelled from her greeting with courage and delight. 8 THE GREAT EPICS OF With many loving glances they spied each other there, The hero and the maiden, -with stealthy, blushing air. Kriemhild went to the minster, and after the mass had been held, she thanked Siegfried for his valorous aid in the Saxon war. From this time forth their mutual love grew daily, and the other knights often envied Siegfried's happiness. VI. -IX. — The sixth adventure relates how Gun- ther went to Isenland to woo Brunhild. There was a royal maiden who ruled far o'er the sea; With her none could be likened in fame and high degree. Fair was she beyond measure ; all puissant was her might : She cast the spear with prowess with many a wooing knight ; She hurled the stone a distance, and after it would she bound. Each knight who thought of wooing the warrior-maid re- nowned, In three games had to vanquish the noble queen so dread ; Whoe'er in one was conquered, was doomed to lose his head. One day Gunther, while sitting in the council hall, was urged by his friends to select a consort worthy of himself and of the glory of the country. Then spoke the Lord of Rhineland : " I '11 sail across the sea To woo the mighty Brunhild, whate'er the end may be. To gain her love and favor, I '11 boldly risk my life ; I '11 be content to lose it, or win her as my wife." As Siegfried heard of this, he endeavored to dis- suade Gunther from such a dangerous plan by tell- ing him of the martial prowess and unconquerable strength of Brunhild. Yet the king was determined that none other than Brunhild should be queen at MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 9 Worms ; and Hagen, seeing that Siegfried was -well informed about the warlike maiden, suggested that the hero from Netherland should accompany Gun- ther to Isenland. " Wilt aid me, noble Siegfried," the king said to his guest, " To woo the charming maiden and do what I request, And if the lovely lady shall then become my wife, I '11 venture, to reward thee, mine honor and my life." To him Sir Siegfried answered : " Whatever may betide, If you give me your sister to be my lovely bride, The fair and charming Kriemhild, I '11 aid you as I may, And for my toil and labor I'll claim no other pay." "That vouch I," said King Gunther, "and pledge thereto my hand. Whenever beauteous Brunhild comes hither to this land, I shall bestow my sister on you to be your wife, That you may with the fair one enjoy a happy life." This they pledged to one another by a solemn oath, not surmising what endless misery would follow from this enterprise. Yet when the time came for leave- taking, Kriemhild told her brother that it would be far better for him to stay at Worms and marry one of the fair women of the land, than ris"k his life in such an adventure. I ween her heart foretold her the coming dire dismay. All eyes were full of weeping, whatever one might say. She commended her brother to Siegfried's protec- tion, and Gunther and Siegfried departed, accom- panied only by Hagen and his brother Dankwart. They sailed down the Ehine in a bark, and on the twelfth morning came within sight of Isenstein, the 10 THE GREAT EPICS OF great fortress in Brunhild's land.- Gunther was as- tounded at the warlike and noble aspect of the far- stretching coast. Before- they landed, Siegfried said to Gunther, " Let me advise you to tell the queen that you are my liege lord and I am your vassal, and then all will be well," Afterwards they rode up to the fortress, which contained eighty -six gloomily frowning turrets, three wide-stretching palaces, and a spacious hall, composed of marble blocks as green as grass. When the queen, gorgeously attired, sur- rounded by an hundred maidens, and followed by five hundred knights, sword in hand, saw the approaching heroes, she at once recognized Siegfried, and saluted him first, and in presence of the king. Siegfried de- clined the honor the queen had bestowed on him, and said, " My liege lord, King Gunther, has come to woo you." Brunhild, astonished and angry, replied, " If he be your master and you his liegeman, and he will try his strength in the games which I shall impose on him, I will become his wife if he shall conquer. But if I win in one of them, the lives of you all shall be lost." Brunhild ordered the games to take place without any further delay. While she put on her coat of mail, seven hundred armed men formed a circle about the space measured out for the combat. And then appeared her liegemen, who carried to the field, Adorned with gold and jewels, a brightly glittering shield ; It was beset most richly with gold as well as steel. Four chamberlains who bore it beneath its weight did reel. Unto the dame was carried a mighty spear for fight, — It was her wont to hurl it afar with all her might, — MEBLEVAL GERMANY. 11 A spear both sharp and cumbrous, weighty and strongly made, On either side provided with keen, terrific blade. And three of Brunhild's liegemen could hardly bear its weight ; Therefore the noble Gunther was filled with sorrow great. That Brunhild's strength was fearful, was then most fully known. They brought within the circle a heavy marble stone, Unwieldy and unshapely, and huge and broad and strong : Twelve valiant heroes hardly could bear its mass along. In the meantime Siegfried had secretly put on his Tarnkappe, or cap of darkness,* and said to Gunther, " Give me the shield. I shall wield it in the combat. Make the gestures and I will do the work." The queen had bared her arms, and, with the shield in her hand, poised the spear high in the air and hurled it with great vehemence. It struck Gunther's shield with such force that sparks flew from its steel rings, and both he and Siegfried staggered from the blow, although of course the latter's movements were invisible to all. Siegfried wrenched Brunhild's spear from Gunther's shield, which it had penetrated, and cast the shaft with such superior strength at Brunhild's coat of mail that the queen was wellnigh vanquished. Yet quickly she arose, swung the huge stone, and hurled it the length of twelve fathoms, bounding after it with clashing armor. Gunther placed his hands upon the stone and seemed to throw it, while it was really Siegfried who cast it farther than Brun- hild had done, and, taking Gunther with him, leaped far beyond the place where the stone had fallen. * See p. 102. 12 THE GREAT EPICS OF Thereupon Brunhild, Mieving to have been van- quished by Gunther, announced to her people that henceforth they would be the king's liegemen. Sieg- fried went back to the beach where the bark was moored, put away his Tarnkappe, and then returned to the castle, where he pretended to believe that the games had not yet taken place. As Brunhild was unwilling to follow Guntber at once to Worms, and an alarming number of her vas- sals appeared armed at Isenstein, Siegfried promised to depart speedily and to return with one thousand chosen knights. Siegfried went down to the beach, and, putting on his Tarnkappe, sailed in the bark to the Kibelung land. He came to a fortress on a mountain and knocked at the gate, which was heavily bolted. A giant, who guarded it from within, cried out, " Who knocks so violently at the gate ? " Siegfried disguised his voice and demanded admission in threatening words, whereupon the giant flung open the gate and wrathfully attacked him. Siegfried was pleased with the fierce resistance of the trusty keeper, and after a furious struggle overcame and bound him. There- upon Alberich, the dwarf, appeared, well armed, and with a seven-thonged whip in his hand, each thong of the whip having a heavy golden knob. He rushed upon Siegfried with great fury, but the latter seized him by his gray beard and Alberich was forced to beg for mercy. Shortly afterward Siegfried revealed his name, and Alberich, rejoiced at this announce- ment, declared himself ready to obey his command. MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 13 At once a thousand warriors, the bravest of the Mbe- lung host, were prepared to follow Siegfried to Brun- hild's realm. When they arrived there, the queen no longer hesitated to depart to Worms. X. — XIII. — Brunhild was cordially received at Worms by Queen Ute and Kriemhild. At the wed- ding-feast Siegfried reminded Gunther of his promise. There spoke the royal Gunther : " Grant me a favor now, My most beloved sister ; aid me to keep my vow. I 've pledged thee to a hero ; if thou 'It espouse the knight, Thou truly wilt accomplish my wishes and delight." There said the noble maiden : "O dearest brother mine, Thou needest not implore me. To every wish of thine, Whatever thou commandest, I always will agree ; The knight whom thou hast chosen, my husband shall he be." Siegfried offered his hand to Kriemhild, and in the midst of the noble assembly imprinted ardent kisses on his bride. The double marriage of Gunther and Brunhild and Siegfried and Kriemhild was celebrated with great pomp, yet in spite of the festivities a threatening thunder-cloud seemed to darken the royal hall. The king sat at the banquet beside Brunhild his queen. When she beheld fair Kriemhild, she felt a pang most keen, As Kriemhild sat near Siegfried ; the queen began to weep, And many a burning tear-drop o'er her fair cheek did creep. There spoke the country's ruler : " My wife, what means this sight ? What is it ? Why are clouded your eyes of dazzling bright ? Far better were rejoicing ; for under thy command Are many valiant heroes, my castles and my land." 14 THE GREAT EPICS OF Brunhild replied, " I am sorely grieved at seeing your sister take her seat at the side of your liegeman." The king tried to avoid any explanation, and simply said, " Siegfried is himself a king's son, and has as many castles and lands as I." Brunhild was not sat- isfied, and continued sad and sullen throughout the evening. It is true that Siegfried played the part of Gun- ther's vassal at their arrival in Isenstein, yet Brunhild had other causes to be vexed at the betrothal of Sieg- fried and Kriemhild than those she mentioned, — causes which are hardly alluded to in our poem, but appear from the Northern version of our saga. When the wedding-feast was ended and Gunther and Brunhild had withdrawn to the bridal chamber, the queen again asked questions in regard to Sieg- fried. As the king did not reply, she seized him and bound his hands and feet with her magic girdle and hung him to a huge nail on the wall. On the following day Gunther informed Siegfried of the treatment which he had suffered from the hands of the queen, whereupon Siegfried promised to aid the king. That night Siegfried, concealed from view in his Tccrnkappe, went to Brunhild's chamber with Gunther, and after a fierce struggle wrested both girdle and ring from the dread queen, thus conquer- ing her, while she supposed it was Gunther who had vanquished her. Henceforth Brunhild had no greater strength than any other woman. While Siegfried was engaged in the combat with Brunhild, his absence was noticed by his wife, and MEDIAEVAL GERMANY. 15 after he returned, she questioned him about the cause. Siegfried at first evaded an explanation, but in the end yielded to the eager supplications of his beloved Kriemhild, and also gave her Brunhild's ring and gir- dle, — a fatal hour, destined to be the cause of end- less sorrow, not only to her and Siegfried, but to the whole royal house and to many noble heroes. The eleventh adventure relates how Siegfried jour- neyed home with his wife and was crowned king after his father's abdication. The Nibelung hoard had been given by Siegfried to Kriemhild as a bridal portion. The young king and queen passed many years in great happiness together. In the meantime Brunhild had not forgotten Sieg- fried, and pretended to wonder why Kriemhild had been bestowed on him, as he was a vassal, and why, being such, he did not render homage to King Gun- ther. The latter dared not tell her the truth, but, as she feigned to have a great desire to see Kriemhild, he complied with her wish to invite Siegfried and his wife to a great festival at Worms. The king sent messengers to Siegfried and Kriem- hild, whom they found in Norway at the Nibelung fortress. The royal couple departed with one thou- sand Nibelung knights, who were afterwards joined by old King Siegmund and an hundred knights of Netherland, and arrived at Worms, where they were cordially received by Gunther and his queen. In honor of the noble guests, great festivities took place in the royal city, tournaments were held, and the castle walls resounded with the peal of trumpets. 