h was evidently moulded into its present shape by an
Austrian or Tyrolese craftsman--a singer well versed in court poetry and
courtly etiquette. The date when the Nibelungenlied received its latest
form was probably about the end of the twelfth century, and this last
version was the immediate source of our present manuscripts. The date
of the earliest known manuscript of the Nibelungenlied is comparatively
late. We possess in all twenty-eight more or less complete manuscripts
preserved in thirty-one fragments, fifteen of which date from the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Its Fragmentary Nature

Even a surface examination is sufficient to testify to the fragmentary
nature of the Nibelungenlied. We can discern through the apparent unity
of texture of the work as we now possess it the patchwork where scribe
or minstrel has interpolated this incident or joined together these
passages to secure the necessary unity of narrative. Moreover, in none
of the several versions of the Siegfried epic do we get the 'whole
story.' One supplements another. And while we shall follow the
Nibelungenlied itself as closely as possible we shall in part supplement
it from other kindred sources, taking care to indicate these where we
find it necessary to introduce them.

Kriemhild's Dream

In the stately town of Worms, in Burgundy, dwelt the noble and beauteous
maiden Kriemhild, under the care of her mother Ute, and her brothers
Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher. Great was the splendour and state which
they maintained, and many and brave were the warriors who drank wine at
their board. Given to martial exercises were those men of might, and day
by day the courts of the palace rang to the clangor of sword-play
and manly sport. The wealth of the chiefs was boundless, and no such
magnificence as theirs was known in any German land, or in any land
beyond the German frontiers.

But with all this stateliness and splendour Kriemhild, the beautiful,
was unhappy. One night she had had an ominous dream. She dreamed that
she had tamed a falcon strong and fierce, a beauteous bird of great
might, but that while she gazed on it with pride and affection two great
eagles swooped from the sky and tore it to pieces before her very eyes.
Affected by this to an extent that seemed inexplicable, she related her
dream to her mother, Ute, a dame of great wisdom, who interpreted it as
foretelling for her a noble husband, "whom God protect, lest thou lose
him to