Read The Nibelungenlied: The Lay of the Nibelungs (Oxford World's Classics) Online
Authors: Cyril Edwards
The East Germanic tribe of the Burgundians appears to have moved west from the Rhine area; there have been attempts to link them with Worms, but there is no sound historical or archaeological evidence. As they pressed further west, they came into conflict with the Roman Empire. The accounts of the destruction of the Burgundians in the Late Antique chronicles are brief and somewhat conflicting. The anonymous Gallic Chronicle of 452 records how in the year 436 a memorable war against the Burgundians was fought, which led to the destruction of almost all the tribe and their king, at the hands of the Roman general Aetius.
3
Prosper’s
Epitoma Chronicon
was composed between 435 and 455. It dates the battle
to 435 and goes into more detail, emphasizing the role of the Huns: ‘At the same time Aëtius crushed Gundichar, who was king of the Burgundians and living in Gaul. In response to his entreaty, Aëtius gave him peace, which the king did not enjoy for long. For the Huns destroyed him and his people root and branch.’
4
Thirdly, there is the chronicle of Hydatius, written in 468/9, which dates the battle to 436: ‘The Burgundians who had rebelled were vanquished by the Romans under the leadership of Aëtius.’
5
None of these accounts links the destruction of the Burgundians with Attila the Hun (d. 453), who invaded Gaul with a huge army in 451.
6
Attila corresponds to Etzel in the
Nibelungenlied
, but the geography of events in the poem is diametrically opposed to that of the Hunnish invasion. Nor does Attila’s death by suffocation, after he had added to his wives a girl called Ildico (perhaps a Germanic name), have any correspondence to the events at the end of the
Nibelungenlied
. Blœdel(in), Attila’s brother, who is killed by Dancwart in the lay, corresponds to the historical figure of Bleda, who, according to the historian Jordanes, was murdered by Attila, his younger brother,
c
.445.
7
The poet borrows historical names, but assigns to them an entirely different function from that suggested by historical record.
Brunhild (Brunihildis, Brunichild) is well attested historically, the two main sources being Gregory of Tours’s
Decem libri historiarum
(translated by Lewis Thorpe as
The History of the Franks
) and the
Chronicle Attributed to Fredegar
, which dates from
c
.660; the latter draws heavily for its account of Brunhild on the
Vita Columbani
, written
c
.640. Neither of these offers a continuous narrative; the latter is much more negative in its portrayal of Brunhild, describing her as a ‘second Jezebel’. There are few points of contact between this historical queen and the Prünhilt in the
Nibelungenlied
. Brunhild, according to Gregory of Tours, was the daughter of Athanagild, the Visigothic king of Spain. Like her fictional counterpart she
married a Burgundian king, Sigibert, King of the Franks.
8
Sigibert was assassinated by emissaries of Fredegund, wife of his brother King chilperic. George Gillespie thinks it ‘very probable that the quarrel between the wife of Siegfried … and her brother’s wife, which leads to Siegfried’s murder, stems from the conflict between Brunihildis and Fredegunda after the murder of Brunihildis’s husband, the Merovingian Sigebert, in 575, but the historical roles of the women have been reversed in epic tradition’.
9
Even such tentative speculation as this pushes against the limits of what is valid in drawing links between the historical sources and the evolution of the legend.
There are three points of contact between the historical accounts and the lay: (1) Brunhild marries into the Burgundian royal family; (2) her husband is called Sigibert, as is his son in Fredegar’s account; the Sig- prefix is common in the Burgundian family, as it is in the
Nibelungenlied
in the family of Sivrit (a contraction of Sigfrit); (3) amid a general atmosphere of treachery, the historical Brunhild is responsible for several murders, while in the
Nibelungenlied
she is only (indirectly) responsible for one, that of Sivrit. The historical Brunhild meets with a grisly death, tortured for three days, then strapped side-on to an unbroken horse and cut to death by its hooves.
10
In the
Nibelungenlied
she merely fades from the scene after the murder of Sivrit.
Theodoric the Great, who figures in the lay as Dietrich von Bern (i.e. Verona), ruled the Ostrogothic Empire in Italy from 493 to 526, some forty years after the death of Attila. Dietrich’s role as an exile at the court of Attila figures in the
Hildebrandslied
, the Old High German heroic lay which dates from the early ninth century. In the thirteenth century Dietrich becomes the hero of the cycle of heroic epics, the
Dietrichsepen
.
T
HE
Lay of the Nibelungs
has a large number of cognate texts which have been adduced in attempts to explain anomalies in the lay, and how it evolved. In this context it is only possible to scratch the surface. The main sources may be listed as follows:
1
A further group is concerned primarily with Gudrun and Brynhild in the aftermath of Sigurd’s death:
Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta (The First Lay of Gudrun); Guðrúnarkviða onnur (The Second Lay of Gudrun); Guðrúnarkviða in Þriðja (The Third Lay of Gudrun); Sigurðarkviða in skamma
(
A Short Poem about Sigurd
), and
Helreið Brynhildar
(
Brynhild’s Ride to Hell
). The prose passage called
Dráp Niflunga
(
The Death of the Niflungs
) relates to the second part of the
Nibelungenlied
, as does
Oddrúnargrátr
(
Oddrun’s Lament
). These accounts contradict
one another; the story of Sigurd does not emerge clearly from the Eddic verse.
A third group of poems tells of Gudrun and Atli. The oldest of these
2
is
Atlaqviða
(
The Lay of Atli
). This has a radically different slant to the
Nibelungenlied
on the treacherous invitation, which is issued by Atli to Gunnar and Högni. Atli wishes to obtain the treasure that had belonged to Sigurd. Gudrun avenges her brothers on Atli, killing him after slaughtering her children.
