I. BOOK possession of Kriemhild; and at this point the myth assumes a form which reminds us of the relations of Heraklês with Eurystheus. Like Hêrê in the Greek tale, Brynhild holds that Siegfried ought to do service to Gunther, as Heraklês did to his lord, and thus urges him to summon Siegfried to Worms. The hero, who is found in the Niflung's castle on the Norwegian border, loads the messengers with treasures, and Hagen cannot suppress the longing that all this wealth may yet come into the hands of the Burgundians. No sooner has Siegfried, with his father Sigmund and his wife Kriemhild, reached Worms, than Brynhild hastens to impress on Kriemhild that Siegfried is Gunther's man, and that, like Theseus to Minos, he must pay tribute. In deep anger Kriemhild resolves to insult her adversary, and when they go to church, she presses on before Brynhild who bids her as a vassal stand back, and taunting her as having been won by Siegfried, shows him her girdle and ring as the evidence of her words. Gunther, urged by his wife, rebukes Siegfried for betraying the secret, but his anger is soon appeased. It is otherwise with Hogni, or Hagen, who here plays the part of Paris, by whose spear Achilleus is to fall. He sees his sister weeping, and, swearing to revenge her, spreads false tidings of the approach of an enemy, and when he knows that Siegfried is ready to set out against them, he asks Kriemhild how he may best insure her husband's safety. Not knowing to whom she spake, she tells him that when Siegfried bathed himself in the dragon's blood a broad linden leaf stuck between his shoulders, and there left him vulnerable, this place between the shoulders answering to the vulnerable heel of Achilleus. To make still more sure, Hagen asks Kriemhild to mark the spot, and the wife of the hero thus seals his doom. The narrative at this point becomes filled with all the tenderness and beauty of the Odyssey. Kriemhild is awakened to her folly in betraying Siegfried's secret to Hagen. Still, in vain she prays him not to go. He is the knight who knows no fear, and without fear he accompanies Hagen, doing marvellous things, until one day he asks Hagen why he has brought no wine to drink, when Hagen offers to show him the way to a good spring. Siegfried hastens thither with him, and as he stoops to drink Hagen shoots him through the back on the spot marked by the silver It is scarcely necessary to compare this with the vast number of myths in which the death of the sun is connected with water, cross. 1 These Burgundians in the later portion of the epic are often spoken of as Niblungs, as mythically they assuredly are. The fact evidently shows, in Mr. Ludlow's opinion, "that the poem in its present state is put together out of two different legends."-Popular Epics of the Middle Ages, i. 133. At the most, it would be but one of two versions of the legend. KRIEMHILD AND BRYNHILD. VI. 121 whether of the ocean or the sea. In the spirting out of Siegfried's CHAP. blood on Hagen, in the wonderful stroke with which he almost smites his betrayer dead, in the death wrestle which covers the flowers all around with blood and gore, we have the chief features of the bloodstained sunset which looms out in the legend of the death of Heraklês. The body of Siegfried, placed on a golden shield, is borne to the chamber of Kriemhild, who feels, before she is told, that it is the corpse of her murdered husband. "This is Brynhild's counsel," she said, "this is Hagen's deed;" and she swears to avenge his death by a vengeance as fearful as that of Achilleus. As Siegfried had spoken, so should Hagen assuredly rue the day of his death hereafter. She gives orders to awaken Siegfried's men and his father Sigmund; but Sigmund has not slept, for, like Peleus, he has felt that he should see his son again no more. Then follows the burial of Siegfried, when Gunther swears that no harm has come to the hero either from himself or from his men: but the lie is given to his words when the wounds bleed as Hagen passes before the dead body. When all is over, Sigmund says that they must return to their own land; but Kriemhild is at last persuaded to remain at Worms, where she sojourns for more than three years in bitter grief, seeing neither Gunther nor Hagen. The latter now makes Gernot press Kriemhild to have her hoard brought from the Niblung land, and thus at length gaining possession of it, he sinks it all in the Rhine. In other words, Adonis is dead, and the women are left mourning and wailing for him; or the maiden is stolen away from Dêmêtêr, and her wealth is carried to the house of Hades; or again, as in the Norse tale, the dwarf Andvari is keeping watch over the treasures of Brynhild and thus ends the first of the series of mythical histories embodied in the Nibelung Lay. Whether this portion of the great Teutonic epic be, or be not, older than the parts which follow it, it is indubitably an integral narrative in itself, and by no means indispensable to the general plan of the poem, except in so far as it accounts for the implacable hatred of Kriemhild for her brothers. The second part of the drama begins with the death of Helche, the wife of Etzel or Atli, who longs to marry Kriemhild, and who is restrained only by the recollection that he is a heathen while the widow of Siegfried is a Christian. This objection, however, is overruled by the whole council, who, with the one exception of Hagen, decide that Etzel shall marry Kriemhild. Hagen is opposed to it, because Siegfried swore that he should rue the day on which he touched him, and on account of the prophecy that if ever Kriemheld took the place of Helche, she would bring harm to the Burgundians, The Story of Hagen. BOOK I. But as Helen did to the fleet, the armies, and the cities of Hellas. 