The Nibelungenlied

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The Nibelungenlied

Originally written in Middle High German (M.H.G.), sometime
around 1200 A.D., although this dating is by no means certain.
Author unknown.

The text of this edition is based on that published as "The
Nibelungenlied", translated by Daniel B. Shumway (Houghton-
Mifflin Co., New York, 1909). This edition is in the PUBLIC
DOMAIN in the United States.

This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by
Douglas B. Killings (DeTroyes@EnterAct.COM)

PREPARER'S NOTE:
In order to make this electronic edition easier to use, the
preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange the endnotes of Mr.
Shumway's edition, collating them with the chapters themselves
and substituting page references with footnote references. The
preparer takes full responsibility for these changes. -- DBK.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

OTHER TRANSLATIONS --

Hatto, A.T. (Trans.): "Nibelungenlied" (Penguin Classics, London,
1962). Prose translation.

Ryder, Frank G. (Trans.): "The Song of the Nibelungs" (Wayne
State University Press, Detroit, 1962). Verse translation.

RECOMMENDED READING --

Anonymous: "Kudrun", Translated by Marion E. Gibbs & Sidney
Johnson (Garland Pub., New York, 1992).

Anonymous: "Volsungasaga", Translated by William Morris and
Eirikr Magnusson (Walter Scott Press, London, 1888; Reissued by
the Online Medieval and Classical Library as E-Text #29, 1997).

Saxo Grammaticus: "The First Nine Books of the Danish History",
Translated by Oliver Elton (London, 1894; Reissued by the Online
Medieval and Classical Library as E-Text OMACL #28, 1997).

PREFACE

This work has been undertaken in the belief that a literal
translation of as famous an epic as the "Nibelungenlied" would be
acceptable to the general reading public whose interest in the
story of Siegfried has been stimulated by Wagner's operas and by
the reading of such poems as William Morris' "Sigurd the
Volsung". Prose has been selected as the medium of translation,
since it is hardly possible to give an accurate rendering and at
the same time to meet the demands imposed by rhyme and metre; at
least, none of the verse translations made thus far have
succeeded in doing this. The prose translations, on the other
hand, mostly err in being too continuous and in condensing too
much, so that they retell the story instead of translating it.
The present translator has tried to avoid these two extremes. He
has endeavored to translate literally and accurately, and to
reproduce the spirit of the original, as far as a prose
translation will permit. To this end the language has been made
as simple and as Saxon in character as possible. An exception
has been made, however, in the case of such Romance words as were
in use in England during the age of the romances of chivalry, and
which would help to land a Romance coloring; these have been
frequently employed. Very few obsolete words have been used, and
these are explained in the notes, but the language has been made
to some extent archaic, especially in dialogue, in order to give
the impression of age. At the request of the publishers the
Introduction Sketch has been shorn of the apparatus of
scholarship and made as popular as a study of the poem and its
sources would allow. The advanced student who may be interested
in consulting authorities will find them given in the
introduction to the parallel edition in the Riverside Literature
Series. A short list of English works on the subject had,
however, been added.

In conclusion the translator would like to thank his colleagues,
C.G. Child and Cornelius Weygandt, for their helpful suggestions
in starting the work, and also to acknowledge his indebtedness to
the German edition of Paul Piper, especially in preparing the
notes.

-- DANIEL BUSSIER SHUMWAY,
Philadelphia, February 15, 1909.

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH

There is probably no poem of German literature that has excited
such universal interest, or that has been so much studied and
discussed, as the "Nibelungenlied". In its present form it is a
product of the age of chivalry, but it reaches back to the
earliest epochs of German antiquity, and embraces not only the
pageantry of courtly chivalry, but also traits of ancient
Germanic folklore and probably of Teutonic mythology. One of its
earliest critics fitly called it a German "Iliad", for, like this
great Greek epic, it goes back to the remotest times and unites
the monumental fragments of half-forgotten myths and historical
personages into a poem that is essentially national in character,
and the embodiment of all that is great in the antiquity of the
race. Though lacking to some extent the dignity of the "Iliad",
the "Nibelungenlied" surpasses the former in the deep tragedy
which pervades it, the tragedy of fate, the inevitable
retribution for crime, the never-dying struggle between the
powers of good and evil, between light and darkness.

