the Strong". Most widely known
is the form taken by the story in the hands of an unknown medieval
German poet, who, from the broken ballads then surviving wrote the
"Nibelungenlied" or more properly "Nibelungen Not" ("The Need of the
Niblungs"). In this the characters are all renamed, some being more
or less historical actors in mid-European history, as Theodoric of the
East-Goths, for instance. The whole of the earlier part of the story has
disappeared, and though Siegfried (Sigurd) has slain a dragon, there is
nothing to connect it with the fate that follows the treasure; Andvari,
the Volsungs, Fafnir, and Regin are all forgotten; the mythological
features have become faint, and the general air of the whole is that of
medieval romance. The swoard Gram is replaced by Balmung, and the Helm
of Awing by the Tarn-cap--the former with no gain, the latter with great
loss. The curse of Andvari, which in the saga is grimly real, working
itself out with slow, sure steps that no power of god or man can turn
aside, in the medieval poem is but a mere scenic effect, a strain of
mystery and magic, that runs through the changes of the story with
much added picturesqueness, but that has no obvious relation to the
working-out of the plot, or fulfilment of their destiny by the different
characters. Brynhild loses a great deal, and is a poor creature when
compared with herself in the saga; Grimhild and her fateful drink have
gone; Gudrun (Chriemhild) is much more complex, but not more tragic;
one new character, Rudiger, appears as the type of chivalry; but Sigurd
(Siegfred) the central figure, though he has lost by the omission of so
much of his life, is, as before, the embodiment of all the virtues that
were dear to northern hearts. Brave, strong, generous, dignified, and
utterly truthful, he moves amid a tangle of tragic events, overmastered
by a mighty fate, and in life or death is still a hero without stain or
flaw. It is no wonder that he survives to this day in the national songs
of the Faroe Islands and in the folk-ballads of Denmark; that his legend
should have been mingled with northern history through Ragnar Lodbrog,
or southern through Attila and Theodoric; that it should have inspired
William Morris in producing the one great English epic of the century;
(13) and Richard Wagner in the mightiest among his music-dramas. Of the
story as told in the saga there is no need here to speak, for to read
it, as may be done a few pages fa