Edward R. Haymes - Heroic Legends of the North: An Introduction to the Nibelung and Dietrich Cycles

Volume 18

GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF THE HUMANITIES VOLUME
1403

First published in 1996 by Garland Publishing Inc

This edition first published in 2020

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1996 Edward R. Haymes and Susann T. Samples

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-367-41588-4 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-00-301460-7 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-43984-2 (Volume 18) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-43988-0 (Volume 18) (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-00-300693-0 (Volume 18) (ebk)

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The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Copyright 1996 by Edward R. Haymes and Susann T. Samples All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haymes, Edward, 1940

Heroic legends of the North : an introduction to the Nibelung and Dietrich cycles / by Edward R. Haymes and Susann T. Samples.

p. cm. (Garland reference library of the humanities ; vol. 1403)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8153-0033-6 (alk. paper)

1. German poetryMiddle High German, 1050-1500History and criticism. 2. Epic poetry, GermanHistory and criticism. 3. Old Norse poetryHistory and criticism. 4. NibelungenLegendsHistory and criticism. 5. Dietrich, von BernLegendsHistory and criticism.

I. Samples, Susann T. II. Title. III. Series.

PT204.H38 1996

830dc20 96-5800

CIP

Cover illustration: Sigurd Stabbing the Dragon Ffnir (from the Hylestad Stave Church) Museum of National Antiquities, Oslo, Norway.

Printed on acid-free, 250-year-life paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

THE DEATH OF SIEGFRIED (From Lienhart ScheubePs Heklenbuch, 15th century) MS 15478, Folio 291 recto, Austrian National Library, Vienna.

Most English-speakers have a vague knowledge, probably derived direcdy or indirectly from Wagner, about the Nibelung legend, while the legend of Dietrich of Bern, certainly the most popular heroic material in medieval Germany, is largely unknown west of the English Channel. This book sets out to provide information for the general reader curious about these legendary matters and for the student setting out to find an entry into an often impenetrable secondary literature. The authors have sought to provide reliable information about the texts themselves and bibliographical guidance that will point the way into the published research on them.

This book sets out to trace its two major legendary topics from their historical roots during the last centuries of the Roman Empire to the medieval texts that make them known to us. There is no attempt to reconstruct lost literary versions or, except as an aid to orientation, to retell the stories in modem form. We have also decided to end the book with the last medieval versions of the material. A treatment of the Nibelung material from the eighteenth century to the present would be fascinating, but it would have unbalanced this book.

Many of the medieval texts have never been translated into English or even modem German. For this reason we have included a synopsis of each work so that the reader can form an idea of the content of the literary works in question.

There are many directions a study of Germanic heroic legend could have taken, but we have chosen a text-oriented approach that does very little in the way of situating the works in their social and political historical background. We have avoided theoretical issues that would have carried us beyond the scope of a handy orientation for readers and students. We have, however, included much in our bibliographical listings that will take the reader into the theoretical questions surrounding the study of these works.

One area of theory we could not avoid is the theory of oral poetic composition. This was necessary because few of our texts would have come into being without oral transmission and because the legends themselves are the product of an oral culture. Insofar as the theory of oral composition is still controversial, we have tried to cite scholarship offering views different from those presented here.