16 THE GREAT EPICS OF All was peace and joy until the evening of the elev- enth day. Then Brunhild could bear no longer that Siegfried, supposed to he Gunther's vassal, had never paid tribute, and she was determined to know why. The spirit of evil took possession of her, and the voice of envious hate was heard among the festal sounds of joy. XIV. - XIX. — One evening, as a tournament took place in the castle yard, the two queens gazed from the palace windows on the noble chivalry below, among whom were Gunther and. Siegfried. Together there were seated the queens so rich and fair ; They spoke of two great heroes who were beyond compare. There said the beauteous Kriemhild, "My spouse is such a knight That all these lands and kingdoms ought to obey his might." To her Queen Brunhild answered : " How could that ever be ? If no one else were living but thou alone and he, Then all these lands and kingdoms might be his own, I ween ; As long as lives King Gunther, that never shall be seen." Kriemhild did not perceive that Brunhild's wrath began to be aroused, and did not heed the words of her sister-in-law. To her replied fair Kriemhild, " Behold, how he stands there, How lordly he surpasses all heroes everywhere." Then Brunhild spoke : " Thy consort, however brave indeed, How beautiful and valiant, — him always must precede The dauntless hero Gunther, the noble brother thine ; Before all kings most truly his lustrous crown must shine." The quarrel waxed hotter, and Brunhild called Sieg- fried her husband's vassal. MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 17 There spoke again fair Kriemhild : " Thou shalt well under- stand, As thou hast called my Siegfried a liegeman of this land, This day by all their vassals it shall be plainly seen That I '11 go to the minster preceding Gunther's queen." Brunhild retorted angry words, and then the queens parted. At the door of the minster the people were greatly astonished when they saw the two royal trains arriving separately, instead of coming together as they had done before. Brunhild's fury reached a still higher pitch, as the attire of Kriemhild's maidens and knights outshone in splendor the appearance of her own retinue, however gorgeously arrayed. There came the queens together before the minster gate. The wife of royal Gunther, from fierce and envious hate, Bade, fair and noble Kriemhild " stand still," in words of strife : " Before the queen shall never proceed the vassal's wife." In the quarrel ensuing upon this, Kriemhild, who in the heat of her passion wrongly interpreted the events of the bridal night, asserted that Brunhild had been Siegfried's paramour, and proudly entered the minster. Brunhild remained without the minster doors during the service, and, as Kriemhild came out, she demanded proofs of the accusation, whereupon Kriemhild showed her the ring and the girdle. Gun- ther was sent for, and, after he had heard what had happened, summoned Siegfried. The latter solemnly and truly declared that he never told Kriemhild what she had said of his relation to Brunhild. Both Gun- ther and Siegfried then endeavored to compose the !8 THE OREAT EPICS OP strife, yet Brunhild was filled with sadness, and Ha- gen, after hearing of the insult which the queen had suffered, made a vow that Siegfried should have to atone for Brunhild's sorrow. Thus the sullen thunder- clouds that had seemed to overshadow the festal hall during the royal weddings appeared to grow more and more threatening, and to forebode the final overthrow of a great and noble house. Giselher nobly took the cause of Siegfried against Hagen, and Gunther was greatly troubled by his pow- erful vassal's design, as he thought of Siegfried's for- mer devotion to him. He tried for some time to change the opinion of those who advised Siegfried's death, yet his weak nature made him listen to the words of grim Hagen, whose wily tongue depicted to Gunther the danger which he might incur while so great a king as Siegfried lived, who outshone the power and glory of the Burguhdian monarch. Since the hero could not be slain in open and fair combat, Hagen had to take refuge in a vile stratagem, and nothing was left for the traitor but to murder him. If Hagen's chief motive for advising, planning, and accomplishing the dark deed had sprung only from the fidelity which a liegeman owed to his sovereign lord, or from the unselfish desire to avenge the wrong done to the latter's wife, he could not have appeared blamable in the light of the feudal code of honor, at least not so far as his aim was concerned, although the means to reach it was contrary to the higher ideas of chivalry in its better days. While it cannot be denied that Hagen was distinguished by great MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 19 fidelity to the king's family, yet the incentives to Siegfried's murder were, besides his devotion to the royal house, his envy and jealous hate of a hero whose inferior he felt himself to be in every respect. In the second part of our poem Hagen appears in a yet more terrible, but also much nobler light. Kriemhild, struck with fatal blindness, believed Hagen to be a sincere friend of Siegfried, and she confided to the traitor a secret, referring to Sieg- fried's former slaying of a dragon by the side of a mountain. " When from the 'wounded dragon the boiling blood streamed down, Within the gore bathed Siegfried, the knight of great renown. There fell between his shoulders a broad-shaped linden leaf, And there he can be wounded : this gives me heartfelt grief." • Hagen, overjoyed at this information, advised Kriemhild to sew upon his garment some mark by which he might know the spot, so that he could, as he said, better shield Siegfried in case of danger. The unfortunate woman promised to embroider a little silken cross over the place where the leaf had fallen. Gunther ordered a great hunting to take place in the Odenwald, and Siegfried declared himself ready to accompany the king. Kriemhild had been oppressed with evil forebodings, and deeply regretted that she had revealed Siegfried's secret to Hagen, yet she durst not tell her husband of it. As Siegfried came to take leave of her before going to the hunt, she tried to retain him. 20 THE GREAT EPICS OF She said unto the hero, " Give up the chase to-day. I dreamed last night of sorrow, how o'er the heath away Two fierce wild boars pursued thee ; — all flowers were turned to red ; And therefore I, poor woman, do grieve with tears and dread." Siegfried endeavored to calm her, but she con- tinued, — " Oh no ! beloved Siegfried ! I fear thine overthrow. I dreamed last night of sorrow, how in a dale below There fell o'er thee two mountains, that I saw thee no more. Oh, do not leave me, Siegfried ! My heart is deeply sore." Siegfried tenderly embraced his beloved wife, tried to calm her, and at last bade her farewell. The chase began amidst a joyous tumult and the sounds of the bugle, so that hills and dales gave back. the loud echoes. After a successful hunt and a merry chase of a bear, Siegfried sat down with Gunther, Hagen, and the other hunters to enjoy the meal that had been prepared for them. As he called for wine, Hagen told him that the hampers of wine had been sent by mis- take to the Spessart forest, but that he knew of a spring of cool and clear water. As soon as Siegfried wished to be directed to the spring, Hagen, in an ap- parently careless manner, said to Siegfried, " I have been told that no one can surpass Kriemhild's lord in running." Siegfried replied to Hagen, " Let us run a race to the spring, King Gunther, you, and myself." Gunther and Hagen divested themselves of their armor and heavy garments, and ran like two fierce panthers, while Siegfried, laden with his weapons, arrived first at the spring. Gunther stooped and MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 21 drank, and when he had arisen, Siegfried did likewise. Then Hagen stealthily put away Siegfried's sword and bow beyond his reach, took the hero's spear that leaned against the linden-tree and thrust it through the cross which Kriemhild had embroidered on her husband's garment. Siegfried took his shield, and, with the deadly spear between his shoulders, overtook the traitor, who had fled in craven flight, and smote him with his shield until it was broken into pieces. But by this time the dying hero's strength began to fail and the color fled his cheeks. There fell among the flowers fair Kriemhild's spouse, undone, And from the wounded hero in streams the blood did run. All bewailed the death of Siegfried; but Hagen alone was implacable, without mercy and without regret. There spoke to them grim Hagen : " What is it you deplore P Our fears and all our sorrows are stilled forevermore ; But few will now be able to stand against our might. That I have dealt this death-blow, I glory and delight." " You have no cause for boasting," Sir Siegfried did exclaim ; " If I had e'er suspected your vile and murderous aim, I should have well protected 'gainst such as you my life ; But naught grieves me so greatly as Dame Kriemhild, my wife." He writhed in bitter anguish ; with pang and gasping breath, His bleeding heart lamented : " My bloody, murderous death You will have cause to grieve for in time to come, I trow. You may believe me truly : you 've struck your own death- blow." AH round about the flowers were wet with Siegfried's gore, And after a short struggle the hero was no more. 22 THE GREAT EPICS OP When night had come, the royal hunting-party crossed the Rhine and entered Worms. Hagen, to complete his villany, caused Siegfried's corpse to be laid before Kriemhild's door, so that she could not fail to find it when she went to mass early on the following morning. And there she dropped and fainted, — no word came forth, no sound ; The fair and joyless woman lay there stretched on the ground. When her swoon had passed, her maidens strove to console her by saying that the dead man might per- haps be some stranger knight. She answered, " No, 't is Siegfried, my husband dear, I know ; And Brunhild has designed it and Hagen dealt the blow." Eleven hundred knights, one thousand Nibelungs and one hundred from ISTetherland, were ready to wreak dire vengeance on the murderer ; but Kriem- hild commanded them to desist from such a hazard- ous endeavor, as the Burgundians could muster at least thirty warriors to their one. As Hagen on the following morning drew near the corpse, the blood began to ooze from the wounds, and it became evi- dent to all who the murderer was. After the body had been buried, Kriemhild took up her dwelling near the minster and went every day to Siegfried's grave, but no one could console her heart. During three years and a half she did not speak a word to her brother Gunther, nor cast her eyes on blood-stained Hagen. Through Gemot and Giselher a reconciliation with Gunther was at last brought MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 23 about, and soon after the Mbelung hoard, Kriemhild's marriage-gift, was, with her consent, carried from Nibelung land to Worms. Kriemhild, who cared more for the loss of Siegfried than for all the gold in the world, scattered precious gifts among rich and poor. When Hagen saw what great power she could wield by her generosity, and how many knights were willing to become her vassals, he was greatly alarmed and stealthily had the hoard sunk in the Ehine, where, according to popular belief, it still remains. Kriem- hild's brothers were enraged at Hagen's new injury inflicted upon their sister, but they could not undo what had been done. Thirteen years had passed since Siegfried's death, but Kriemhild bewailed his loss as vehemently as ever. She was about to withdraw to the abbey at Lorsch, between Worms and the Odenwald, which had been founded by Queen Ute, when suddenly new tidings came over the Ehine which entirely changed her resolution. CHAPTEE II. Outline of the Nibelungen Lied. — Paet II. XX. - XXII. — Far away in the steppes of Hun- gary dwelt the powerful Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, whose wife, Helke, renowned in saga-lore, hap- pened to die at that time. As the king thought of seeking a new bride for himself, his friends and vas- sals advised him to woo Kriemhild, Siegfried's widow. Therefore Margrave Eiidiger of Beehlaren, one of his most esteemed liegemen, was' despatched with a suit- able retinue to Worms, where Gunther and all the nobles of the realm were in favor of accepting Etzel's proposal, if Kriemhild would consent. Hagen alone was opposed to it, but Gunther was firm. To him gave answer Hagen : " I pray you, let that be ! If ye would know King Etzel #s he is known to me, — If ye will let him woo her, as I have heard you say, You will have ample reason to mourn for it some day." Giselher recalled to Hagen the great wrongs which the latter had already heaped on Kriemhild, and told him to desist from further attempts to displease her. The very mention of a new marriage appeared to fan the faithful widow's grief to greater flames. She MEDIAEVAL GERMANY. 