The saga as we find it in the German Nibelungenlied differs very widely
in form and substance from the Northern version which has just been
outlined, though the two have still enough points of similarity to
indicate clearly a common origin. Each bears the stamp of the poetic
genius of the people among whom it grew. Of all the sagas of the Germanic
peoples none holds so prominent a place as the Nibelungen saga, and it
may safely be said that the epic literature of the world, though offering
poems of more refined literary worth, has none that are at the same time
such valuable records of the growth of the poetic genius of two kindred
peoples through many centuries of their early civilization as the Edda
poems of this saga and the Nibelungenlied. It is impossible here to
undertake a comparison of the two and point out in detail their
parallelism and their respective significance as monuments of
civilization; suffice it to indicate briefly the chief points of
difference in the two stories, and note particularly those parts of the
Nibelungenlied that have, as it were, suffered atrophy, and that point to
earlier stages of the saga in which, as in the Northern version, they
played a more important role.
First, as to the hoard. The Nibelungenlied knows nothing of its being
taken by Loki from Andvari, of the latter's curse upon it, and how it
came finally into the possession of Fafnir, the giant-dragon. Here it
belongs, as we learn from Hagen's account (strophes 86-99), to Siegfried
(Sigurd), who has slain the previous owners of it, Schilbung and
Nibelung, and wrested it from its guardian the dwarf Alberich (Andvari).
From this point onward its history runs nearly parallel in the two
versions. After Siegfried's death it remains for a time with Kriemhild
(Gudrun), is treacherously taken from her by Gunther (Gunnar) and Hagen
(Hogni), and finally, before their journey to Etzel (Atli), sunk in the
Rhine.
The protracted narrative of Sigurd's ancestry and his descent from Odin
has no counterpart in the Nibelungenlied. Here we learn merely that
Siegfried is the son of Siegmund. His father plays an entirely different
part; and his mother's name is not Hjordis, as in the Edda, but
Siegelind.
Of Siegfried's youth the Nibelungenlied knows very little. No mention is
made of his tutelage to the dwarf smith Regin and preparation for the
slaying of the dragon Fafnir. The account of him placed in the mouth of
Hagen (strophes 86-501), how he won the hoard, the _tarnkappe_, and the
sword Balmung, and slew the dragon, is evidently a faint echo of an
earlier version of this episode, which sounds out of place in the more
modern German form of the story. From the latter the mythical element has
almost entirely vanished. It is worthy of note, moreover, that the very
brief account of Siegfried's slaying of the dragon is given in the
Nibelungenlied as separate from his acquisition of the hoard, and differs
in detail from that of the Edda. Of Sigurd's steed Grani, his ride to
Frankenland, and his awakening of Brynhild the Nibelungenlied has nothing
to tell us. Through the account of Siegfried's assistance to Gunther in
the latter's wooing of Brunhild (Adventures 6 and 7) shimmers faintly,
however, the earlier tradition of the mythical Siegfried's awakening of
the fire-encircled valkyrie. Only by our knowledge of a more original
version can we explain, for example, Siegfried's previous acquaintance
with Brunhild which the Nibelungenlied takes for granted but says nothing
of. On this point of the relation between Sigurd and Brynhild it is
difficult to form a clear account owing to the confusion and even
contradictions that exist when the various Northern versions themselves
are placed side by side. The name of the valkyrie whom Sigurd awakens
from her magic sleep is not directly mentioned. Some of the accounts are
based on the presupposition that she is one with the Brynhild whom Sigurd
later wooes for Gunnar, while others either know nothing of the sleeping
valkyrie or treat the two as separate personages. The situation in the
Nibelungenlied is more satisfactorily explained by the theory that they
were originally identical. But we see at once that the figure of Brunhild
has here lost much of its original significance. It is her quarrel with
Kriemhild (Gudrun) that leads to Siegfried's death, though the motives
are not just the same in the two cases; and after the death of Siegfried
she passes unaccountably from the scene.
But it is in the concluding part of the story--the part which, as we
shall see, has its basis in actual history--that the two accounts diverge
most widely. So strange, indeed, has been the evolution of the saga that
the central character of it, Kriemhild (Gudrun) holds a diametrically
opposite relation to her husband Etzel (Atli) at the final catastrophe in
the two versions. In the Nibelungenlied as in the Edda the widowed
Kriemhild (Gudrun) marries King Etzel (Atli), her consent in the former
resulting from a desire for revenge upon the murderers of Siegfried, in
the latter from the drinking of a potion which takes away her memory of
him; in the Nibelungenlied it is Kriemhild who treacherously lures
Gunther and his men to their destruction unknown to Etzel, in the Edda
the invitation comes from Atli, while Gudrun tries to warn them to stay
at home; in the former Kriemhild is the author of the attack on the
guests, in the latter Atli; in the former Kriemhild is the frenzied
avenger of her former husband Siegfried's death upon her brother Gunther,
in the latter Gudrun is the avenger of her brothers' death upon her
husband Atli.