That the poem must have been exceedingly popular during the
Middle Ages is evinced by the great number of Manuscripts that
have come down to us. We possess in all twenty-eight more or
less complete MSS., preserved in thirty-one fragments, fifteen of
which date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Of all
these MSS., but nine are so well preserved that, in spite of some
minor breaks, they can be considered complete. Of this number
three, designated respectively as A, B, C, are looked upon as the
most important for purposes of textual criticism, and around them
a fierce battle has been waged, which is not even yet settled.
(1) It is now generally conceded that the longest MS., C, is a
later redaction with many additional strophes, but opinions are
divided as to whether the priority should be given to A or B, the
probabilities being that B is the more original, A merely a
careless copy of B.

In spite of the great popularity of the "Nibelungenlied", the
poem was soon forgotten by the mass of the people. With the
decay of courtly chivalry and the rise of the prosperous citizen
class, whose ideals and testes lay in a different direction, this
epic shared the fate of many others of its kind, and was
relegated to the dusty shelves of monastery or ducal libraries,
there to wait till a more cultured age, curious as to the
literature of its ancestors, should bring it forth from its
hiding places. However, the figures of the old legend were not
forgotten, but lived on among the people, and were finally
embodied in a popular ballad, "Das Lied vom Hurnen Segfrid",
which has been preserved in a print of the sixteenth century,
although the poem itself is thought to go back at least to the
thirteenth. The legend was also dramatized by Hans Sachs, the
shoemaker poet of Nuremberg, and related in prose form in a chap
book which still exists in prints of the eighteenth century. The
story and the characters gradually became so vague and distorted,
that only a trained eye could detect in the burlesque figures of
the popular account the heroes of the ancient Germanic Legend.

The honor of rediscovering the "Nibelungenlied" and of restoring
it to the world of literature belongs to a young physician by the
name of J.H. Obereit, who found the manuscript C at the castle of
Hohenems in the Tirol on June 29, 1755; but the scientific study
of the poem begins with Karl Lachmann, one of the keenest
philological critics that Germany has ever produced. In 1816 he
read before the University of Berlin his epoch-making essay upon
the original form of the "Nibelungenlied". Believing that the
poem was made up of a number of distinct ballads or lays, he
sought by means of certain criteria to eliminate all parts which
were, as he thought, later interpolations or emendations. As a
result of this sifting and discarding process, he reduced the
poem to what he considered to have been its original form,
namely, twenty separate lays, which he thought had come down to
us in practically the same form in which they had been sung by
various minstrels.

This view is no longer held in its original form. Though we have
every reason to believe that ballads of Siegfried the dragon
killer, of Siegfried and Kriemhild, and of the destruction of the
Nibelungs existed in Germany, yet these ballads are no longer to
be seen in our poem. They formed merely the basis or source for
some poet who thought to revive the old heroic legends of the
German past which were familiar to his hearers and to adapt them
to the tastes of his time. In all probability we must assume
two, three, or even more steps in the genesis of the poem. There
appear to have been two different sources, one a Low German
account, quite simple and brief, the other a tradition of the
Lower Rhine. The legend was perhaps developed by minstrels along
the Rhine, until it was taken and worked up into its present form
by some Austrian poet. Who this poet was we do not know, but we
do know that he was perfectly familiar with all the details of
courtly etiquette. He seems also to have been acquainted with
the courtly epics of Heinrich von Veldeke and Hartman von Ouwe,
but his poem is free from the tedious and often exaggerated
descriptions of pomp, dress, and court ceremonies, that mar the
beauty of even the best of the courtly epics. Many painstaking
attempts have been made to discover the identity of the writer of
our poem, but even the most plausible of all these theories which
considers Kurenberg, one of the earliest of the "Minnesingers",
to be the author, because of the similarity of the strophic form
of our poem to that used by him, is not capable of absolute
proof, and recent investigations go to show that Kurenberg was
indebted to the "Nibelungen" strophe for the form of his lyric,
and not the "Nibelungenlied" to him. The "Nibelungen" strophe is
presumably much older, and, having become popular in Austria
through the poem, was adopted by Kurenberg for his purposes. As
to the date of the poem, in its present form it cannot go back
further than about 1190, because of the exactness of the rhymes,
nor could it have been written later than 1204, because of
certain allusions to it in the sixth book of "Parzival", which we
know to have been written at this date. The two Low German poems
which probably form the basis of our epic may have been united
about 1150. It was revised and translated into High German and
circulated at South German courts about 1170, and then received
its present courtly form about 1190, this last version being the
immediate source of our manuscripts.