Atlamál in Grœnlenzco
(
The Greenlandic Poem of Atli
) is similar in plot, though Atli’s lust for treasure is not present. (
Guðrunarhvöt
(
The Whetting of Gudrun
) and
Hamðismál
(
The Lay of Hamdir
) have little relevance to the
Nibelungenlied
, extending the story of Gudrun and her revenge over subsequent generations.)
All in all, the Nordic analogues seem to have developed within an independent oral tradition, until the Eddic poems came to be written down in the thirteenth century. They can cast some light on some motifs in the
Nibelungenlied
, yet differences are as apparent as similarities.
These and other texts, including the sixteenth-century German
Lied vom Hürnen Seyfried
(
Lay of Horny Seyfried
), have been adduced by the many scholars who have played the game of positing lost
poems in attempts to chart the lay’s genesis. There can be no doubt that both the story of Sivrit and that of Kriemhilt’s revenge were in widespread circulation long before 1200. The Anglo-Saxon poem
Beowulf
shows an awareness of the story, when a skilled minstrel sings all he knows of Sigemund, the son of Wæls. He tells of how Sigemund slew the dragon and thus obtained the treasure-hoard, loading it on to a boat. Sigemund is praised as the most renowned warrior in the world (
Beowulf
, 875–900). The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells us, in his
Gesta Danorum
, how in 1131 a Saxon singer warned Duke Knut of Denmark against a treacherous invitation by referring to the notorious perfidy of Grimhild against her brothers (Book 13, vi, 7). Saxo was writing
c
.1210, but shows an awareness that the tale of Kriemhilt’s treachery was well attested in the past. Andreas Heusler, indeed, thought that the tradition available to Saxo may have been a source of the
Nibelungenlied
.
3
Karl Lachmann, the great nineteenth-century editor of MHG texts, argued that the
Nibelungen Noth
(
The Doom of the Nibelungs
), as he named it, was an amalgam of some twenty lays.
4
This was refuted by the Swiss scholar Andreas Heusler (1865–1940), who argued that the lay had its origin in two distinct legends, a Brünhild saga and a Burgundian saga. Heusler drew up a family-tree of sources based on this distinction, arguing that the two legends, over a period of seven centuries, evolved through five stages, merging in the
Ältere Not
(
The Older Doom
), a postulated predecessor of the
Nibelungenlied
itself, which may have been composed in the mid-twelfth century.
5
Defining the length and nature of these hypothetical poems, and indeed their number, is a task which will continue to intrigue scholars. Heusler’s ideas held sway for a long time; they are still being refined, and often refuted. The existence of two distinct branches of legend is strongly suggested by the Eddic lays, by
Beowulf
, and by Saxo Grammaticus, but we are left with what Andersson
rightly calls a ‘maze of texts’.
6
It seems almost certain that the ‘Last Poet’ combined a number of shorter, earlier sources to forge his plot, but whether these sources were oral or written, German, Norwegian, or Icelandic, has led to much debate and will continue to do so. It seems probable that even c. 1200 the
Nibelungenlied
was a ‘labile’ text. Writing made it less so, and thus the manuscripts show relatively little variation. What is clear is that neither the ‘Last Poet’s’ plot, nor its Eddic analogues, have much foundation in the scanty historical data at our disposal. History served as a springboard for legend, which leapt in multifarious directions.
To illustrate how the Nordic material can elucidate the
Nibelungenlied
, one example may serve. Perhaps the most difficult motif that the
Nibelungenlied
poet has to explain away is Sivrit’s taking of Prünhilt’s ring and girdle, the first a symbol of betrothal or marriage, while taking the girdle symbolizes taking virginity. The exigencies of plot in the
Nibelungenlied
mean that it is not Sivrit, but Gunther, who takes Prünhilt’s virginity, thus causing her to lose her superhuman strength, yet the taking of the ring and girdle is vital in that it leads to the quarrel between the two queens, Prünhilt’s treachery, and the ensuing events in the second part of the poem. The poet can scarcely conceal his embarrassment at this action on Sivrit’s part: ‘I don’t know if he did that out of his high spirits’ (strophe 680).
A previous relationship between Sivrit and Prünhilt is hinted at in the lay, but never made explicit. When the wooing voyage to Iceland is planned Sivrit shows prior knowledge of Prünhilt, which leads to the ironic comment by Hagen: ‘since he is so well acquainted with how things stand with Prünhilt’ (strophe 331). Sivrit is well versed in the sea-routes to Iceland, and Prünhilt’s retinue recognize him on the arrival of the four warriors, as does Prünhilt herself (strophe 419). The Icelandic analogues are far less reticent on this relationship. In
Völsunga saga
Brynhild loses her virginity to Sigurd, who makes his way through the wall of fire surrounding her hall. The couple are betrothed. In
Ragnars saga
or
The saga of Ragnar Lodbrok
, which is preserved in the same manuscript as
Völsunga saga
, they have
a daughter, Aslaug, who is in effect the heroine of
Ragnars saga
. The saga begins: ‘Heimir heard the tidings of the death of Sigurd and Brynhild in Hlymdale; and their daughter Aslaug whom Heimir was fostering was then three winters old.’
7
Later Aslaug tells Ragnar that ‘she was the daughter of Sigurd Fafnir’s Bane and Brynhild, Budli’s daughter…. she told him of the meeting of Sigurd and Brynhild on the rock, and of her begetting; “and when Brynhild was delivered a name was given to me and I was called Aslaug”.’
8
Aslaug in turn gives birth to a son, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, who proves a great hero. This typifies the way in which the Nordic material pursues its own routes, yet it helps explain the poet’s dilemma, and perhaps Hagen’s somewhat cryptic question, as he plots Sivrit’s murder: ‘Are we to breed bastards?’ (strophe 867).