e to tribe in epic sagas and lyric
lays. The song of Daghar, her bridegroom, in honor of the heroine,
immortalizes her thus:

"Hail to you, heroes in golden hair,
Good Goths, Gepidae, sprightly with spears;
Greetings to you, glorious Germans!
Exult rejoicing to sounding harps:
He failed and fell, terror of holiness,
Scourge of God, Etzel the Evil!
Sword struck him not, nor shaft of the spear.
No: in darkness of night, vicious viper
Had crushed its hideous head.
Woman of woe, Ildico, the mighty maid,
Avenged with awe the races of men
And holy honor with heroic deed.
Sing to the harp the wailing song,
Raise it rousing to Daghar's bride,
The shimmering, shining savior,
Guarding German men prison-bound:
Ildico, idol of fame,
Hail to thee, lofty one, hail!" (H. S.)

The extensive Hunnish circle of lays throws light on the life and love
of German womanhood during the centuries of wanderings; and so powerful
is the influence and impression made by the Asiatic onslaught, that
there is hardly a German saga of any importance that does not stand in
some kind of relation to the Hunnish conquerors. To "sing and say" was
an ancient talent of the Teutonic race, whose warlike life, with its
bravery and heroism, inspired mightily to music and song. But the
migrations, with their powerful changes, the contact with formerly
unknown peoples, altered considerably the trend of the ancient
traditions and the sagas of a world which they had abandoned. Indeed,
many of the ancient racial sagas vanished from the memory of the
Germanic tribes. Christianization and Romanization instilled into the
souls of the race the germs of romanticism which rapidly overspread the
old Germanic paganism with a luxuriant growth of new ideas founded on
new ideals, and, great as that poetry is, it shows everywhere a contrast
and a conflict between two different states of existence.

The Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, in its original Teutonic tongue, introduces us
to the primeval life of Germanic heroism and warlike turmoil at the dawn
of a still mystic past. The oldest High German lay, of _Hildebrand and
Hadubrand_, telling of a superhuman duel between father and son, reveals
to us the Titanic fierceness of the era of wanderings. We discover,
however, in the third great poetic remnant, the _Saga of Walthari of
Aquitaine_, not