1 Mr. Ludlow here remarks that "this 2 I must confine myself to those It por tions of the epic which call for a com. parison with other legends, and which, taken together, show the amount of material which the poets of the Nibelung song, like those of the Iliad and Odyssey, found ready to their hand. The close agreement of the framework of the poem with that of the Volsung story and the legends of the Helgis, and the identity of all these with the myth of Baldur, has been already shown. It THE GRIEF AND VENGEANCE OF KRIEMHILD. VI. 123 Hagen necessarily discerns evil omens as they journey on. The CHAP. waters of the Danube are swollen, and as he searches along the banks for a ferryman, he seizes the wondrous apparel of two wise women who are bathing, one of whom promises that if he will give them their raiment, they will tell how he may journey to the Huns' land. Floating like birds before him on the flood, they lure him with hopes of the great honours which are in store for him, and thus they recover their clothes-a myth which feebly reflects the beautiful legends of the Swan maidens and their knights. No sooner, however, are they again clothed, than the wise woman who has not yet spoken tells him that her sister has lied, and that from the Huns' land not one shall return alive, except the king's chaplain. To test her words, Hagen, as they are crossing the river, throws the priest into the stream; but although he tries to push him down under the water, yet the chaplain, although unable to swim, is carried by Divine aid to the shore, and the doomed Burgundians go onwards to meet their In the house of Rudiger they receive a genial welcome; but when Rudiger's daughter approaches at his bidding to kiss Hagen, his countenance seemed to her so fearful that she would gladly have foregone the duty. On their departure Rudiger loads them with gifts. To Gernot he gives a sword which afterwards deals the deathblow to Rudiger himself, who resolves to accompany them; while Hagen receives the magnificent shield of Nuodung, whom Witege slew. The ominous note is again sounded when Dietrich, who is sent to meet the Burgundians, tells Hagen that Kriemhild still weeps sore for the hero of the Niblung land; and Hagen can but say that her duty now is to Etzel, as Siegfried is buried and comes again no more. It is the story of the Odyssey. When Dietrich is asked how he knows the mind of Kriemhild, "What shall I say?" he answers; every morning early I hear her, Etzel's wife, weep and wail full sadly to the God of heaven for strong Siegfried's body." It is the sorrow of Penelopê, who mourns for the absence of Odysseus during twenty weary years, though the suitors, like Etzel, are by her side, or though, as other versions went, she became a mother while the wise chief was far away fighting at Ilion or wandering over the winefaced sea. is, therefore, quite unnecessary to give an abstract of the poem throughout, a task which has been performed already by many writers, and among them by Mr. Ludlow, Popular Epics, i. Compare the Gaelic story of the Rider of Grianaig (Campbell, iii. 18), 1 where the dawn-maidens mourn be. BOOK I. The vengeance of Kriemhild. At length Hagen and Kriemhild stand face to face: but when the wife of Etzel asks what gifts he has brought, Hagen answers that one so wealthy needs no gifts. The question is then put plainly, "Where is the Niblungs' hoard? It was my own, as ye well know." Hagen answers that at his master's bidding it has been sunk in the Rhine, and there it must remain till the day of judgment. But when Kriemhild tells the Burgundians that they must give up their arms before going into the hall, Hagen begs to be excused. The honour is greater than he deserves, and he will himself be chamberman. Kriemhild sees that he has been warned, and learns to her grief and rage that the warning has come through Dietrich. But the time for the avenging of Siegfried draws nigh. Etzel's men see Kriemhild. weeping as through a window she looks down on Hagen and Volker, and when they assure her that the man who has called forth her tears shall pay for his offence with his blood, she bids them avenge her of Hagen, so that he may lose his life. Sixty men are ready to slay them, but Kriemhild says that so small a troop can never suffice to slay two heroes so powerful as Hagen and the still more mighty Volker who sits by his side,--words which at once show that we have before us no beings of human race, and that Hagen is akin to the Panis, while Volker is the whispering breeze or the strong wind of the night, whose harping, like that of Orpheus, few or none may withstand. Kriemhild herself goes down to them: but Hagen will not rise to greet her. On his knees she sees the gleaming sword which he had taken from Siegfried, the good blade Gram, which Odin left in the house of Volsung. The words which burst from her bespeak the grief of a Penelopê who nurses her sorrow in a harsher clime than that of Ithaka. She asks Hagen how he could venture into the lion's den, and who had sent for him to the Huns' country. To his reply that he had come only by constraint of the masters whose man he was, she rejoins by asking why he did the deed for which she bears hate to him. He has slain her beloved Siegfried, for whom if she weeps all her life long she could never weep enough. It is useless to deny the deed, and Hagen does not care to disown it. He tells the queen that he is in truth the man who slew Siegfried and has done to her great wrong; and the preparations for the last struggle go on with more speed and certainty. It is impossible not to think of the suitors in the house of Odysseus, although the bearing It is at this point that the passage is inserted which connects the Nibelungenlied with the story of Walthar of Aquitaine. It is of no further interest in our present inquiry than as showing the composite character of the great Teutonic epic.-Ludlow, Popular Epics, i. 146. |