Cassiodorus’s History of the Goths) at the funeral of Attila his
vassals, as they rode round the corpse, sang of his glorious deeds.
The next step in the development of epic narrative was the
single lay of an episodic character, sung by a single individual,
who was frequently a member of a distinguished family, not
merely a professional minstrel. Then, as different stories grew
up round the person of a particular hero, they formed a connected
cycle of legend, the centre of which was the person of the hero
(e.g. Dietrich of Bern). The most important figures of these
cycles are the following.
(1) Beowulf, king of the Geatas (Jutland), whose story in its present form was probably brought from the continent by the Angles. It is an amalgamation of the myth of Beowa, the slayer of the water-demon and the dragon, with the historical legend of Beowulf, nephew and successor of Hygelac (Chochilaicus), king of the Geatas, who was defeated and slain (c. 520) while ravaging the Frisian coast. The water-demon Grendel and the dragon (probably), by whom Beowulf is mortally wounded, have been supposed to represent the powers of autumn and darkness, the floods which at certain seasons overflow the low-lying countries on the coast of the North Sea and sweep away all human habitations; Beowulf is the hero of spring and light who, after overcoming the spirit of the raging waters, finally succumbs to the dragon of approaching winter. Others regard him as a wind-hero, who disperses the pestilential vapours of the fens. Beowulf is also a culture-hero. His father Sceaf-Scyld (i.e. Scyld Scefing, “the protector with the sheaf”) lands on the Anglian or Scandinavian coast when a child, in a rudderless ship, asleep on a sheaf of grain, symbolical of the means whereby his kingdom shall become great; the son indicates the blessings of a fixed habitation, secured against the attacks of the sea. (2) Hildebrand, the hero of the oldest German epic. A loyal supporter of Theodoric, he follows his master, when threatened by Odoacer, to the court of Attila. After thirty years’ absence, he returns to his home In Italy; his son Hadubrand, believing his father to be dead, suspects treachery and refuses to accept presents offered by the father in token of good-will. A fight takes place, in which the son is slain by the father. In a later version, recognition and reconciliation take place. Well-known parallels are Odysseus and Telegonis, Rustem and Sohrab. (3) Ermanaric, the king of the East Goths, who according to Ammianus Marcellinus slew himself (c. 375) in terror at the invasion of the Huns. With him is connected the old German Dioscuri myth of the Harlungen. (4) Dietrich of Bern (Verona), the legendary name of Theodoric the Great. Contrary to historical tradition, Italy is supposed to have been his ancestral inheritance, of which he has been deprived by Odoacer, or by Ermanaric, who in his altered character of a typical tyrant appears as his uncle and contemporary. He takes refuge in Hungary with Etzel (Attila), by whose aid he finally recovers his kingdom. In the later middle ages he is represented as fighting with giants, dragons and dwarfs, and finally disappears on a black horse. Some attempts have been made to identify him as a kind of Donar or god of thunder. (5) Siegfried (M.H. Ger. Sîvrit), the hero of the Niebelungenlied, the Sigurd of the related northern sagas, is usually regarded as a purely mythical figure, a hero of light who is ultimately overcome by the powers of darkness, the mist-people (Niebelungen). He is, however, closely associated with historical characters and events, e.g. with the Burgundian king Gundahari (Gunther, Gunnar) and the overthrow of his house and nation by the Huns; the scholars have exercised considerable ingenuity in attempting to identify him with various historical figures. Theodor Abeling (Das Nibelungenlied, Leipzig, 1907) traces the Nibelung sagas to three groups of Burgundian legends, each based on fact: the Frankish-Burgundian tradition of the murder of Segeric, son of the Burgundian king Sigimund, who was slain by his father at the instigation of his stepmother; the Frankish-Burgundian story, as told by Gregory of Tours (iii. 11), of the defeat of the Burgundian kings Sigimund and Godomar, and the captivity and murder of Sigimund, by the sons of Clovis, at the instigation of their mother Chrothildis, in revenge for the murder of her father Chilperich and of her mother, by Godomar; the Rhenish-Burgundian story of the ruin of Gundahari’s kingdom by Attila’s Huns. Herr Abeling identifies Siegfried (Sigurd) with Segeric, while—according to him—the heroine of the Nibelung sagas, Kriemhild (Gudrun), represents a confusion of two historical persons: Chrothildis, the wife of Clovis, and Ildico (Hilde), the wife of Attila. (See also the articles Kriemhild, Nibelungenlied).
