a, the Hniflungs are always the Giukings, Gunnar and
Hoegni, and Snorri gives it as the name of an heroic family. The title
of the first _aventiure_ of the _Nibelungen Lied_ also apparently uses
the word of the Burgundians. Yet the treasure is always the Nibelungs'
hoard, which clearly means that they were the original owners; and when
Hagen von Tronje tells the story later in the poem, he speaks of the
Nibelungs correctly as the dwarfs from whom Siegfried won it. On this
point, therefore, the German preserves the older tradition: the Norse
Andvari, the river-dwarf, is the German Alberich the Nibelung. In
the _Nibelungen Lied_ the winning of the treasure forms no part of
the action: it is merely narrated by Hagen. This accounts for the
shortening of the episode and the omission of the intermediate steps:
the robbing of the dwarf, the curse, and the dragon-slaying.

* * * * *

_Ermanric.--_The two poems of _Gudrun's Lament_ and _Hamthismal_,
in the Edda attached to the Volsung cycle, belong correctly to
that of the Gothic hero Ermanric. According to these poems, Gudrun,
Giuki's daughter, married a third time, and had three sons, Soerli,
Hamthi and Erp. She married Svanhild, her own and Sigurd's daughter,
to Joermunrek, king of the Goths; but Svanhild was slandered, and her
husband had her trodden to death by horses' hoofs. The description
of Svanhild is a good example of the style of the romantic poems:

"The bondmaids sat round Svanhild, dearest of my children; Svanhild
was like a glorious sunbeam in my hall. I dowered her with gold
and goodly fabrics when I married her into Gothland. That was the
hardest of my griefs, when they trod Svanhild's fair hair into the
dust beneath the horses' hoofs."

Gudrun sent her three sons to avenge their sister; two of them
slew Erp by the way, and were killed themselves in their attack on
Joermunrek for want of his help. So died, as Snorri says, all who were
of Giuking descent; and only Aslaug, daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild,
survived. _Heimskringla_, a thirteenth century history of the royal
races of Scandinavia, traces the descent of the Norse kings from her.

This Ermanric story, which belongs to legendary history rather than
myth, is in reality quite independent of the Volsung or Nibelung
cycle. The connection is loose and inartistic, the legend being
probably linked to Gudrun's name because she had become a favourite
character and Icelandic na