HILDREBRANDSLIED. — “Hildebrand’s Song”: fragment of an 8th‑century German heroic poem, 68 alliterative lines (Stabreim). It is the oldest surviving monument of Germanic epic, written in Upper German with some Low German elements.
Hildebrand, a retainer of Theoderic, king of the Ostrogoths, had followed him into exile among the Huns. Thirty years later, Theoderic returns at the head of an army to reconquer Italy; and lo, a warrior confronts Hildebrand, whom he soon recognizes as his son Hadubrand. In vain Hildebrand strives to avoid the impious combat (a well‑known motif, this, from the Ostrogothic cycle — with which the fragment begins — of the duel between father and son): Hadubrand, convinced that his father is dead, demands the fight and accuses Hildebrand of cowardice, thus rousing the latter’s sense of heroic honour (another of the most important elements of Germanic paganism; from Saxo Grammaticus and an Irish saga we know that the son perishes). Though written in a Christian age, the poem is dominated by Germanic tragic fate and reveals in its author a mature, vivid artistry.