25 declared, that she would never listen to any man's wooing, and for a long time persisted in refusing Etzel's proposal, even after Eiidiger had described to her in glowing colors the splendor of the realm that awaited her and the great number of powerful vassals that would be at her command. At last the brave knight succeeded in his endeavor. Unto the royal lady he said : " Pray cease to moan ; If of the Hunnish warriors you had but me alone, My faithful friends and champions and all my vassals strong, Most grievously would suffer he who had done you wrong." At these words the gleaming spark of revenge in her breast was kindled to a lurid flame. She asked Eiidiger to promise her by an oath to aid her when- ever anyone should inflict injury upon her. Eiidiger with all his vassals took the oath, and the noble mar- grave did not suspect then what secret thoughts Sieg- fried's widow fostered in the depths of her heart, nor what sore distress would come from this oath to him and his whole house. After Eiidiger's solemn prom- ise, and when he had quieted her scruples in regard to Etzel's being a pagan, Kriemhild accepted the pro- posal of the king of the Huns. She departed with her followers from Worms and arrived at Passau, where they were cordially received by Bishop Pilgrim, Queen Ute's brother. On the following morning they started for Bechlaren, where they enjoyed the hearty hospi- tality of Eiidiger's wife, Dame Gotelind. At length they came to Tuln on the Danube, in Austria, where King Etzel himself, with a royal escort, had arrived to 26 THE GREAT EPICS OF meet his bride. Among Etzel's host one powerful hero was distinguished above all; this was Dietrich von Bern (Theodoric of Verona), the mighty chief of the Amelungs. Besides him there were Blodel, Etzel's brother;- Irnfried of Thuringia; the Danes, Hawart and Iring ; and many others. The marriage of Etzel and Kriemhild was cele- brated in Vienna with unheard-of pomp and display, and the queen was much surprised at seeing so many nations under Etzel's power ; yet as she Recalled how by the Rhine banks she dwelt in bygone years, There, by her noble consort, her eyes would fill with tears ; Yet she concealed them ever that they were seen by none, Since after many sorrows great honors her were done. XXIII. -XXIV. — Etzel fervently loved his wife, who was held in high esteem by all for her great kindness. Thus seven years passed and Kriemhild gave birth to a son, who was called Ortlieb. Yet she was often buried in silent grief. She thought of many an honor which in the Niblung land Had been in her possession, and which Sir Hagen's hand Had seized and taken from her with Siegfried's overthrow ; She pondered how some sorrow might yet befall her foe. Six years more passed, and at last, twenty-six years after Siegfried's death, her plans were ripened. She pretended to have a great desire to see her relatives and friends, and at her request Etzel ordered his minstrels, Werbel and Schwemmel, to set out imme- diately for Worms, and to invite the Burgundians to a great festival to be held at the coming midsummer. MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 27 Krieinhild secretly told the messengers that above all things they should see that Hagen did not stay behind. When the "messengers arrived at Worms, Gunther, his brothers, and the great vassals of the realm were ready to comply with Etzel's invitation. Hagen was strongly opposed to it, and his ire was aroused at the mere mention of the proposal. He said to Gunther, — " You truly must remember the deeds we have done here ; We therefore must of Kriemhild be e'er in constant fear. I pierced to death her husband and slew him with my hand : How shall we ever venture to ride to Etzel's land ? " Gunther replied that his sister had forgotten and forgiven the wrong of the past ; yet Hagen did not waver from his resolution until Giselher intimated that he was afraid ; then he declared that he would go, and even lead them to Etzel's realm. XXV. - XXVIII. — One thousand and sixty knights, in gorgeous attire, with nine thousand yeo- men, left Worms, despite the warnings of old Queen Ute, who said, — " Last night I dreamed of sorrow, in anguish dire and dread, — That every winged creature in Burgundy was dead." Among this gallant host were Dankwart, Hagen's brother, and Volker of Alzey. In this connection it must be said that since the Nlbelung hoard had come into the power of the Burgundians, the latter were named Nibelungs, just as formerly Siegfried, on 28 THE GREAT EPICS OF account of the same possession, had been called the Lord of the Nibelungs. Hagen, henceforth the mighty bulwark of the M- belungs, was the dauntless leader of the host which proudly rode up the river Main, then through Eastern Franconia, and on the twelfth morning reached the Danube. The river had overflowed its banks, and no ' boats were in sight. The king and his knights were greatly dismayed, but Hagen bade them remain by the stream, while he, fully armed, departed. He strode along the river to find a ferryman. At once he heard a splashing, — to listen he began : Within a beauteous water some mermaids sported gay, Who had been there for bathing beneath the cool, clear spray. As soon as Hagen perceived them, he slyly stole up to them, but they escaped ; yet Hagen, well know- ing that they could foretell future events, seized their raiment. In order to obtain it, one of the mermaids foretold that no such honors had ever been awarded to heroes in a foreign land as they should attain. Hagen was delighted, and returned their garments. Then the other mermaid spoke : — '" T was to obtain her raiment my cousin told thee wrong, If thou shalt go to Hunland, thou 'It rue it before long. " You should turn back most quickly ; while there is time, beware ! Because ye dauntless heroes were only bidden there, That all of you should perish and die in Etzel's land ; J Whoever rideth thither takes death within his baud." Thereto replied Sir Hagen : " Your cheating is in vain ; How could it ever happen that we should all be slain MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 29 In royal Etzel's kingdom through some one's deadly hate P " Then told she yet more plainly the tidings of their fate. She said : " Be warned, Sir Hagen, because it needs must be That none of you bold heroes his home again shall see, — None save the royal chaplain. To us it is well known, That he to Gunther's country shall safe return alone." As Hagen scorned the warning of the mermaids, they told him where to find the ferryman. "He is most wrathful," they said ; " and besides, he is a friend of Sir Gelfrat, brother of the margrave, and a power- ful lord in Bavaria. If he will not comply with your request, announce yourself as Amelrich and he will obey you." The ferryman at first remained deaf to Hagen's loud summons and offers of rich reward, but as soon as he heard Amelrich's name he rowed across the stream. Expecting to find his brother, whose name was Amelrich, he grew furious when he saw that he had been deceived. Hagen at once leaped into the bark, and besought him to take the Mbelung host and their horses across the river. The ferryman retorted : " That never can he so, Since my good lords and masters have here full many a foe. I therefore put no strangers across into their land, And if thy life thou lovest, step quickly to the strand." Since Hagen refused to obey, the ferryman seized an oar and smote him with such force that he stag- gered and fell on his knees; but Hagen wrathfully grasped his sword and struck off the ferryman's head. Then the bark was seized by the current, and Hagen succeeded only after much toil in reaching the 30 THE GREAT EPICS OP shore where the army was stationed. He himself plied the bark to and fro until all of them were safely- landed. As he crossed over for the last time, and his gloomy soul brooded over the words of the mer- maid, he suddenly seized the chaplain and cast him overboard. Although his lords heaped reproaches on him, he pushed the priest with his oar back into the flood, as the latter tried to swim after the bark. The chaplain turned about and safely reached the shore, protected by the hand of God, as he could not swim. As he stood there and shook his dripping garments, Hagen knew well that the mermaid had spoken the truth and that the beginning of the end had come. When the last voyage had been completed, he broke the bark in pieces. The Nibelung army marched onward through Ba- varia, and Volker of Alzey led them, as he was well acquainted with the country. " Now take good heed," said Hagen, " esquire as well as knight, And follow friendly counsel ; methinks this is but right, Since most unwholesome tidings to you I must explain. I know that we shall never see Burgundy again. " Two mermaids told me truly, at early morn to-day, That ne'er we '11 see our country. What must be done, I '11 say: Take up your arms, ye heroes, and for affray prepare ; We here have powerful enemies, and warlike must we fare. " I weened that those wise mermaids were bent upon deceit : They prophesied that no one of all of us shall greet Again his home and country, none save the priest alone ; That I should therefore gladly have seen him drowned, I own." MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 31 Hagen's words soon became known to the whole army, and the cheeks of many dauntless heroes waxed pallid, while Hagen's martial spirit was kindled to higher flames the more he was convinced that he fought against immutable fate. His unfaltering cour- age, together with his noble devotion to his .liege lords, make him one of the grandest characters in this second part of our poem. After a bloody fight with the Bavarians, who had attacked the rear guard of the army to avenge the death of the ferryman, they reached Passau, and later the home of Budiger of Bechlaren, where they were cordially entertained by the margrave, his wife Gote- lind, and his daughter Dietelind. The latter was be- trothed to Giselher, to the great joy of all. Before the Nibelungs left Bechlaren, the margrave gave a beautiful sword to Gemot and the margravine pre- sented Hagen with a costly shield. Many were the joys of the Mbelungs during their brief sojourn at Bechlaren. It was the last time that the light of peace and friendship shone upon them in its fullest glow, for dark night approached with threatening steps, and the gloomy sky was furrowed only by lightning flashes, showing how the scythe of death would mow down the noble warlike host. When the Nibelungs had entered the land of the Huns, they were first met by Dietrich von Bern, who had come with his Amelung knights to salute and warn them. " Kriemhild," he said, " still bewails Siegfried's death." 32 THE GREAT EPICS OF There spoke to Mm Sir Hagen : "Long may she weep and cry, Since he received his death-blow full many a year passed by. Upon the king of Hunland she may her love bestow, Por ne'er again comes Siegfried ; he s s buried long ago. " The death of that bold hero concerns us now no wise ; As long as lives Dame Kriemhild, great ills may yet arise." Replied the valiant Dietrich, of Bern the noble chief: " O thou, the Niblung's bulwark, beware of coming grief !" . The last words were addressed to Gunther, who, with his brothers, Hagen and Volker, drew aside to hear more particular news from Dietrich. The latter could only repeat that early every morning Kriem- hild calls on Heaven to avenge her Siegfried's death. " It cannot be prevented," replied the fiddler bold, The dauntless hero Volker, " what now we have been told. To royal Etzel's palace let us now ride and see What may the fate in Hunland of us, brave warriors, be." As the Mbelungs pressed forward to Etzel's court, the eyes of the Huns were eagerly fastened on Ha- gen, for it was well known among them that he had slain Siegfried, the strongest of heroes. Hagen was well built, with broad chest and shoulders, and strong limbs. His countenance was awe-inspiring, his hair had become grizzled, and his carriage was majestic. At the queen's command the yeomen were quar- tered at a place quite remote from that of the knights, yet Gunther intrusted the former to the care of Dank- wart, Hagen's brother. In the meantime fair Kriemhild approached and received her guests with treachery in her soul ; her brother Giselher alone she kissed and took by the MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 33 hand. When Hagen saw that, he fastened his hel- met more securely and said, " After such a 'welcome, the bold knights will do well to be on their guard. Surely our journey to this festival has been an evil one." Kriemhild heard these words. She said : " To him be welcome who likes to see you here. I owe you for your friendship no greeting and no cheer. But speak, what have you brought me from Worms across the Rhine, Why you should be so welcome within this realm of mine P " Hagen answered scornfully, and as Kriemhild questioned him in regard to the Nibelung hoard, he replied, — "My liege lords had it buried beneath the Rhine for aye; It truly must remain there unto the judgment day." When the queen expressed again her sorrow for the lost treasure, and still more for the Lord of the Eibelungs, Sir Hagen then responded : " In vain is all this care. How could I bring the treasure ? I had enough to bear My coat of mail and buckler, my helmet bright and clear, My sword within its scabbard. Naught else have I brought here." The queen thereon commanded unto the warriors all, That none should wear his weapons within the royal hall : "I'll care for them, ye heroes, intrust them unto me." " Upon my troth," said Hagen, " that nevermore shall be." Kriemhild was then aware that the Mbelungs had been warned, and she threatened death to him who had done it. But as Dietrich von Bern declared that 34 THE GEEAT EPICS OF he had warned them, Kriemhild blushed from shame and wrath, while she was filled with terror at Die- trich's threatening mien. XXIX. — XXXII. — A remarkably fine picture is presented by Hagen's friendship with Volker, who was surnamed " the Fiddler," as he had a fiddle-bow one side of which was a keen-edged sword. Strong in their brotherhood of arms, they were ever ready to defy death, and to defy it with the certainty in their hearts that with every hour it drew inevitably nearer. Their friendship was steeled by the sufferings which they underwent and by the horrors amidst and against which they fought, and fought in vain. Kriemhild endeavored now to execute her plans of revenge, especially as her anger had been increased by the sight of Siegfried's sword, which Hagen bore proudly and ostentatiously before her eyes. In the meantime Gunther and his chivalry were cordially received by King Etzel, who suspected nothing of Kriemhild's designs. "When night drew near, the guests were led to a spacious hall where luxurious beds had been prepared for them. Hagen and Volker, donning their armor, went to keep watch before the door. Volker leaned his shield against the outside wall of the house, and, taking his viol in his hand, seated himself on a stone beneath the entrance of the hall. And with his viol's music resounded house and hall ; Great was beyond all measure his strength and skill withal. But sweeter then and softer the knight td play began, "Until he lulled to slumber full many a careworn man. