I
The time came when the people of Western Europe learned to believe
in one God and were converted to Christianity, but the old stories
about the gods and Valkyries and giants and heroes, who were half
gods and half men, were not forgotten.
These stories were repeated from father to son for generations,
and in the twelfth century a poet, whose name we do not know, wrote
them in verse. He called his poem the Nï'bel-ung'en-lied (song
of the Nibelungs). It is the great national poem of the Germans.
The legends told in it are the basis of Wagner's operas.
"Nibelungs" was the name given to some northern dwarfs whose king
had once possessed a great treasure of gold and precious stones but
had lost it. Whoever got possession of this treasure was followed
by a curse. The Nibelungenlied tells the adventures of those who
possessed the treasure.