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[Illustration: Siegfried.]
Siegfried is the name of the mythic national hero of the Germans, whose
tragic fate is most powerfully described in the "Nibelungen Lied," and
in a series of lays of the Icelandic Edda. A matchless warrior, a
Dragon-killer and overthrower of Giants, who possesses a magic sword, he
conquers the northern Nibelungs and acquires their famed gold hoard. In
the great German epic he is the son of Siegmund and Siegelinde, who rule
in the Netherlands. Going Rhine-upward to Worms, to Gunther, the King of
the Burgundians, he woos and wins Kriemhild, the beautiful sister of
that king, after having first helped Gunther to gain the hand of
Brünhild, a queen beyond sea, in Iceland. No one could obtain that
valiant virgin's consent to wedlock unless he proved a victor over her
in athletic feats, and in trials of battle. By means of his own colossal
strength and his hiding hood, Siegfried, standing invisibly at the side
of Gunther, overcomes Brünhild. Even after the marriage has been
celebrated at Worms, Siegfried has once more to help the Burgundian king
in the same hidden way, in order to vanquish Brünhild's resistance to
the accomplishment of the marriage. When, in later times, Kriemhild and
Brünhild fall out in a quarrel about their husbands' respective worth,
the secret of such stealthy aid having been given, is let out by the
former in a manner affecting the honor of the Burgundian queen as a
wife. Thereupon Hagen promises her to effect a revenge. Having deftly
ascertained from Kriemhild the single vulnerable part of the hero, whose
skin had otherwise been made impenetrable by being dipped into the
Dragon's blood, Hagen treacherously murders Siegfried at a chase. The
gold hoard is then sunk in the Rhine by Hagen, lest Kriemhild should use
it as a means of bribing men for wreaking her own revenge. She afterward
becomes the consort of Etzel, the heathen king of the Hiunes (Hunns) in
Hungary, who resides at Vienna. Thither she allures the Burgundians,
Hagen alone mistrusting the invitation. In Etzel's eastern land all the
Burgundian knights, upon whom the Nibelung name had been conferred,
suffer a terrible death through Kriemhild's wrath. Hagen, who refuses to
the end to reveal to her the whereabouts of the sunken gold hoard, has
his head cut off with Siegfried's sword by the infuriated queen herself.
At last, she, too, is hewn down by the indignant, doughty warrior,
Hildebrand; and so the lofty Hall, into which fire had been thrown, is
all strewn over with the dead. "Here," says the poem, "has the tale an
end. These were the sorrows of the Nibelungs."
In this "Iliad of the Germans," which dates from the end of the twelfth
century, the Siegfried story is given as a finished epic. But its
originally heathen Teutonic character is overlaid there with admixtures
of Christian chivalry. In the Edda and other Scandinavian sources, the
tale appears in fragmentary and lyrical shape, but in a purer version,
without additions from the new faith or from mediæval chivalry. It is in
the Sigurd-, Fafnir-, Brynhild-, Gudrun-, Oddrun-, Atli-, and Hamdir
Lays of the Norse Scripture that the original nature of the older German
songs, which must have preceded the epic, can best be guessed. Rhapsodic
lays, referring to Siegfried, were, in all probability, part of the
collection which Karl the Great, the Frankish Kaiser, ordered to be
made. Monkish fanaticism afterward destroyed the valuable relics.
Fortunately, Northmen travelling in Germany had gathered some of those
tale-treasures, which then were treated by Scandinavian and Icelandic
bards in the form of heroic lyrics. Hence the Eddic lays in question
form now a link between our lost Siegfried "Lieder" and our national
epic.
Even as in the "Nibelungen Lied" so also in the "Edda," Sigurd
(abbreviation for Siegfried) is not a Scandinavian, but a Southern, a
Rhenish, a German hero. The whole scene of the tragic events is laid in
the Rhinelands, where the killing of the Worm also takes place. On a
hill in Frank-land Sigurd frees Brynhild from the magic slumber into
which Odin had thrown her on a rock of punishment, because she, as a
Valkyr, or shield-maiden of his, had brought about the death of a Gothic
king to whom the god of battle had promised victory. In the south, on
the Rhine, Sigurd is murdered. In the Rhine, Högni (Hagen) hides the
Nibelung treasure. Many German tribes--Franks, Saxons, Burgundians,
Goths, even a Svava-land, or Suabian land, are mentioned in the "Edda."
The "Drama of Revenge," after Sigurd's death, though motives of the act
somewhat different from those stated in the "Nibelungen Lied" are
assigned, is also localized on the Lower Rhine, in the Hall of Atli, the
King of the Hunes. In the "Nibelungen Lied," that name appears as Etzel
(Attila), King of the Hunns.
