_J. L. Hall's Translation, Parts XXI.-XXIV._
THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.
The Nibelungen Lied, or Song of the Nibelungen, was written about the
beginning of the thirteenth century, though the events it chronicles
belong to the sixth or seventh century. The manuscript poem was discovered
about the middle of the eighteenth century.
Lachmann asserts that the Nibelungen Lied consists of twenty songs of
various dates and authorship; other scholars, while agreeing that it is
the work of a single author, ascribe it variously to Conrad von
Kurenburger, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walther
von der Vogelweide.
Whoever was its author, he was only a compiler of legends that were the
property of the people for centuries, and are found in many other of the
popular German epics of the Middle Ages.
The poem consists of thirty-nine adventures, containing two thousand four
hundred and fifty-nine stanzas of four lines each. The action covers
thirty years. It is based on material obtained from four sources: (1) The
Frankish saga-cycle, whose hero is Siegfried; (2) the saga-cycle of
Burgundy, whose heroes are Guenther, king of Worms, and his two brothers;
(3) the Ostrogothic saga-cycle, whose hero is Dietrich of Bern; and (4)
the saga-cycle of Etzel, king of the Huns, with his allies and vassals.
Pages:
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235