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 35 When Volker saw that all were soundly asleep, he took his shield again, and together with Hagen con- tinued to keep the lonely watch before the hall. In the realm of poetry will be found few grander pic- tures than the aspect of those two heroic figures pass- ing to and fro in glittering armor amidst the deep silence and gloom of night. Their thoughts went back to the verdant meadows and the peaceful, blooming dales of the Ehine, while their undaunted souls defied the final doom that hung threatening over them and their friends. On the following day a great festival was held at Etzel's palace in honor of his guests. While the knights took their seats in the festal hall, Kriemhild implored Dietrich von Bern to revenge her on her foes. To her replied Sir Dietrich, with courtly speech and mien : " Desist from thy entreaties, most rich and mighty queen ! For never have thy kinsmen to me done any wrong, That I should fight with heroes so noble and so strong. " It does thee little honor, thou noble royal dame, To plot against thy kindred and at their life to aim. In trust upon thy bidding they came to Etzel's land, And unavenged must Siegfried remain by Dietrich's hand." Kriemhild found a more willing tool for her bloody schemes in Blodel, Etzel's brother, who was won over by the queen's magnificent promises of lands and castles, and especially by her assurance that she would give him a beautiful lady for his wife. While Blodel departed with his warriors to attack the yeo- 36 THE GREAT EPICS OF men at their quarters, Kriemhild went to join her lord at the royal banquet. After a long and desperate combat, in which Blodel fell by Dankwart's hand, all the Burgundian yeomen and twelve knights were slain by the Huns, who had attacked them with an overpowering force. The din of battle ceased, and the stalwart form of Dankwart alone towered terribly over his slain friends and the exasperated Huns. Casting a sad glance at the former, He said : " Alas, my comrades, whose death I must bemoan ! Now I must stand forsaken, among my foes alone." Yet the dauntless knight cut his way to the door of the hall. When he was without, the Huns assailed him again, hoping to overcome him, as he had lost his shield in the combat. He went before his enemies as a wild boar will flee The hounds throughout the forest. How could he bolder be ? XXXIII. -XXXVIII.— At last Dankwart, stream- ing with the blood of the slain Huns, rushed into the festal hall where Etzel and many of his vassals enter- tained the Nibelungs. Then shouted forth Sir Dankwart unto a brave compeer : " Too long, brother Hagen, you have been sitting here. To you and God in heaven must I bewail our woe, — The knights and all the yeomen at quarters are laid low." When Hagen had learned how the carnage had taken place, MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 37 He said : " Now, brother Dankwart, defend thj door with might ; Let not come out hereafter a single Hminish knight." Shortly before Dankwart had entered the hall, the young son of Etzel and Kriemhild had been shown to the guests, and the anger of Etzel and of the Huns was aroused by some disdainful remarks of Hagen in regard to the child. The Huns, enraged at Dank- wart's guarding the door, consulted with one another in whispers, whereupon Hagen exclaimed, — " I have heard very often of Kriemhild many a tale, How she her heart's deep sorrow will ne'er cease to bewail. Now drink we the remembrance,* with royal wine we '11 cheer. The youthful prince of Hunland must be the first one here." The terrible words were followed by the bloody deed. Hagen smote off Ortlieb's bead, which fell in- to Kriemhild's lap. Volker wielded his sword fiddle- bow with such fury that the helmets of the Huns resounded terribly from its blows. Gunther and his brothers had at first attempted to bring about a cessa- tion of hostilities, but the fury of Hagen and Volker rendered their efforts fruitless, and they themselves joined in the conflict. Although King Btzel's liegemen fought well against their foe, One saw the dauntless strangers there striding to and fro. * The German Sfliitne is used here in its primitive meaning. To drink Sftinne meant to drink in remembrance and in honor of the dead. It took place at the close of the feast. Thus Hagen ended the feast by drinking in remembrance of Siegfried ; but the draught was the king's wine, i. e. the blood of his child and of his liegemen. (Vilmar, p. 75.) 38 THE GREAT EPICS OF Their glittering swords they wielded in Etzel's hall around ; On all sides from the comhat rang forth a ghastly sound. Volker joined Dankwart at the door to keep off the Huns, who from without furiously assailed the entrance to help their comrades within. While the contest grew fiercer, Kriemhild, filled with dismay, called on Dietrich von Bern to protect her. The noble chief of the Goths leaped upon a table, and his powerful voice resounded through the palace like the blast from a buffalo horn amidst the din of battle. At Gunther's command the tumult and slaughter ceased for an instant, while Dietrich' demanded per- mission to withdraw from the palace with his fol- lowers. Gunther readily consented, and Dietrich, with the terrified Kriemhild leaning on one arm and Etzel on the other, left the hall, followed by six hun- dred Amelung knights. The same permission was granted to Budiger and his liegemen. Hardly had they left, when the combat between the ISTibelungs and the Huns within the hall hegan again with renewed fury, until every Hun in the pal- ace was slain. Hagen and Volker haughtily strode about before the hall. At Kriemhild's instigation and promises of reward, Iring of Denmark attacked Hagen, but was slain by the latter after a heroic combat. As evening drew near, the Huns approached in greater numbers than before, and again a fearful strife began between the contending foes. Of such a murderous battle the queen had never thought ; When she began her plotting, she gladly would have sought MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 39 That no one else but Hagen should have to lose his life ; Yet worked the evil spirit that all must fall in strife. The Mbelungs, exhausted by the constant fighting, and seeing that the hall was surrounded by the Huns, preferred a speedy death to slow suffering, and there- fore demanded an interview with Etzel. The guests he thus accosted : " Speak what you want of me, Ye ween to sue for friendship ? That hardly now can be. Ye slew my child, together with many a kinsman true ; Both peace and friendship ever shall be denied to yon." Gunther replied that the slaying of the yeomen by the Huns was the cause of all the following combats : but Etzel was not to be appeased. Then Gemot de- manded that they should be allowed to leave the hall and to die fighting in the open space, since die they must. Etzel and the Huns would have complied with this demand ; but Kriemhild interfered, saying that her kinsmen, when once refreshed by the cool wind, would slay all their enemies. Then her young- est brother, whom she had loved most, made a touch- ing appeal to the frenzied queen. Young Giselher addressed her : " Beloved sister mine, How could I have imagined when I across the Rhine Into King Etzel's country came at thy kind behest, That by such pain and sorrow I here should be oppressed. " I e'er to thee was faithful, nor caused thee any grief. I rode into this country with such a strong belief That thou to me wert friendly, most noble sister mine. Bestow on us thy mercy ! Naught else thou canst design." Giselher's entreaty was not without exerting some softening influence on the queen's heart ; her sisterly 40 THE GREAT EPICS OF love was not yet entirely quenched by her thoughts of revenge, and she promised to spare the lives of her brothers if they would deliver Hagen into her hands. This proposal was indignantly rejected by all, and Kriemhild's fury increased as her last attempt to get Hagen into her power seemed to be frustrated. She turned to the Huns and said, — " Let none now leave the palace, none of those warriors all ; And then on its four corners I '11 bid you fire the hall." The cruel command was at once obeyed by the Huns, after all the Nibelungs who had stood without the hall had been driven within. The royal brothers and their vassals stood faithfully by each other in this fatal hour of severest trial. Seized by the wind, the palace blazed up in fiery glow. I ween, no heroes ever encountered such a woe. Tormented by the heat and smoke, and still more by the unquenchable thirst, the Nibelungs came nigh despairing. In such distress spoke Hagen : " Ye noble knights and good, Whioe'er by thirst is tortured, may take a draught of blood ; In such a heat and suffering it better is than wine. Naught else for food or drinking you '11 find here, I opine." Hagen's advice was followed. The burning rafters fell thickly from the roof, but the knights pressed close to the stone walls and extinguished the fire- flakes in the blood under their feet. Thus the ter- rible night wore away. At morning, to the great surprise of Kriemhild, six hundred Mbelungs were MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 41 still found living among the smoking rains. They were at once attacked by twelve hundred Huns, but the latter were slain, every one of them, by Gunther and his vassals. One of the most touching pictures in these last struggles of the Mbelungs is Eiidiger of Bechlaren. The queen reminded him of his vow at Worms before she consented to marry Etzel, while he thought of the friends whom he had conducted hither. Eiidiger said to the queen, — " Quite truly hast thou spoken, thou noble, royal dame, That I for thee should venture my life and eke my fame. To lose my soul's salvation for thee, I ne'er have sworn ; I brought here to this country thy brothers, nobly born." But Kriemhild strongly reminded him again of his oath to wreak vengeance on any one who should harm her, and both she and Etzel begged the margrave in the most humble and piteous manner to aid them. Eiidiger, whose heart was rent in twain by the con- sciousness of his duty towards his liege lord and by the obligations of friendship towards the three royal brothers, exclaimed, — " Alas ! I, God-forsaken, have come to see this day ! And all my lofty honors I must now cast away ; My faithfulness and virtue, which God bestowed on me. bounteous God in heaven, let death now set me free ! " Whomever I abandon, to take the other side, 1 needs must do what 's evil, whatever may betide ; And should I both relinquish, then scorn me man and wife. May he alone now guide me, the Author of my life ! " 42 THE GREAT EPICS OF Being aware that he could no longer resist Etzel's command, his thoughts turned to his home. " I trust unto your pity my wife, my child withal, Besides the homeless beings within Beehlaren's wall." After this farewell he hade his vassals arm them- selves at once ; and as Giselher saw Elidiger with five hundred warriors approaching the palace, he was re- joiced at the supposed succor. Yet he was speedily disappointed ; for Eiidiger laid his shield at his feet, and shouted to the Nibelungs that his friendship with them was ended, and that henceforth he would be their foe. Gunther, Gemot, and Giselher conjured him to think of his fidelity towards them, but Eiidiger expressed his heartfelt sorrow at the dire necessity to which he had to submit, and wished that they were at the Ehine and he were dead. Deeply impressive were the appeals of Gemot when he reminded him of the sword which he had received from him at Bech- laren, and with which he might be forced to slay the giver ; touching were Giselher's farewell words to the father of his bride, — yet Eiidiger, although broken- hearted, clung to his duty, and the Nibelungs well understood his pain. The combat was about to begin when Hagen told Eiidiger that the shield which he had received as a gift from the margravine durirjg their visit at Bechlaren was hewn asunder. Eiidiger offered him his own shield. However grim was Hagen, however hard his mood, Yet at this gift he softened, which that great hero good Had then bestowed upon him even as the end drew nigh ; Pull many a noble champion began with him to sigh. MEDIiEVAL GERMANY. 