The Heroes of the "Nibelungenlied."
The "Nibelungenlied," called the German Iliad, has for its heroes some of the most universally popular personages of the semi-historic myths of mediaeval German folk-lore; viz., Siegfried, King of the Netherlands; Gunther, King of Burgundy; Brunhild, Queen of Iceland; Kreimhild, sister of Gunther, and wife of Siegfried; Hagan of Norway; Dietrich (Theodoric the Great), King of the Ostrogoths; Etzel (Attila), King of the Huns.
The name of this epic poem of Germany is derived from Nebelungen, a mythical king of Norway; from Nebel (darkness), and means the children of mist or darkness. There are two versions of this strange story,--a Northern one made in heathen times, and a German one in Christian days. The story is divided into two parts, the first ending with the death of Siegfried, the second with the death of Kreimhild his widow. There are twenty or more existing manuscripts of this poem, the earliest dating A.D. 1210.
The author is unknown; but to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a minnesinger of Austria, is ascribed the credit of putting ancient lays into the form of a continued story The loves and feuds and stormy lives of these national heroes are made to centre around what is called "The Nibelungen Hoard," a mass of gold and precious stones which Siegfried carried off from Norway, and gave as a marriage dower to his wife, and which is said to have filled thirty wagons.
After the murder of Siegfried, Hagan, his murderer, is said to have secretly buried this vast treasure beneath the Rhine, expecting later to remove and use it. Hagan, however, being murdered by Kriemhild in revenge for the death of her husband, "The Hoard" was never recovered. This tale kept a firm hold upon the imaginations of the German people from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, when the Reformation caused this and many other of the folk-lore to be lost sight of and almost forgotten. It was not until the nineteenth century that the value of it in an historical point was recognized.
Longfellow, in his "Poets and Poetry of Europe," says,--
"This great romantic epic is a poem well calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of a people like the Germans. Nothing can exceed the delight with which that old poem was studied, when, within the memory of man, the new-born nationality of German feeling rose to an unexampled pitch, and led to an excess of admiration for every thing that belonged to German antiquity, which is, perhaps, without a parallel in modern times. The enthusiasm of the Germans for this singular poem was perfectly natural. They did not hesitate to compare it with the Iliad, and some of the more extravagant worshippers of the Middle Ages ventured to place it even higher than the old Greek epic. This, however, is a claim which the cooler opinions of the present time reject. With all its extraordinary merits of impersonation and description, its fiery utterances of passion, its elaborate arrangement and combination, its genuine epic sweep of incident and language, it falls far below the Iliad in variety, consistency, just proportion, and completeness, and in melody of verse. The German language of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is not to be compared with the richness, grace, and plastic beauty of the Greeks, as it flowed from the harmonious lips of Homer."