In the "Edda" and in the "Vilkina Saga," Germans are referred to as
sources for some details of the Sigurd story. So strong was, in
Scandinavia, the tradition of the Teutonic origin of the tale, down to
the twelfth century, that, in a geographical work written in Norse by
the Abbot Nicolaus, the Gnita Heath, where Sigurd was said to have
killed the Dragon, was still placed half-way between Paderborn and
Mainz. Thus it was from Germany that this grand saga spread all over the
North, including the Faröer. In the "Hvenic Chronicle," in Danish songs,
we even find Siegfried as "Sigfred;" Kriemhild as "Gremild;" and she is
married to him at Worms, as in the "Nibelungen Lied," while in the
"Edda" Sigurd's wife is called Gudrun, and the remembrance of Worms is
lost. The scene of the Norse poems is wholly on Rhenish ground.
[Illustration: Siegfried slaying the Dragon.]
Now, in that neighborhood, in the northwest of Germany, a Teutonic tribe
once dwelt, called Hunes, which is also traceable in Scandinavia. Sigurd
himself is, in the "Edda," described as a Hunic king. His kith and
kin dwell in Huna-land. "Hune" probably meant a bold and powerful
warrior. The word still lingers in Germany in various ways; gigantic
grave-monuments of prehistoric times are called Hunic Graves or
"Hünen-Betten," and a tall, strong man a "Hüne." In his "Church History"
the Anglo-Saxon monk Baeda, or Bede, when speaking of the various German
tribes which had made Britain into an Angle-land, or England, mentions
the Hunes. In the Anglo-Saxon "Wanderer's Tale" they also turn up,
apparently in connection with a chieftain Aetla; that is, Atli. In
Friesland, the Hunsing tribe long preserved the Hunic name. The word
occurs in many personal and place names both in Germany and in England;
for instance: Hunolt (a Rhenish hero), Hunferd, Hunlaf, Hunbrecht
(champions among Frisians and Rhinelanders in the "Beowulf" epic);
Huneboldt (bold like a Hune); Ethelhun (noble Hune); then there are, in
German geography, the Hunsrück Mountain; Hunoldstein, Hunenborn,
Hunnesrück, near Hildesheim, etc. Again, in England: Hundon, Hunworth,
Hunstanton, Huncote, Hunslet, Hunswick, and many other places from Kent
and Suffolk up to Lancashire and Shetland, where certainly no Mongolic
Hunns ever penetrated. The Hunic Atli name is also to be found on
English soil, in Attlebridge and Attleborough.
After the Great Migrations the various tribes and races became much
intermixed. It was by a misunderstanding which arose then between the
German Hunes and the Hunns under Attila's leadership, that Kriemhild's
revenge after the murder of Siegfried was poetically transferred from
the Rhine to the Danube. The name of the Rhenish Atli, which is
preserved in the "Edda," and which also occurs as a German chieftain's
name on the soil of conquered Britain, easily served to facilitate the
confusion. Even the composition of Attila's army lent itself to this
transplantation of the second part of the Siegfried story to Danubian
lands. For, though Attila was overthrown on the Catalaunian fields,
mainly by Germanic hosts, to which Roman and Gallic troops were added,
he had a great many Teutonic warriors in his own army. From this
military intermingling of races so utterly dissimilar in blood and
speech as the Hunns and the Germans, one of whose tribes were called
Hunes, it is not difficult to conceive the shifting of the tragic issue
of the Nibelung story to the East. Attila, the Hunn, slid into the
previous Teutonic hero-figure of Atli, the Hune. This change will the
more easily be understood when the deep impression is remembered which
the terrible Mongolic war-leader had made on the popular mind in
southern Germany, where the Nibelungen epic was cast into its present
shape.
The hold which the Siegfried story has had on the German people, through
ages, can be gathered from the fact of its having kept its place, down
to our days, in the workman's house and the peasant's hut, first by oral
tradition, and then by rudely printed and illustrated chap-books ("Die
Geschichte vom hürnenen Siegfried"). In this "Volksbuch" there are
remarkable details concerning the hero's early life in a smithy and the
prophecy of his assassination, which are lost in the "Nibelungen Lied,"
but preserved in the "Edda." This circumstance--overlooked even by
Simrock, who, like Jacob Grimm, has done much to show the German origin
of the Norse Sigurd saga--is another curious bit of evidence of the
undeniable Teutonic source of the corresponding Scandinavian and
Icelandic stories and poems.
Many attempts have been made to get at the historical kernel of the
tale. Some would see in it traces of the songs which, according to
Tacitus, were sung, of old, in honor of Armin (usually, though
mistakenly, called Hermann), the deliverer of Germany from the Roman
yoke. It has been assumed that the contents of these songs were combined
with traditions of the deeds of Civilis, the leader of the Batavian
Germans against Roman dominion, as well as of the conquest of Britain by
Hengest. Recently, the Norse scholar, Gudbrand Vigfússon, has once more
started this "Armin" interpretation of the tale, under the impression
that he was the first to do so; whereas, in Germany, Mone and
Giesebrecht had worked out that idea already some sixty years ago. In
order to support his theory, Vigfússon boldly proposed to change the
Hunic name of Sigurd, in the Eddic text, into "Cheruskian." He imagined
the former name to be absurd, because Siegfried was not a Hunn; but
Vigfússon was unacquainted with the wide historical distribution of the
Hunic name in Germany and England.
