stripping it of all romantic interest as regards Sifrit, and very
largely increases the importance of the revenge of Gudrun, now called
Kriemhild. Only sixteen of the thirty-nine "aventiuren" or "fyttes"
(into which the poem in the edition here used is divided) are allotted
to the part up to and including the murder of Sifrit; the remaining
twenty-three deal with the vengeance of Kriemhild, who is herself
slain just when this vengeance is complete, the after-piece of her
third marriage and the fate of Swanhild being thus rendered
impossible.

Among the idler parts of Nibelungen discussions perhaps the idlest are
the attempts made by partisans of Icelandic and German literature
respectively to exalt or depress these two handlings, each in
comparison with the other. There is no real question of superiority or
inferiority, but only one of difference. The older handling, in the
_Volsunga Saga_ to some extent, but still more in the Eddaic songs,
has perhaps the finer touches of pure clear poetry in single passages
and phrases; the story of Sigurd and Brynhild has a passion which is
not found in the German version; the defeat of Fafnir and the
treacherous Regin is excellent; and the wild and ferocious story of
Sinfioetli, with which the saga opens, has unmatched intensity, well
brought out in Mr Morris's splendid verse-rendering, _The Story of
Sigurd the Volsung_.[109]

[Footnote 109: 4th edition. London, 1887.]

[Sidenote: _The German version._]

But every poet has a perfect right to deal with any story as he
chooses, if he makes good poetry of it; and the poet of the
_Nibelungenlied_ is more than justified in this respect. By curtailing
the beginning, cutting off the _coda_ above mentioned altogether, and
lessening the part and interest of Brynhild, he has lifted Kriemhild
to a higher, a more thoroughly expounded, and a more poetical
position, and has made her one of the greatest heroines of epic, if
not the greatest in all literature. The Gudrun of the Norse story is
found supplying the loss of one husband with the gain of another to an
extent perfectly consonant with Icelandic ideas, but according to less
insular standards distinctly damaging to her interest as a heroine;
and in revenging her brothers on Atli, after revenging Sigurd on her
brothers by means of Atli, she completely alienates all sympathy
except on a ferocious and pedantic theory of blood-revenge. The
Kriemhild of the German is quite free from this dra