The story of Siegfried, his tragic death, and the dire vengeance
visited upon his slayers, which lies at the basis of our poem,
antedates the latter by many centuries, and was known to all
nations whose languages prove by their resemblance to the German
tongue their original identity with the German people. Not only
along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube and upon the upland
plains of Southern Germany, but also along the rocky fjords of
Norway, among the Angles and Saxons in their new home across the
channel, even in the distant Shetland Islands and on the snow-
covered wastes of Iceland, this story was told around the fires
at night and sung to the harp in the banqueting halls of kings
and nobles, each people and each generation telling it in its own
fashion and adding new elements of its own invention. This great
geographical distribution of the legend, and the variety of forms
in which it appears, make it difficult to know where we must seek
its origin. The northern version is in many respects older and
simpler in form than the German, but still it is probable that
Norway was not the home of the saga, but that it took its rise in
Germany along the banks of the Rhine among the ancient tribe of
the Franks, as is shown by the many geographical names that are
reminiscent of the characters of the story, such as a Siegfried
"spring" in the Odenwald, a Hagen "well" at Lorsch, a Brunhild
"bed" near Frankfort, and the well-known "Drachenfels", or
Dragon's Rock, on the Rhine. It is to Norway, however, that we
must go for our knowledge of the story, for, singularly enough,
with the exception of the "Nibelungenlied" and the popular
ballad, German literature has preserved almost no trace of the
legend, and such as exist are too late and too corrupt to be of
much use in determining the original features of the story.

Just when the legend emigrated to Skandinavia we do not know, but
certainly at an early date, perhaps during the opening years of
the sixth century. It may have been introduced by German
traders, by slaves captured by the Northmen on their frequent
marauding expeditions, or, as Mogk believes, may have been taken
by the Heruli on their return to Norway after their defeat by the
Langobardi. By whatever channel, however, the story reached the
North, it became part and parcel of Skandinavian folklore, only
certain names still pointing to the original home of the legend.
In the ninth century, when Harald Harfagr changed the ancient
free constitution of the land, many Norwegians emigrated to
Iceland, taking with them these acquired legends, which were
better preserved in this remote island because of the peaceful
introduction of Christianity, than on the Continent, where the
Church was more antagonistic to the customs and legends of the
heathen period.

The Skandinavian version of the Siegfried legend has been handed
down to us in five different forms. The first of these is the
poetic or older "Edda", also called Saemund's "Edda", as it was
assigned to the celebrated Icelandic scholar Saemundr Sigfusson.
The "Codex Regius", in which it is preserved, dates from the
middle of the thirteenth century, but is probably a copy of an
older manuscript. The songs it contains were written at various
times, the oldest probably in the first half of the ninth
century, the latest not much before the date of the earliest
manuscript. Most of them, however, belong to the Viking period,
when Christianity was already beginning to influence the
Norwegians, that is, between the years 800 and 1000. They are
partly heroic, partly mythological in character, and are written
in alliterative strophes interspersed with prose, and have the
form of dialogues. Though the legends on which these songs are
based were brought from Norway, most of them were probably
composed in Iceland. Among these songs, now, we find a number
which deal with the adventures of Siegfried and his tragic end.

The second source of the Siegfried story is the so-called
"Volsungasaga", a prose paraphrase of the "Edda" songs. The MS.
dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the
account was probably written a century earlier. The adventures
of Siegfried and his ancestors are here related in great detail
and his ancestry traced back to Wodan. Although a secondary
source, as it is based on the "Edda", the "Volsungasaga" is
nevertheless of great importance, since it supplies a portion of
the "Codex Regius" which has been lost, and thus furnishes us
with the contents of the missing songs.

