The primitive setting of the northern version has vanished utterly.
Sigmund is king of the Netherlands; the boy Siegfried is brought
up by “wise men that are his tutors” (Avent. ii.) ; and when,
attracted by the fame of Kriemhild’s beauty, he rides to Worms
to woo her, it is as the typical handsome, accomplished and
chivalrous king’s son of medieval romance.
It is at this point (Avent. iv.) that some of the primitive elements of the story are suddenly and awkwardly introduced. As Siegfried approaches Worms, Kriemhild’s brothers, the Burgundian kings Gunther, Giselhêr and Gêrnot watch his coming, and to them their faithful retainer, “the grim Hagen,” explains who he is. This, he exclaims, can be no other than the hero who slew the two kings of the Nibelungs, Schilbunc and Nibelunc, and seized their treasure, together with the sword Balmunc and the tarnkappe, or cape of darkness, which has the virtue of making him who wears it invisible. Another adventure, too, he can tell of him, namely, how he slew a dragon and how by bathing in its blood his skin became horny, so that no weapon could wound him, save in one place, where a linden leaf had fallen upon him as he stooped, so that the blood did not touch this spot.[1] In spite of Hagen’s distrust and misgivings, Siegfried now fights as the ally of the Burgundians against the Saxons (Avent. iv.), and undertakes, on condition of receiving Kriemhild to wife, to help Gunther to woo Queen Brunhild, who can only be won by the man who can overcome her in three trials of strength (Avent. vi.). Siegfried and Gunther accordingly go together to Brunhild’s castle of Isenstein in Iceland, and there the hero, invisible in his tarnkappe, stands beside Gunther, hurling the spear and putting the weight for him, and even leaping, with Gunther in his arms, far beyond the utmost limit that Brunhild can reach (Avent. vii.). Brunhild confesses herself beaten and returns with the others to Worms, where the double marriage is celebrated with great pomp (Avent. x.). But Brunhild is ill content; though she saw Siegfried do homage to Gunther at Isenstein she is not convinced, and believes that Siegfried should have been her husband; and on the bridal night she vents her ill humour on the hapless Gunther by tying him up in a knot and hanging him on the wall. “I have brought the evil devil to my house!” he complains to Siegfried next morning; and once more the hero has to intervene; invisible in his tarnkappe he wrestles with Brunhild, and, after a desperate struggle, takes from her her girdle and ring before yielding place to Gunther. The girdle and ring he gives to his wife Kriemhild (Avent. x.).
One day, while Siegfried and his wife were on a visit to the Burgundian court, the two queens fell to quarrelling on the question of precedence, not in a river but on the steps of the cathedral (Avent. xiv.). Kriemhild was taunted with being the wife of Gunther’s vassal; whereupon, in wrath, she showed Brunhild the ring and the golden girdle taken by Siegfried, proof that Siegfried, not Gunther, had won Brunhild. So far the story is essentially the same as that in the Volsungasaga; but now the plot changes. Brunhild drops out, becoming a figure altogether subordinate and shadowy. The death of Siegfried is compassed, not by her, but by the “grim” Hagen, Gunther’s faithful henchman, who thinks the glory of his master unduly overshadowed by that of his vassal. Hagen easily persuades the weak Gunther that the supposed insult to his honour can only be wiped out in Siegfried’s blood; he worms the secret of the hero’s vulnerable spot out of Kriemhild, on pretence of shielding him from harm (Avent. xv.), and then arranges a great hunt in the forest, so that he may slay him when off his guard.
The 16th Aventiure, describing this hunt and the murder of Siegfried, is perhaps the most powerful scene in all medieval epic. To heighten the effect of the tragic climax the poet begins with a description of the hunting, and describes the high spirits of Siegfried, who captures a wild boar, rides back with it to camp, and there lets it loose to the great discomfiture of the cooks.
When the hunters sat down to feast, it was found that the wine had been forgotten. Hagen thereupon proposed that they should race to a spring of which he knew some way off in the forest. Siegfried readily agreed, and though handicapped by carrying shield, sword and spear, easily reached the goal first, but waited, with his customary courtesy, until the king had arrived and drunk before slaking his own thirst. Then, laying aside his arms, he stooped and drank. Hagen, seizing the spear, thrust it through the spot marked by Kriemhild on Siegfried’s surcoat. The hero sprang up and, finding that his sword had been removed, attacked Hagen with his shield.
Though to death he was wounded he struck so strong a stroke
That from the shattered shield-rim forthwith out there broke
Showers of flashing jewels; the shield in fragments lay.[2]
Then reproaching them for their cowardice and treachery, Siegfried fell dying “amid the flowers,” while the knights gathered round lamenting. At this point two stanzas may be quoted as well illustrating the poet’s power of dramatic characterization:—
The king of the Burgundians he too bewailed his death:
Then spake the dying hero: “Nay, now you waste your breath!
You weep for an ill fortune that you yourself have wrought:
That is a shameful sorrow: it were better you said nought!”
Then out spake the grim Hagen: “I know not why ye plain:
This is for us the ending of sorrow and of pain.
Full few are left of foemen that dare withstand us now.
Glad am I that the hero was by this hand of mine laid low!”
This account of the death of Siegfried, which embodies the ancient German tradition, is far finer than the northern version, according to which Hogni murders the hero in his bed. The whole spirit of this Aventiure, too, is primitive Teutonic rather than medieval. The same is true, indeed, of the whole of the rest of the poem. Siegfried, to be sure, is buried with all the pomp of medieval Catholic rites; but Kriemhild, while praying for his soul like a good Christian, plots horrible vengeance like her pagan prototype. With this significant difference, however: Gudrun revenged upon her husband the death of her brothers; Kriemhild seeks to revenge upon her brothers the death of her husband. The Catholic bond of marriage has become stronger than the primitive Teutonic bond of kinship. Mistress now of the inexhaustible hoard of the Nibelungs, Kriemhild sought to win a following by lavish largesses; but this Hagen frustrated by seizing the treasure, with the consent of the kings, and sinking it in the Rhine, all taking an oath never to reveal its hiding-place, without the consent of the others, so long as they should live (Avent. xix.). At last, however, after thirteen years, Kriemhild’s chance came, with a proposal of marriage from Etzel (Attila) king of the Huns, whom she consented to marry on condition that he would help her to vengeance (Avent. xx.). Then more years passed; old feuds seemed to be forgotten; and the Burgundian kings, in spite of Hagen’s warnings, thought it safe to accept their sister’s invitation to visit her court (Avent. xxiii. xxiv.).
The journey of the Burgundians into Hunland is described by the poet at great length (Avent. xxv.-xxvii.). The story is full of picturesque detail and stirring incident, full also of interesting problems in folk-lore and mythology; and throughout it is dominated by the figure of the grim Hagen, who, twitted with cowardice and his advice spurned, is determined that there shall be no turning back and that they shall go through with it to the bitter end. With his own hands he ferries the host over the Danube and then, when the last detachment has crossed, destroys the boat, so that there may be no return. At Attila’s court (Avent. xxviii.) it is again Hagen who provokes the catastrophe by taunting Kriemhild when she asks him if he has brought with him the hoard of the Nibelungs:
“The devil’s what I bring you!” Hagen then replied,
“What with this heavy harness and my shield beside,
I had enough to carry: this helmet bright I brought;
My sword is in my right hand, and that, be sure, I bring you not!”
The sword was Siegfried’s. It is Hagen, too, who after the