Others saw in the Siegfried story an echo of the overthrow of the
Burgundian king Gundahari (Gunther), by Attila, on the Rhine. Gundahari,
who first threw himself with an army of 20,000 men against the Hunnic
leader, gloriously fell with all his men. In the same way, in the
"Nibelungen Lied," the Burgundian king, Gunther, is killed, with all his
men, in the land of Etzel, the ruler of the Hiunes. Again, others have
pointed to the feats of Theodorick, the king of the Eastern Goths; or to
the fate of Siegbert, the king of the Austrasian Franks, who was
murdered at the instigation of Fredegunda; or to the powerful Frankish
family of the Pipins, from whom Karl the Great hailed, by way of trying
to explain some parts of the Siegfried story. With the Pipins of
"Nivella," we come upon a word in consonance with "Nibelung."
Then the wars which the Frankish Kaiser Karl waged against the Saxons of
Witukind, have been held to be indicated in the war which the Frankish
Siegfried, in the "Nibelungen Lied," wages against the Saxons. To all
appearance, however, the tale is a mixture of mythological and
historical traditions. In the Middle Ages, and still much later,
Siegfried was looked upon as an undoubtedly historical figure. His
praise was sung through all Germany. His very tomb, one of his weapons,
as well as his carved image, were shown under the name of Siegfried's
grave, Siegfried's spear, and Siegfried's statue. So persistent was this
belief that when, in the fifteenth century, Kaiser Frederick III. came
to Worms, he had the alleged grave of "that second Hector and powerful
giant" opened, to see whether his bones could be found. Only a head and
a few bones were dug up, "larger than men's heads and bones usually
are." At Worms, the Siegfried story was pictured, in ancient times, in
the Town Hall and on the Mint. All round Worms, place-names connected
with the Nibelung tale occur with remarkable frequency. If the lost
rhapsodic songs could be recovered, both mythological and historical
allusions would, in all likelihood, be found in them.
An eminently Frankish tale, the Nibelungen cycle, has arisen in that
martial German tribe which once held sway in the greater part of Europe.
In its origin, the tale is considered by many careful investigators--so
also by Richard Wagner, who founded his famous music-drama on it--to
have been a Nature myth, upon which real events became engrafted. From
this point of view, the earliest meaning of Siegfried's victory over the
Dragon would signify the triumph of the God of Light over the monster of
the chaotic aboriginal Night. It would be, on German ground, the
overthrow of Python by Apollon. In this connection it is to be pointed
out that Sigurd appears in the "Edda" as the hero "with the shining
eyes," and that, in one of the German Rose Garden tales, twelve swords
are attributed to him--a description which might be referred to the
zodiac and to sunshine; so that he would be a solar hero. And even as
Day is, in its turn, vanquished by Night; as Summer must yield to
Winter; so also Siegfried falls in the end. The god which he originally
was thus becomes human; the sad fate of so noble a champion gives rise
to feelings of revenge for what is held to be an evil and criminal deed;
and a tragedy is constructed, in which generations appear as actors and
victims.
A special feature of the Frankish myth is the hoard, the fatal treasure
which works never-ending mischief. It is said to represent the metal
veins of the subterranean Region of Gloom. There, as is stated in an
Eddic record, Dark Elves (Nibelungs, or nebulous Sons of the Night) are
digging and working, melting and forging the ore in their smithies,
producing charmful rings that remind us of the diadems which bind the
brows of rulers; golden ornaments and sharp weapons; all of which confer
great power upon their owner. When Siegfried slays the Dragon, when
Light overcomes Darkness, this hoard is his booty, and he becomes master
of the Nibelungs. But the Dragon's dark heir ever seeks to regain it
from the victor; so Night malignantly murders the Day; Hagen kills
Siegfried. The treasure on which Siegfried's power is founded becomes
the cause of his death; and through Death he himself, albeit originally
a refulgent God of Light, is turned into a figure of gloom; that is, a
Nibelung.
There is much in the Norse Skalds which seems to support this
mythological aspect of the tale. The name of Siegfried's murderer,
Hagen--who is one-eyed, even as Hödur, the God of Night, who kills
Baldur, the God of Light, is blind--has also been adduced for this
interpretation. Hagen is explained as the Thorn of Death, the hawthorn
(German Hagedorn), with which men are stung into eternal sleep, or
rather into a death-like trance. Odin stings Brynhild into her trance
with a sleeping-thorn. Hagen, in the sense of death, still lingers in
the German expression, "Friend Hain," as a euphemism for the figure
which announces that one's hour has come. The hawthorn was the special
wood used for fire-burial in Germany; hence the figurative poetical
expression which would make Hagen a synonym for death.
In the German and Norse poems, as we possess them now, myth and
apparently historical facts are inextricably welded together. A
powerful representation of the Siegfried tale is given in the series of
large pictures, at Munich, by the distinguished painter Schnorr von
Karolsfeld.
[Signature: Karl Blind.]