43 " May God in heaven reward you, most noble Riidiger ! Your like is not encountered on earth here anywhere ; Ye, who to homeless heroes give such kind gift away, — May God grant that your virtue shall live and last for aye." All who witnessed the sad spectacle were moved to tears, especially when Hagen declared that he would not touch Eiidiger in the approaching strife. The same promise was made by Volker. Then Eiidiger seized a shield and furiously assailed his foes. The latter allowed the margrave and his vassals to enter the hall of death in order to slay them more surely. Eiidiger fought with inexpressible rage and killed many of Gunther's vassals, until Gemot challenged him to single combat. Their keen-edged swords they wielded; no help was 'gainst their might. Brave Riidiger, assailing Gemot, the dauntless knight, Smote through Ms flint-hard helmet so that the blood streamed down; Yet fiercely him requited that chief of great renown. The margrave's gift he lifted on high against his foe ; However deadly wounded, he dealt him such a blow As cut his shield asunder, and eke his helmet broke : The beauteous Gotlind's consort fell dead beneath the stroke. Thus both were laid low, each by the other's equal strength. The fury of the Nibelungs at seeing Ger- not slain grew more fierce, and all the vassals of Eiidiger speedily met their doom. The corpse of the noble margrave was shown to Kriemhild, and im- moderate were her lamentations and those of Etzel when they knew the terrible loss they had sustained. 44 THE GREAT EPICS OF Their cries resounded through the palace, and at last Dietrich von Bern was "apprised of the mournful tidings, which he would hardly believe. He sent his faithful friend and vassal Hildehrand to learn from the Mbelungs themselves what had happened. Hil- debrand went forth, escorted, contrary to Dietrich's command, by all the Amelung knights, among whom Wolfhart, Hildebrand's nephew, was the most dis- tinguished. When Hildebrand asked for Eiidiger's corpse in order to bury it, the demand was refused, and soon the Amelungs rushed to the attack. The Mbelungs well knew that their fatal hour had at last come, and they fought with the frenzy and valor of doomed giants. Volker, the fiddler bold, next to Ha- gen the bulwark of the Mbelungs, fell by the hand of Hildebrand. But in the meantime Wolfhart had twice amidst the fray Struck down King Gunther's warriors, who came across his way; Now for the third time cut he a path throughout the hall, And caused by his great power full many a hero's fall. Giselher beheld with terror Wolfhart's slaughter among his friends, and turned against him. After a fierce struggle the two knights gave grim death to each other. Then Hagen, furious at the death of his friend Volker, met Hildebrand, who was enraged at the overthrow of his beloved nephew. Hagen wielded the sword Balmung, which he had possessed since Siegfried's death, and smote through Hilde- brand's hauberk, inflicting a severe wound on him. The latter, covering himself with his shield, fled. Of MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 45 the Nibelungs all, save Gunther and Hagen, had been slain in the hall of carnage ; of the Amelungs none had escaped, except Hildebrand. Hildebrand brought the sad tidings to Dietrich, whom he found sorely oppressed with dire forebod- ings. The aged knight recounted all that had hap- pened, and great was Dietrich's grief at the certain news of Eiidiger's death ; yet greater was his sorrow and surprise when he heard that all his men, save Hildebrand, had been slain. Dietrich approached the two remaining Nibelungs, who in lonely grandeur stood before the hall and saw him coming. Dietrich demanded that they should atone for their deeds. He said to Gunther, — " Yield up yourself as hostage, and Hagen too, your man, And then I "will protect you as well as e'er I can, That no one here in Hunland shall do a harm to you ; And you will find most surely that I '11 be kind and true." Hagen scorned the idea of surrender, when Dietrich again exclaimed, — " Upon my troth I promise, and pledge thereto my hand, That I with you together will ride into your land ; With honor I '11 escort you, unless I needs must die ; For you shall he forgotten, my boundless misery." Hagen refused for the second time to heed the noble Dietrich's request, and nothing was left for the latter but to force compliance with his demands. Hagen rushed down from the stairway with the Nibe- lung sword Balmung in his hand, and attacked Die- trich, who well knew the bravery of his foe. After a 46 THE GREAT EPICS OF tierce combat Hagen was severely wounded ; but Die- trich, thinking that there would be little honor for him in slaying an enemy wearied -by constant fight- ing, enclasped him in his powerful arms and bore him captive to Kriemhild. The queen, filled with fiendish delight at seeing her archenemy in her power, greatly praised Dietrich; but the high-minded hero bade her spare Hagen's life. While Hagen was thrown into a dungeon where none could see him, Dietrich went back to the hall There Gunther assailed him, yet he overcame the Burgundian king and bore him in bonds to Kriemhild. The latter bade a mocking wel- come to her brother, while Dietrich enjoined her to treat fairly the two homeless knights. Gunther was led to another prison than the one into which Hagen had been cast, so that they could not see one another. The queen, teeming with glowing joy that now at last revenge might be accomplished, went to Hagen's cell and promised to spare his life if he would reveal the place where the Nibelung hoard had been concealed. Hageu, undaunted despite his fetters, declared that as long as one of his' lords should live, he would not dis- close the secret. The frenzied queen at once had Gunther's head cut off, and she herself bore it by the hair to Hagen. When the latter had recovered from the horror with which the deed filled his soul, he exclaimed, — " Now all to thine own pleasure has to an end been brought, And wholly so it happened as always I had thought. " No one now knows the treasure, save God and me alone ; To thee, infernal woman, it never shall be known." MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 47 Kriemhild, once the very type of meek and gentle womanhood, seized the sword Balmung, and with one stroke fell Hagen's head. Etzel was struck with dis- may at the ghastly deed, and Hildebrand, furious at seeing the mighty hero thus dealt with by the frenzied woman, grasped his sword and killed the queen. The royal feast was ended in sorrow and in pain ; As joy draws ever sorrow behind it in its train. As Vilmar says, with this tone of deep sadness in which the last sounds of our poem die away, it re- turns to the primitive tone in which it began. CHAPTER III.* I. The Nibelung Epics and Sagas in the North. II. The Lay of Siegfried. I. As has been mentioned above, the Nibelungen Lied in its present shape was composed towards the end of the twelfth, or at the beginning of the thirteenth century. It was then the brilliant era of the Hohen- staufen emperors (1138-1254), when the courts of Frederick Barbarossa and of Frederick II., themselves the very types of mediaeval German knighthood, were adorned by the flower of a noble chivalry. It was then the renowned epoch of the "Minnesanger," when the richly flowing stream of national greatness per- vaded the hearts of all, when the highest ideals held forth by poetry were personal bravery and honor to wo- man. But while the composition of the Mbelungen Lied belongs to one period, the world that is mir- rored in the poem belongs to another. At the time when our epic was composed, Germany had been christianized for many centuries, and the feudal sys- * Some pages of this chapter, and a few remarks in the fifth chap- ter, have been reprinted from the author's introduction to his trans- lation of Emanuel Geibel's "Brunhild." MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 49 tern was then firmly established ; yet the beginning of the Nibelung myths and sagas must be sought at an epoch when most of the German tribes, proud of their freedom, still hunted through the primeval forests ; when the king was little more than the chosen leader in war ; when Odin and Thor were worshipped ; when the sacred trees had not yet fallen under the axe of the Christian missionaries, and the martial spirit of the warriors was kindled to higher flames by the joys that waited for them at the feasts of Valhal. It is evi- dent that in the hands of a Christian composer of the Nibelungen Lied, living at the end of the twelfth century, a time so strongly imbued with the spirit of the crusades and feudalism, many of the primitive ideas must have undergone important changes. Thus it happens that the Nibelungen Lied appears at least partly in a garb that is foreign to the source from which it came. But although we have to look elsewhere for the earlier records on which the sub- ject of our poem is based, the Nibelungen Lied, such as it is, remains a brilliant monument of mediaeval Germany, and bears witness to the martial spirit of the Middle Ages, which could not forget the heroic deeds of the past. The Teutonic nations that had made an end of the Eoman empire, or had settled near the Eoman prov- inces, were early converted to Christianity, and at the same time powerfully influenced by the civilization of their conquered foes, — an event in history beauti- fully described in Jordan's " Nibelunge " : — 50 THE GREAT EPICS OF SH8 unfere St&nen ben (Erbfreis etoiert, SJerforen ben £immet bie $eimif$en ®Btter, 2>a$ 9W$ tear entriffm bet ettrigen SRoma, 2)o<$ ju geltett fcegann fte ale ©eifterfiitftin. The name " Godomar " occurs neither in the North- ern nor in the German saga ; instead of it Guthorm appears in the former and Gemot in the latter. The historical Giselher is unknown in the Northern tradi- tions ; and as his character was probably little defined in the saga, and he is of no particular influence in the general course of the story, the poet of the Mbelungen Lied was at liberty to form a creation according to his own imagination. Thus the youngest brother of Kriemhild became the most amiable of the three - kings and the one most beloved by his sister. He spoke against the murder of Siegfried * and took no part in the crime, but he was unable to prevent it. A charming episode is made of his sojourn at Bech- laren, and of his betrothal with Eiidiger's daughter ; f and again very touching are his appeals to Kriem- hild's pity and sisterly love when death threatened him and his friends.J Although ever unsuccessful in his attempts to have the right prevail, he is firm, and suffers death rather than consent to surrender Hagen, the faithful liegeman, to the queen's revenge, in order to save his own life. Indeed Giselher's character, although extremely kind and devoted, shows no weakness, and is in this respect very different from that of Gunther, who yields to Brunhild's powerful * p. 18. t p. 31. t p- 39. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 99 will and Hagen's treacherous insinuations, and con- sents to the murder of Siegfried, his best friend, to whom he owed so much. The evidence drawn from the Burgundian law, in connection with the historical fact of Gunther's de- feat by the Huns, although the latter were not led by Attila in person, permits us to determine, at least approximately, the date of this part of our saga. It seems unquestionable that it cannot have originated before the destruction of the earlier Burgundian realm, nor yet very long after it, since, as we have said before, the Burgundians were transferred to Savoy in the year 443, and their temporary so- journ near the Ehine was soon forgotten. At the same time the saga of the Burgundian kings was blended with the story of Siegfried, which, as we shall see hereafter, is based on a myth, while the whole Mbelung saga must have been known to the North as early as the beginning of the seventh century, as is evident from Anglo-Saxon works and especially from "The Traveller." In this connection we may quote Professor Miillenhoff's remark* on the beginning of the German heroic sagas : " The heroic age," he says, " forms in the life of a nation the great turning-point, when it enters from its primitive condition into the condition which we name the historical. The so- called ' Migration of the Baces ' is the German heroic age, and the cradle of our hero-saga." In the Northern traditions and in the lay of Sieg- fried, Hagen (Hogni) is one of the royal brothers, * Zur Geschichte der Nibelunge N8t. 100 THE GREAT EPICS OF while in all the German poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries he is a relative of the kings, and their most powerful and distinguished vassal. In the Thidrek Saga he is the son of Queen Oda (Ute), who, while asleep, was overpowered by an elf; and Hagen is thus the step-brother of the kings. His descent from a demon is seen in the paleness of his face and in his general spectral appearance. In Waltharius,* where Gibich, the father of Gunther, appears as king of Frankland and resides in Worms, Hagen is no relation of the royal house, and is said to be of Trojan race, — a statement which is based on the old tradition of the descent of the Franks from Troy. As it was but natural that the heroes of the saga shonld be placed in the vicinity of the Ehine and of Worms, Troy became, in the Mbelungen Lied, Tronje, which is identical with Tronia, a name found in doc- uments of the ninth century, denoting a place which lies northwest of Strassburg and is now called Kirch- heim. Yet while Hagen is by no means an historical personage, he is certainly one of the most interesting and powerful figures in the Nibelungen Lied, and his character, as it appears in our poem, has been suffi- ciently pointed out in the outline of the latter, given above. In the Northern traditions he (Hogni) bears himself nobly throughout; and although he speaks against Siegfried's (Sigurd's) murder, he does not shrink from sharing the responsibility for the deed after it has been done. Volker did not originally belong to the saga, but * See Introduction. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 101 is a creation of later times ; and through him Medi- asval German knighthood and court poetry were par- ticularly represented and glorified. He was placed in the poem in the neighborhood of the Ehine, — in Alzey in the Palatinate ; the Lords of Alzey bore a fiddle in their escutcheon, and were commonly called "the Fiddlers."* Like Volker in the Nibelungen Lied we find in " Gudrun " f Horand, the brave war- rior and skilled minstrel ; and in the Edda Gunnar himself plays the harp, j In regard to Kriemhild it will suffice here to re- peat that in the first part of the Nibelungen Lied she is a pure and noble character, the very type of fair and gentle womanhood, while in the second part her passion to revenge Siegfried's death gradually clouds her lovely appearance, until at last she is seen in a ghastly glare of fiendish grandeur. Her mother is in the German epic a revered queen, while in the Northern traditions she is an ambitious and wily sorceress who by magic drinks compels Siegfried to forget Brunhild and his oaths, and to fall in love with her own daughter. In the Nibelungen Lied, as we have seen, Siegfried's former acquaintance with Brunhild, although not wholly forgotten, has yet lost so much of its primitive significance that there is no need of any magic drink. In fact, as Uhland says, the Christian poets of the Middle Ages had themselves taken a draught of forgetfulness, and they could no longer discern the lofty form of the valkyrie Brunhild, while Kriemhild assumed the * Cf. p. 31 f P . 167. t v- 75. 102 THE GREAT EPICS OF principal role in the German epic. Yet although the sublime character which Brunhild exhibits in the Edda fades away in the Mbelungen Lied, she retains a dark and gloomy power, to which the sin- ister gorgeousness of her palace in Isenland, built of green marble blocks and with eighty-six dismally frowning turrets, forms a grand tragic background. The hoard is of great importance in Sigurd's mar- riage with G-udrun, as he takes it with him to Giuki's court, and it forms a powerful incentive for Gu- drun's mother to attach him to the royal house. In the Nibelungen Lied, Siegfried left the hoard under Alberich's care in the Mbelung Land, and it is thus of no significance in the wooing of Kriemhild. As has been said before, the three games correspond to the wavering fire, and the Tarnkappe to the change of semblance, while the combat between Siegfried and Brunhild in the bridal chamber is a product of the imaginative power of the poet. Sigurd's second ride through the flame wall (in the likeness of Gunnar) is described more fully and in more glowing colors than his first ride, as it was the more important of the two and alone had fatal consequences. The Quarrel of the Queens, and Siegfried's Death. The quarrel of the queens, although brought about in a different manner in the Northern and German accounts, leads to the same result, namely, to Sieg- fried's death. In both traditions Brunhild provokes the strife and offends Kriemhild by her haughty de- meanor, while the latter, carried away by the heat MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 103 of her wrath, declares that Siegfried had been Brun- hild's first husband. This bold assertion was not supported by anything that Siegfried had told his wife of his relation to Brunhild, yet he had given her the ring (and the girdle), which were at least apparent proofs of the accusation she had hurled against the overbearing queen. Apart from this fault, Siegfried in the Nibelungen Lied is without guilt and his murder is a crime, for there is nothing in the poem that clearly indicates his former intimate acquaintance with Brun- hild. On the other hand, in the Northern traditions he is guilty, since, although he was forced by magic drinks to forget his love for Brunhild, he deceived her know- ingly when he came to her in the likeness of Gunther, took the ring from her, and revealed what had passed to his wife. Brunhild's honor and pride were deeply offended by this deception, and nothing less than Sieg- fried's death could atone for the insult she had suf- fered, while moreover her heart was consumed by raging flames of jealousy, as another woman possessed the greatest hero of the time, — the man who had been destined for her and whom, she loved. Her grand character appears especially in the conflict be- tween her love of Siegfried and the inevitable neces- sity to demand satisfaction for the wrong he had inflicted upon her. In the Nibelungen Lied, where Siegfried is not destined for Brunhild, the latter's pride seems to be the main motive of action ; yet, as Lachmann and Koch have observed, why should Brunhild care so much for Siegfried's vassalage, un- less she envies Kriemhild for being Siegfried's wife ? 104 THE GREAT EPICS OF The Younger Edda, the Volsunga Saga, and most of the songs of the Elder Edda relate that Siegfried (Sigurd) was murdered while sleeping in his bed,* while according to the " Lay of Brynhild " and to the " Second Lay of Gudrun " in the Elder Edda, he was slain without doors. At the end of the " Lay of Bryn- hild " the collector of the poem wrote a few lines in prose, referring to these different tales of Siegfried's death, and also stating that according to German tra- ditions he was murdered in the wood. Whatever may have been the original version of the saga, the most important point is that in all accounts Siegfried was treacherously slain, — a fact already recognized in the concluding sentence of the prose remarks after the Lay of Brynhild : " But all say with one accord that they betrayed him in their troth, and murdered him as he lay unarrayed and unawares." It is but natural and in accordance with the lofty character of the valkyrian Brunhild, that in the Northern sagas, where she loves Siegfried, she should slay herself after the latter's death. On the other hand, in the Mbe- lungen Lied, where Brunhild's and Siegfried's relations to each other are different, there appears no reason why she should seek death after her pride and honor had been avenged. Henceforth she sinks into complete insignificance, and, as has been said before, Kriem- hild becomes the great heroine of the German epic. The Revenge. Kriemhild's grief and despair on account of Sieg- fried's death are depicted with no less glowing colors * p. 72. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 105 in the Nibelungen Lied than in the Edda and in the Volsunga Saga. In the latter she becomes reconciled to her brothers, takes their part against Atli (Attila), and slays him. In the German epic she is impla- cable, sacrifices everything to her all-powerful pas- sion of revenge, marries Attila only in order to bring about the destruction of Siegfried's murderer, and shrinks not from the bloodiest deeds to accomplish her object. When we come to the second part of the Nibe- lungen Lied, the historical elements of the saga appear more conspicuously, although the chief historical per- sonages in it are often represented in a manner con- trary to authenticated truth. The principal historic characters here are Attila, king of the Huns, and Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, the greatest of the early German conquerors, and renowned in saga-lore by the name of Dietrich von Bern, from his palace at Verona (Bern). Yet, as a matter of fact, Attila and Theodoric cannot have met, since the former died in 453 and the latter was born in 455. While speaking of Attila, we cannot but briefly refer to the most stirring and momentous event of the times, which is known as the Migration of the Eaces. The movement began long before the Chris- tian era, when the nomadic hordes of the Huns in Eastern Asia became such terrible foes to the Chinese that the latter built the Great Wall of China to ward off their attacks. Being afterwards defeated by the Chinese, about the year 100 B. c, they fled westward, traversed Central Asia, and in the year 375 of our era, 106 THE GREAT EPICS OF after crossing the vast plains at the west of the Ural Mountains, conquered the land of the Alans between the Volga and the Don. Together with the Alans they pressed forward and fell upon the Goths. The ancient kingdom of the Goths had been divided about the year 369 into the Visigothic and Ostro- gothic realms ; the former comprised the country north of the Danube and extended westward to the river Theiss in Hungary, while the latter was situated in Southern Eussia between the Don and the Dnies- ter. The Huns attacked first the Ostrogoths under their aged king, Hermanric, who nominally ruled over both the Gothic nations. The Ostrogoths were vanquished, and forced to submission ; Hermanric in despair killing himself with his own sword. Then they fell upon the Visigoths, who gave way before the irresistible power of the invaders, and were driven westward. The greater part of the Visigoths 1 crossed the Danube, entered the Eastern Empire, and settled in the country between the Lower Danube and the Hellespont, after a treaty had been concluded be- tween them and the Emperor Valens. On account of the ill treatment they suffered from the treacherous Koman officers, the Visigoths arose in arms against Valens, and defeated him in the great battle of Adria- nople in the year 378. Later, in 402, they conquered Italy under their great king, Alaric; but ten years afterwards they passed through Southern Gaul into Spain, and founded a kingdom with the capital at Toulouse. Their king, Theodoric I., fell in the fa- mous battle in which Attila was defeated, upon the MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 107 far-stretching plains on the Marne, Aube, and Seine, between Troyes and Chalons, in the year 451 ; and no small share in the honor of the victory was due to the valor of the Visigoths. In this memorable struggle, which decided the fate of Europe, Attila had, besides his Huns, the Ostrogoths, Thuringians, Burgundians, Franks, and many other German tribes, while the Eoman Aetius with the legions in Gaul was sup- ported by the Visigoths and bands of Franks, Saxons, and Burgundians. Thus Germans fought against Ger- mans ; and so fierce was the combat that a brook which crossed the field streamed with the blood of the slain, and yet the exhausted warriors quenched their thirst from the gory waves. We are vividly reminded of this report by Hagen's terrible advice in the Nibe- lungen Lied to drink the blood of the slain.* The fame of the great painter, Kaulbach, was particularly founded on his grand historical fresco in Berlin, representing the battle of the Huns. After Attila's death, in the year 453, all the Ger- man tribes that had submitted to the yoke of the Huns regained their freedom, while the far-stretching realm of the Asiatic conqueror sank speedily into nothingness, from which it had so suddenly arisen. Yet, short as was the sway of Attila (from 434 to 453), the terror it had inspired, and the great commo- tion it had brought over the whole Teuton and Eoman world, were not so soon forgotten. The people remem- bered with awe that there was a time when the scales in the hand of Fate trembled, and the momentous * p. 40. 