nd twelfth century chivalry, knighthood, and romantic
love (_Minne_), from which results an almost inextricable web of
mythical and historical and purely romantic threads.

Siegfried wins Kriemhilde by a long wooing in the truly romantic fashion
of the period of _Minne song_, but later inflicts upon her, in the truly
old Germanic fashion, a severe physical chastisement for her quarrelsome
temper. We find in the story traces of the primeval Germanic beliefs of
the power of divination and prophecy. Kriemhilde has a momentous dream;
she sees a beautiful falcon that she had reared with care seized and
overpowered by two eagles. Her mother, Ute, interprets the dream
correctly as foreshadowing the fate of her future husband:

"The falcon, whom thou cherished, he was a noble man,
May God in safety keep him, for no one other can."

In the morning before the final catastrophe overtook Siegfried,
Kriemhilde related to him with a sorrowful heart another dream:

"I dreamed last night of trouble, and how that two wild boar
Chased you thro' the thicket, then were the flowers red.
That I must weep so sorely, in sooth! I have full need."

The magic arts and the cutting of _runes_ by women are no longer
mentioned in the greatest epic of the Middle High German period, while
they are yet in full sway in the Norse version of _Sigurd and Brunhild_,
or, as she is there called, _Sigrdrifa_. The gift of healing, however,
is attributed to women in both versions.

As we have seen in ancient Germanic law, woman is under the
guardianship, or Mundium (hand), of her nearest male relatives. So she
is at the period of the Nibelungenlied. Of Kriemhilde it is said:

"Her guardians were three kings, rich and of noble race...
The maiden was their sister; the princes had her in ward."

Noble women resided usually in the inner secluded rooms, called
_hemenate_. Siegfried did not see Kriemhilde at the Burgundian court for
a whole year. Her favorite occupation in her seclusion was to embroider
gold and jewels on silk, fashioning splendid garments for the bridal
expeditions and courtly travels of the heroes. Rarely, and only on
festal occasions, women appeared to receive distinguished guests. Then
they are surrounded by their attendant warriors, who as a symbol of
ready protection carry swords in their hands. Any offence to a
noblewoman is taken up by her entire following and is expiated in bloody