The third source is the prose "Edda", sometimes called the
"Snorra Edda", after the famous Icelander Snorri Sturluson
(1178-1241),to whom it was ascribed. The author was acquainted
with both the poetic "Edda" and the "Volsungasaga", and follows
these accounts closely. The younger "Edda" is not really a tale,
but a book of poetics; it relates, however, the Siegfried saga
briefly. It is considered an original source, since it evidently
made use of songs that have not come down to us, especially in
the account of the origin of the treasure, which is here told
more in detail and with considerable differences. The
"Nornagestsaga" or "Nornageststhattr", the story of "Nornagest",
forms the fourth source of the Siegfried story. It is really a
part of the Olaf saga, but contains the story of Sigurd and
Gunnar (the Norse forms of Siegfried and Gunther), which an old
man Nornagest relates to King Olaf Tryggvason, who converted the
Norwegians to Christianity. The story was written about 1250 to
illustrate the transition from heathendom to the Christian faith.
It is based on the "Edda" and the "Volsungasaga", and is
therefore of minor importance as a source.

These four sources represent the early introduction of the
Siegfried legend into Skandinavia. A second introduction took
place about the middle of the thirteenth century, at the time of
the flourishing of the Hanseatic League, when the story was
introduced together with other popular German epics. These poems
are products of the age of chivalry, and are characterized by the
romantic and courtly features of this movement. The one which
concerns us here, as the fifth source of the Siegfried story, is
the so-called "Thidreksaga", which celebrates the adventures of
the famous legendary hero, Dietrich of Berne, the historical
Theodorich of Ravenna. In as far as it contains the adventures
of the Nibelungs, it is also called the "Niflungasaga". The
"Thidreksaga" was written about 1250 by a Norwegian who, as he
himself tells us, heard the story from Germans in the
neighborhood of Bremen and Munster. Since it is thus based on
Saxon traditions, it can be considered an independent source of
the legend, and, in fact, differs from the earlier Norse versions
in many important details. The author was acquainted, however,
with the older versions, and sought to compromise between them,
but mostly followed his German authorities.

The story, as given in the older Norse versions, is in most
respects more original than in the "Nibelungenlied". It relates
the history of the treasure of the Nibelungs, tracing it back to
a giant by the name of "Hreithmar", who received it from the god
"Loki" as a compensation for the killing of the former's son
"Otur", whom Loki had slain in the form of an otter. Loki
obtained the ransom from a dwarf named "Andwari", who in turn had
stolen it from the river gods of the Rhine. Andwari pronounces a
terrible curse upon the treasure and its possessors, and this
curse passes from Loki to the Giant Hreithmar, who is murdered
when asleep by his two sons "Fafnir" and "Regin". The latter,
however, is cheated out of the coveted prize by Fafnir, who
carries it away to the "Gnita" heath, where he guards it in the
form of a dragon.

This treasure, with its accompanying curse, next passes into the
hands of a human being named Sigurd (the Norse form of Siegfried,
as we have seen), a descendant of the race of the Volsungs, who
trace their history back to Wodan and are especially favored by
him. The full story of Siegfried's ancestry is far too long to
relate here, and does not especially concern us, as it has little
or no influence on the later development of the story. It is
sufficient for our purpose to know that Siegfried was the son of
Siegmund, who was slain in battle before the birth of his son.
Sigurd was carefully reared by his mother "Hjordis" and the wise
dwarf Regin, who taught him the knowledge of runes and of many
languages. (2) At the suggestion of Regin, Sigurd asks for and
receives the steed "Grani" from the king, and is then urged by
his tutor to help him obtain the treasure guarded by the latter's
brother Fafnir. Sigurd promises, but first demands a sword.
Two, that arc given him by Regin, prove worthless, and he forges
a new one from the pieces of his father's sword, which his mother
had preserved. With this he easily splits the anvil and cuts in
two a flake of wool, floating down the Rhine. He first avenges
the death of his father, and then sets off with Regin to attack
the dragon Fafnir. At the advice of the former Sigurd digs a
ditch across the dragon's peth and pierces him from below with
his sword, as the latter comes down to drink. In dying the
dragon warns Sigurd against the treasure and its curse, and
against Regin, who, he says, is planning Sigurd's death,
intending to obtain the treasure for himself.