(6) Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit, whose legend, like that of Siegfried, is of Frankish origin. It is preserved in four versions, the best of which is the oldest, and has an historical foundation. Hugdietrich is the “Frankish Dietrich” (= Hugo Theodoric), king of Austrasia (d. 534), who like his son and successor Theodebert, was illegitimate; both had to fight for their inheritance with relatives. The transference of the scene to Constantinople is a reminiscence of the events of the Crusades and Theodebert’s projected campaign against that city. The version in which Hugdietrich gains access to his future wife by disguising himself as a woman has also a foundation in fact. As the myth of the Harlungen is connected with Ermanaric, so another Dioscuri myth (of the Hartungen) is combined with the Ortnit-Wolfdietrich legend. The Hartungen are probably identical with the divine youths (mentioned in Tacitus as worshipped by the Vandal Naharvali or Nahanarvali), from whom the Vandal royal family, the Asdingi, claimed descent. Asdingi (Ἄστιγγοι) would be represented in Gothic by Hazdiggos, “men with women’s hair” (cf. muliebri ornatu in Tacitus), and in middle high German by Hartungen. (7) Rother, king of Lombardy. Desiring to wed the daughter of Constantine, king of Constantinople, he sends twelve envoys to ask her in marriage. They are arrested and thrown into prison by the king. Rother, who appears under the name of Dietrich, sets out with an army, liberates the envoys and carries off the princess. One version places the scene in the land of the Huns. The character of Constantine in many respects resembles that of Alexius Comnenus; the slaying of a tame lion by one of the gigantic followers of Rother is founded on an incident which actually took place at the court of Alexius during the crusade of 1101 under duke Welf of Bavaria, when King Rother was composed about 1160 by a Rhenish minstrel. Rother may be the Lombard king Rothari (636–650), transferred to the period of the Crusades. (8) Walther of Aquitaine, chiefly known from the Latin poem Waltharius, written by Ekkehard of St Gall at the beginning of the 10th century, and fragments of an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Epic Waldere. Walther is not an historical figure, although the legend undoubtedly represents typical occurrences of the migration period, such as the detention and flight of hostages of noble family from the court of the Huns, and the rescue of captive maidens by abduction. (9) Wieland (Volundr), Wayland the Smith, the only Teutonic hero (his original home was lower Saxony) who firmly established himself in England. There is absolutely no historical background for his legend. He is a fire-spirit, who is pressed into man’s service, and typifies the advance from the stone age to a higher stage of civilization (working in metals). As the lame smith he reminds us of Hephaestus, and in his flight with wings of Daedalus escaping from Minos. (10) Högni (Hagen) and Hedin (Hetel), whose personalities are overshadowed by the heroines Hilde and Gudrun (Kudrun, Kutrun). In one version occurs the incident of the never-ending battle between the forces of Hagen and Hedin. Every night Hilde revives the fallen, and “so will it continue till the twilight of the gods.” The battle represents the eternal conflict between light and darkness, the alternation of day and night. Hilde here figures as a typical Valkyr delighting in battle and bloodshed, who frustrates a reconciliation. Hedin had sent a necklace as a peace-offering to Hagen, but Hilde persuades her father that it is only a ruse. This necklace occurs in the story of the goddess Freya (Frigg), who is said to have caused the battle to conciliate the wrath of Odin at her infidelity, the price paid by her for the possession of the necklace Brisnigamen; again, the light god Heimdal is said to have fought with Loki for the necklace (the sun) stolen by the latter. Hence the battle has been explained as the necklace