108 THE GREAT EPICS OF question was not whether the vigorous Teutons should wrest the sceptre from proud and effeminate Eome, or whether the stratagems and suhtle diplomacy of the latter could stay the inroads of the German tribes, hut whether the civilization of the world should be submerged in the dark and bottomless sea of the Hun- nish invasion. Thus the memory of the great chief- tain hovered for a long time, like a bloody phantom, in the Eoman annals and in the German sagas. Jornandes, who wrote " De rebus geticis " about the year 552, mentions, on the authority of Priscus, that Attila died suddenly on his bridal night with Ildico. The latter name is a diminutive of Hilde, which is an abbreviation of a word compounded with Mid, like Brunhild or Kriemhild. Although in the whole account given by Jornandes there is no trace of a suspicion of the maiden's guilt, it is not surprising that popular opinion soon attributed the sudden death of the powerful conqueror to his bride. Indeed Comes Marcellinus, who lived about the same time as Jor- nandes, records as an historical fact that Attila met his death at night from the hand of a woman. This report was widely spread, and became known to the Northern people, who readily believed it, and in then saga made the murderess of Attila commit the deed in order to avenge her brothers, as this was a duty to which she was bound according to the Northern customs. On account of the pre-eminent position which Attila occupied in the minds of men, it is but natural that the overthrow of Gunther's Burgundian kingdom by the Huns should be ascribed directly to MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 109 him, although historically Attila himself had taken no part in it. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that in ancient times the rich king was also the mighty one, and the power of the early warrior kings over their dependants and against their foes derived one of its chief resources from their treasure. Thus the latter became the emblem of the royal power, and, as Miillenhoff remarks, "since every prince as such has a treasure, which is the nerve of his might, hoard and realm (hord and rice, Beowulf, 4734) are insep- arable ideas." Again Miillenhoff argues very correctly when he says : " If therefore Attila coveted Gunnar's realm, it means in epic language that he wished to possess his hoard ; and if he despoiled him and his race entirely of their realm, he despoiled them also of their hoard." At the same time, since Attila (Atli) appeared as the conqueror of Gunnar, he could but assume in the saga the part of the avenger of Sigurd, although it is true that Atli's main purpose was to obtain Gunnar's hoard, i. e. his realm, and he would have acted as he did even if he had not been married to Gudrun. The Northern traditions in so far as they attribute Attila's death to his wife are in accordance, if not with the records of strictly his- torical truth, at least with the popular opinions that prevailed^soon after he died, and we must therefore conclude that they represent the earlier formation of this part of the saga. The particular features of the revenge were to a great extent based on an older tradition found in the beginning of the Volsunga Saga, and especially in the eighth chapter, which 110 THE GREAT EPICS OF treats of the vengeance that Signy wreaked on her husband for the death of her father and her brothers. "When we compare the historical Attila, before whose piercing glance Borne and Constantinople trembled, with Etzel of the Nibelungen Lied, we find that the latter bears but a slight resemblance to the former. It is true that Attila's powerful sway is still reflected in the Nibelungen Lied, as Kriemhild at her arrival in the land of the Huns is surprised at seeing so many nations submitted to his sceptre.* Yet upon the whole Etzel plays in the German epic the part of a weak and sometimes even contemptible king, while glimpses of his real might can be detected only at rare intervals, fluttering as it were in the far- distant background of a by -gone time. Although the residence of the Mongol chieftain between the Theiss and the Danube, near the Carpathian Mountains, con- sisted only of wooden structures, they showed, by the immense spoils that were piled up there, and by the presence of embassies from all parts of the world, that Attila's power extended from the Volga to the Rhine, from the Danube to the Vistula and the Elbe, and that his mighty hand reached out even to Constan- tinople, Africa, and the Euphrates. It cannot be denied that much of this external splendor of Attila's court is still seen in the Nibe- ■ lungen Lied, while on the other hand it is but natural that Atli, as well as Giuki and Gunnar in the Northern traditions, should appear merely as kings of tribes or chiefs of clans. The Eddas and the Volsunga Saga * p. 26. MEDIEVAL GERMANY. Ill bear the impress of the early Teutonic era, when the king was little more than the chosen leader in war; and the Northern people for a long time had in their political institutions nothing by which the conception of a great monarchy, or still less of a far-stretching realm like that of Attila, could be expressed. Let us now leave the Huns, whose habit was to live more on horseback than on the ground, who shot their bone-pointed arrows and whirled their slings with terrific force and speed as they rode, and who by their repulsive sight, their flat noses, and small, treacherous, and fierce eyes, filled their foes with as much disgust as fear. Together with his hordes we also leave Attila, " the scourge of God," who bore upon his countenance the indelible stamp of his race, and whose sole aim, like that of most Asiatic con- querors, was destruction. As we have spoken of Gunther and the overthrow of the Burgundians,* we may now turn to another grand personage in our poem, whose picture is far more refreshing and in- spiring, both in history and saga-lore, than that of Attila. This is the Ostrogoth, Theodoric the Great (born 455, died 526), renowned in German sagas by the name of Dietrich von Bern. It has been mentioned that after Attila's death the German tribes that had obeyed his rule became again independent. The Ostrogoths dwelt then in Pan- nonia in the plains of the Danube, whence they often, under the leadership of the three brothers Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, made incursions into the p. 96. 112 THE GREAT EPICS OF Eastern Empire. Theodoric, the son of Theodemir and a descendant of the noble house of the Amali, was brought up as a hostage in the court of Con- stantinople; and while he distinguished himself in early manhood by heroic deeds, he acquired at the same time the art of government, and perceived what power he could wield by the valor of his Goths. Soon after the overthrow of the Western Empire by Odoacer in the year 476, Theodoric was chosen king by his people, and later, at the instigation of the emperor at Constantinople, he set out to conquer Italy, nominally as the viceroy of the Eastern poten- tate, but really in entire independence of the latter. After a stubborn contest, in which again Germans fought against Germans, Theodoric, aided by Visigoths from Gaul, at last vanquished Odoacer and took his stronghold, Eavenna, in the year 493. The chief object of Theodoric as ruler of Italy was to permeate the decaying institutions of Rome with the new life that came from the vigorous spirit of his race, and to unite the two nations into one. Although prosperity prevailed again in Italy, and the arts were revived so that even the Roman people called the period of his reign, from 489 to 526, a golden time, he failed in his endeavor to blend the population of Italy, chiefly because the Goths were Arians and the Italians Catholics. Another of Theodoric's great aims was to unite all the German tribes into one national league ; yet this plan was impracticable for the time, and was frustrated by the rising power of the Franks. Nevertheless all the Germans looked proudly up to MEDIEVAL GERMANY. 113 him as the noblest and mightiest of their great kings, and the glory of his name spread far and wide in songs and tales. Although Theodoric resided gen- erally at Eavenna, where he died and was buried, he stayed at times with his court at Verona, and is there- fore called in the saga Dietrich von Bern (Verona), especially as the latter city was better known to the Germans than Eavenna. His castle at Verona was situated in the old town on the left bank of the Adige, on the eminence where now the citadel stands. The great empire founded by Theodoric was destined to come to an end soon after his death, when the Emperor Justinian determined to recover his rights as sovereign of Italy ; in the war that followed, Belisarius and Narses, the famous generals of Justin- ian, defeated and exterminated the Ostrogoths. We have already referred to the anachronism in the saga, where Theodoric, who was born in 455, and Attila, who died in 453, appear as contemporaries. Yet even apart from this fact there are not many instances in which an historical personage assumes upon the whole such a radically different character in the popular traditions as Dietrich does in the Nibelungen Lied and indeed in his whole saga-cycle. As no great poem like the Nibelungen Lied has grown out of the traditions of Dietrich, it will be sufficient in this place to indicate how a king who, according to history, was almost always victorious, appears in the saga as an exile enjoying the hospitality of Attila. This discrepancy between history and tradition can be explained when we assume that Dietrich repre- 114 THE GREAT EPICS OP sents in the latter not so much his own glorious career as the destiny of his people. His somewhat subordinate position at Attila's court denotes the submission to which his race had been forced by the Huns, while the destruction of the Ostrogothic Empire in Italy, although it happened after Theodoric's death, is reflected in the saga in the defeat and fall of his heroes* From the fact that Dietrich, according to tradition, sojourned at Attila's court, it was natural that he should be drawn into the contest which is depicted in the second part of the ISTibelungen Lied. Since Dietrich is the historical Theodoric, he can- not from the beginning have had a place in the saga, as it began to be formed soon after the destruction of the Burgundian realm in the year 437. But when the great king became connected with the then fluctuating tradition, he could not play a sec- ondary part in it, and thus the last struggles in the bloody conflict were decided by his powerful arm. As Dietrich came to hold such a prominent position, Etzel was thrust into the background, and conse- quently Kriemhild became the central figure of action. At the same time the defeat of the Burgun- dians began to be considered in Germany as a just retribution for their murder of Siegfried, and naturally Kriemhild took the part of the avenger, as she, and not Etzel, had been offended. This formation of the last part of the saga was also fully in accordance with the demands of poetic unity and consistency of action.f * W. Miiller in Henneberger's Jahrbuch, I. 168. + See Note 2, p. 292. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 115 While the phase of the saga in which Kriemhild revenges the death of her husband on her brothers must date back to an early epoch, the oldest evidence "which we possess of this transformation is found not' a long time before the composition of the Mbelungen Lied in its present shape. Combining the report of Saxo Grammaticus and the anonymous " Vita Canuti " (edited by Waitz, 1858), we find that the Danish king Magnus, plotting against the life of Duke Kanut of Schleswig, invited him to an interview. The king's messenger was a Saxon minstrel, who knew of the plot, but had taken an oath not to betray the setret. While Kanut rode with him to meet Magnus, the minstrel was moved with compassion at the impend- ing fate of the duke ; yet, as he would not break his oath, he warned him by repeating several times a song which treated of Kriemhild's perfidy towards her brothers. The duke was regardless of the warn- ing, and met his death on the seventh day of Janu- ary, 1131. It is evident from this account that the saga then contained the story of the revenge as it is related in the Mbelungen Lied ; and although the scene of the events is in Denmark, the chief motive of action is not the treachery of Attila, as in the North- ern traditions, but the perfidy of his wife, as in the Mbelungen Lied, and her name is not G-udrun, but Kriemhild. Yet at the same time it must be borne in mind that the song was recited by a Saxon and not by a Northman. Of the more important personages in our poem who have not yet been referred to in this section, 116 THE GREAT EPICS OF we may mention the Margrave Eiidiger of Bechlaren, who forms, from a poetic point of view, one of the finest pictures in our epic* Although Eiidiger is represented in the Nibelungen Lied in the garb of an historical personage, he belongs by no means to his- tory. He may be a mere product of poetic imagina- tion or entirely a mythical figure. The latter opinion is held by E. von Muth in his interesting essay en- titled " Der Mythus vom Markgrafen Eiideger." In conclusion, we may state that Bishop Pilgrim of Pas- sau, who appears in the Mbelungen Lied as a brother of Queen Ute, is an historical person who died in the year 991. His connection with our epic is a striking anachronism, and was brought about by another poem, " Die Klage " (The Lament), to which we shall refer hereafter, f * p. 41. t p. 130. CHAPTEE V. I. The Mythical Elements of the Eibelung Story AND THEIR COMBINATION WITH THE SAGA AND History. — II. The Lament. — III. The Manu- scripts and the Authorship of the Nibe- lungen Lied. — IV. The Metre. — V. Trans- lations. — VI. Geibel's Brunhild. I. When we draw back the thin veil of superficial Christianity which is spread over the Mbelungen Lied in the form in which it has been transmitted to us ; when we look beyond the surface, and unroll the records of the ancient sagas and poems containing the early Nibelung stories, — there arises, as we have seen, a grand picture before our eyes. We can now perceive more clearly than it would have been possible from the Nibelungen Lied alone, that there are two prom- inent elements in our saga, the mythical and the historical, and that only by the combination of both a true national saga can be produced. Thus the Nibe- lung story consists of two parts, which primitively had no connection with each other: the first part, the story of Siegfried, is the outgrowth of a myth ; 118 THE GREAT EPICS OF the second, the destruction of the Burgundians by the Huns, is chiefly based on history. All endeavors to explain the Mbelung saga in a purely mythical or a purely historical sense have necessarily been in vain. As it was evident that the overthrow of the royal house at Worms was founded on an historical event, attempts were made to prove also an histori- cal Siegfried. Thus some tried to identify Siegfried with the Khine-Frank Sigibert who was assassinated on the chase in a forest near Fulda at the begin- ning of the sixth century. The deed was done at the initigation of his- son, who coveted the power and the treasures of his father. Others endeavored to show Siegfried's identity with Sigibert, the hus- band of Brunehaut (Brunichild), who was murdered in the war against his brother Chilperic by the con- trivance of the latter's wife, Fredegonde, in the year 575. Yet the mere similarity of their death with that of Siegfried is far from proving any identity between them and the hero of our saga, as neither of the former shows any resemblance to the essential characteristics of Siegfried, nor is there any personage in early German history that can be compared with him. He is neither Claudius Civilis nor Arminius, and still less is the combat -between the two hostile families in the saga a picture of the historical strife between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Whatever in- fluence history exerted on the Mbelung traditions has been sufficiently indicated above, and thus the following pages will refer chiefly to the mythical as- pect of our saga. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 119 The Siegfried myth denotes the struggle between light and darkness, day and night, summer and winter. The dragon is the thunder-cloud, which at night, when the sky is furrowed by lightnings, seemed to the early race of men like a fantastic being shrouded in flames ; and this circumstance may have suggested the idea of a golden treasure guarded by the dark monster. The sun myth also represented the death of the day at sunset, when the sky is as radiant as if dyed in blood. Again the dragon is the winter, which is vanquished by the beautiful and mighty god of sum- mer and of the bright daylight; but the latter's tri- umph is of short duration, and he is in his turn conquered by the powers of darkness and cold which he had formerly overcome. This same primitive idea which forms the founda- tion of the Nibelung myths is found at a time ante- rior even to the earliest period of Teutonic antiquity, at a time when Central Asia was still the common home of the whole Indo-European race. In their original form these myths were the expression of a people who in childlike simplicity gazed upon the wonders of nature, and personified, eulogized, and magnified the powers of the universe which they could not comprehend. Above all, it was this struggle be- tween light and darkness which attracted their wonder- ing glance, and which in later times was transformed into an heroic saga interwoven with the accounts of some historical events, whether represented by the heroes of .the Mahabharata or by those of Firdusi's Schahnameh ; or by the clash of arms before the gates 120 THE GREAT EPICS OP of Troy ; or by Siegfried, the sun-youth, before whose bright and piercing glance the murderer Guttorm trembled,* and the Mbelungs, the powers of the misty darkf But as the epics of the Hindus, Per- sians, and Greeks have widely departed from their pure source by the impress of various epochs of cul- ture, the early Teutonic traditions, and particularly the Mbelung sagas, have for the same reason under- gone manifold changes. There are two Teutonic myths which throw light on the Siegfried story ; these are the myth of Balder ) and the myth of Frey. Balder, the son of Odin and * Frigg, was the god of the summer sunlight, the be- loved of gods and men. He was so fair and daz- zling in form and features, that rays of light seemed to issue from him. His dwelling was called Breida- blick (the broad-shining splendor), where nothing unclean could enter. The Younger Eddaj relates that he was tormented by dreams which foreboded danger to his life. Thereupon the gods held counsel together, and his mother Frigg exacted an oath from fire, water, iron, and all kinds of metal, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts, birds, and ^creeping things, that they should not hurt Balder. Then it became the pastime of Balder and the gods that he should stand up at their assemblies, while some of them would shoot at him, others would hew at him ; but * p. 72. + p. 82. J R. B. Anderson's Younger Edda, p. 130 ; see also the same author's Norse Mythology, pp. 279-297. MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 121 whatever they did, no harm came to him. When Loki saw this, it displeased him very much that Bal- der was not scathed. So by cunning he learned from Frigg, to whom he had gone in the likeness of a woman, that no oath had been exacted from the mis- tletoe, as it seemed too young. Loki pulled up the mistletoe, and went to the assembly. There Balder's blind brother Hodir (darkness) stood aside from the others, but Loki placed the mistletoe in his hand, and treacherously told him to shoot at Balder. Hodir was of tremendous strength,* and without malice dis- charged the fatal dart at Balder, who was pierced by it and fell dead to the ground. The gods were struck speechless with horror, but Odin took this misfortune most to heart, since he best comprehended how great a loss and injury the fall of the beautiful god was to all of them. His corpse was taken to the ship Hring- horn in order to be burned there; and as his wife Nanna beheld this, she died of grief, and was burned on the funeral pyre at the side of her husband. Balder's death was the sign of the approaching de- struction of the gods and of the world through the powers of evil and darkness, when the Fenris-wolf swallows Odin, and the heavens are rent in twain. Thus the idea of the struggle between the powers of nature, as seen in the seasons of the year, is here transferred to the mythical world-year. The VoluspEi (the vala's prophecy) in the Elder Edda gives a very fine description of this destruction of the world, called in the Norse language "Kagnarok," and in the Ger- » Younger Edda, " The Fooling of Gylfe," 28. 122 THE GREAT EPICS OF man, ©otterbantmermtg, literally, " the twilight of the gods." There is a beautiful chapter on the Eagnarok in Anderson's Norse Mythology. The overthrow of the Mbelungs (Burgundians) at Attila's court cannot be brought in connection with the Eagnarok, as the second part of the Nibelungen Lied is mainly based on history. Balder is, as has been said before, the god of summer, of the summer sunlight which rejoices all beings. He cannot be hurt by any weapon ; only the mistletoe, which needs so little the warm sun that its fruit ripens in winter, and which grows on trees, not upon the earth, can harm him. The myth denotes the disappearance of the bright summer and the approach of winter with its dark and long nights. In this connection we may quote Max Miiller's remarks on the myth of Balder. He says : " The idea of a young hero, whether he is called Balder, Siegfried, Sigurd, or Achilles, dying in the fulness of youth, — a story so frequently told, localized, individ- ualized, — was first suggested by the sun dying in all his youthful vigor, either at the end of the day, con- quered by the powers of darkness, or at the end of a season, stung by the thorn of winter. Again, that fatal spell, by which these sunny heroes must leave their first love, become unfaithful to her or she to them, was borrowed from nature. The fate of these solar heroes was inevitable, and it was their lot to die by the hand or by the unwilling treachery of their nearest friends' or relations. The Sun forsakes the Dawn, and dies at the end of the day according MEDLEVAL GERMANY. 123 to an inexorable fate, and bewailed by the 'whole of nature. Or the sun is the Sun of Spring, who wooes the Earth, and then forsakes his bride and grows cold, and is killed at last by the thorn of Winter." Besides the story of Balder we must consult the myth of Frey, to be found chiefly in the Edda song of Skirnisfor (the journey of Skirnir) and also in the Younger Edda. Frey was the god of fertility, of rain and sunshine ; his chariot was drawn by a boar called G-ullinbursti, whose golden bristles lighted up the day like night. The god once gazed down from Odin's seat upon the worlds, and beheld in the North at Jotunheim (the home of the giants) the maiden Gerd, who was of such wonderful beauty that both the sky and the sea glistened from the radiance of her white arms. Frey was filled with ardent love for her ; but her father, the giant Gymer, guarded her in his dwell- ing, surrounded by wavering fire and furious dogs. The god's messenger was called Skirnir (the bright one) ; he was sent for, and Frey asked him to bring the maiden to him. Skirnir declared himself ready to go if Frey would give him his horse to cross the flames, and his sword which would put itself in mo- tion against the giants. Frey gave him the horse and the enchanted sword ; this is the reason why he found himself unarmed when he fought with Beli (Gerd's brother) and slew him with a hart's horn. Tet he found himself in a terrible plight when at the Eagnarok he faced Surt (swart) in single- combat, and then he sorely missed his trusty blade. Skirner overcame all obstacles on Frey's steed ; the whole of 124 THE GREAT EPICS OF Jotunheim trembled under its hoofs, and lie pene- trated to Gerd's dwelling, where, after much' resistance on the part of the maiden, he obtained in the end her promise that after nine nights she would marry Frey. Frey is the sun-god ; the boar with golden bristles is the symbol of the sun. Skirnir represents the god who himself in an older form of the myth undertook the journey. He freed the maiden from the powers of darkness by slaying the monster that guarded her and by crossing the flame wall which surrounded her. Gerd is the earth held in bonds by the frost giants, that is, by snow and ice in winter. The god's sword is the sunbeam, which he surrenders to obtain the possession of Gerd; or, in other words, the glowing sun penetrates the earth and frees it from the power of the frost giants. Beli (the barker) and the furious dogs are the roaring storms. The wavering fire surrounding Gerd's dwelling (and Bryn- hild's castle) denotes the burning funeral pyre, as J. Grimm has shown ; the earth in winter is, as it were, lifeless, and therefore belongs to the funeral pyre and thus to the powers of the lower world. It was customary to intertwine the funeral pyre with thorns and to light it with a thorn; we see now what is meant when Odin pricks Brynhild with the sleep-thorn and she falls into death-like sleep. A relic of the myth appears in the charming fairy story of the "Sleeping Beauty" (Dornroschen). It is re- markable that the name of the infernal river IIvpi- \e