When Regin sees the dragon safely dead, he creeps from his place
of concealment, drinks of the blood, and, cutting out the heart,
begs Sigurd to roast it for him. While doing so, Sigurd burns
his fingers, and, putting them in his mouth, understands at once
the language of the birds and hears them say that Sigurd himself
should eat the heart and then he would be wiser than all other
men. They also betray Regin's evil designs, and counsel the lad
to kill his tutor. This Sigurd then does, cutting off Regin's
head, drinking the blood of both brothers, and eating Fafnir's
heart. (3) On the further advice of the birds Sigurd first
fetches the treasure from the cave, and then journeys to the
mountain "Hindarfjall", where he rescues the sleeping Valkyrie,
"Sigrdrifu" ("Brynhild", "Brunhild"), who, stung by the sleep
thorn of Wodan, and clad in full armor, lies asleep within a
castle that is surrounded by a wall of flame. With the help of
his steed Grani, Sigurd succeeds in penetrating through the fire
to the castle. The sleeping maiden awakes when he cuts the armor
from her with his sword, for it was as tight as if grown fast to
the flesh. She hails her deliverer with great joy, for she had
vowed never to marry a man who knew fear. At Sigurd's request
she teaches him many wise precepts, and finally pledges her troth
to him. He then departs, after promising to be faithful to her
and to remember her teachings.

On his journeyings Sigurd soon arrives at the court of "Giuki"
(the Norse form of the German "Gibicho", "Gibich"), a king whose
court lay on the lower Rhine. Giuki has three sons, "Gunnar",
"Hogni", and "Guthorm", and a daughter "Gudrun", endowed with
great beauty. The queen bears the name of Grimhild, and is
versed in magic, but possessed of an evil heart. (4) Sigurd is
received with great honor, for his coming had been announced to
Gudrun in dreams, which had in part been interpreted to her by
Brynhild. The mother, knowing of Sigurd's relations to the
latter, gives him a potion which produces forgetfulness, so that
he no longer remembers his betrothed, and accepts the hand of
Gudrun, which the king offers him at the queen's request. The
marriage is celebrated with great pomp, and Sigurd remains
permanently attached to Giuki's court, performing with the others
many deeds of valor.

Meanwhile Grimhild urges her son Gunnar to sue for the hand of
Brynhild. Taking with him Sigurd and a few others, Gunnar visits
first Brynhild's father "Budli", and then her brother-in-law
"Heimir", from both of whom he learns that she is free to choose
whom she will, but that she will marry no one who has not ridden
through the wall of flame. With this answer they proceed to
Brynhild's castle, where Gunnar is unable to pierce the flames,
even when seated on Sigurd's steed. Finally Sigurd and Gunnar
change forms, and Sigurd, disguised as Gunnar, rides through the
wall of fire, announces himself to Brynhild as Gunnar, the son of
Giuki, and reminds her of her promise to marry the one who
penetrated the fire. Brynhild consents with great reluctance,
for she is busy carrying on a war with a neighboring king.
Sigurd then passes three nights at her side, placing, however,
his sword Gram between them, as a bar of separation. At parting
he draws from her finger the ring, with which he had originally
pledged his troth to her, and replaces it with another, taken
from Fafnir's hoard. Soon after this the marriage of Gunnar and
Brynhild is celebrated with great splendor, and all return to
Giuki's court, where they live happily for some time.

One day, however, when the ladies go down to the river to take a
bath, Brynhild will not bathe further down stream than Gudrun,
that is, in the water which flows from Gudrun to her, (5) giving
as the reason, that her father was mightier and her husband
braver, since he had ridden through the fire, while Sigurd had
been a menial. Stung at this, Gudrun retorts that not Gunnar but
Sigurd had penetrated the flames and had taken from her the
fateful ring "Andvaranaut", which she then shows to her rival in
proof of her assertion. Brynhild turns deathly pale, but answers
not a word. After a second conversation on the subject had
increased the hatred of the queens, Brynhild plans vengeance.
Pretending to be ill, she takes to her bed, and when Gunnar
inquires what ails her, she asks him if he remembers the
circumstances of the wooing and that not he but Sigurd had
penetrated the flames. She attempts to take Gunnar's life, as
she had pledged her troth to Sigurd, and is thereupon placed in
chains by Hogni. Seven days she sleeps, and no one dares to wake
her. Finally Sigurd succeeds in making her talk, and she tells
him how cruelly she has been deceived, that the better man had
been destined for her, but that she had received the poorer one.
This Sigurd denies, for Giuki's son had killed the king of the
Danes and also Budli's brother, a great warrior. Moreover,
although he, Sigurd, had ridden through the flames, he had not
become her husband. He begs her therefore not to harbor a grudge
against Gunnar.

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