NIBELUNGI, SAGA OF THE
It is a complex of epic legends that circulated during the Middle Ages throughout the entire Germanic territory, from Scandinavia to Austria, and were repeatedly elaborated in songs and popular narratives, the most notable of which are the heroic lays of the *Edda* (q.v.), the *Volsunga Saga*, and the Middle High German poem *Der Nibelunge nôt*. The word *Nibelungen*, which etymologically means “children of the mist,” i.e., subterranean beings, originally denoted the elves from whom Siegfried took the treasure; later it referred to Siegfried himself and his companions, and, after they came into possession of the treasure, to the Burgundians.
The saga is composed of mystical elements, such as the figures of Siegfried and Brunhilde, and historical elements, such as the account of the destruction of the Burgundian people by the Huns in 437 and the characters of Attila and Theodoric the Great. The fusion of these elements, to which were later added other novellistic and fairy-tale motifs, may have taken place in the 5th and 6th centuries among the Franks of the Lower Rhine, heirs of Burgundian traditions. In its final form, the saga presents a sequence of events linked by a chain of offense and vengeance; yet in its final development the Nordic version of the saga diverges somewhat from that enshrined in the German poem. According to the latter, Siegfried, of the lineage of the Volsungs, son of Sigmund, king in Xanten in the Netherlands, after a youth filled with fabulous adventures—including his awakening of the Valkyrie Brunhilde from a century-long sleep within a castle wreathed in towering flames—falls into a lovesick passion for the peerless Kriemhild, sister of Gunther, king of the Burgundians, to whose court he repairs and remains as a guest. Through an innocent deception he secures for Gunther the hand of Brunhilde in exchange for the promise of Kriemhild’s own hand in marriage. The two marriages are solemnized, but Brunhilde, learning of the deception she has suffered and gnawed by an ancient jealousy, exacts revenge by having Siegfried treacherously slain by his loyal Hagen. Kriemhild is inconsolable and spends years in weeping and mourning; only in the great treasure left her by her husband does she find some solace for her grief. Hagen, fearing that the treasure might become in her hands a dangerous instrument of vengeance, seizes it and sinks it in the Rhine. Kriemhild swears vengeance and hatches a dreadful plot. She accepts the proposal of Attila, now widowed, and unites herself to the mighty king of the Huns so that she may more easily accomplish her revenge. She waits many long years, and at last, when the moment seems ripe, she invites the Burgundians to her palace and has them treacherously attacked and annihilated. A general carnage ensues in which Gunther and Hagen also perish by the sword of the enraged Kriemhild.
NICARAGUA — 1) State boundaries; 2) regional boundaries; 3) ecclesiastical circumscription boundaries.
In the Nordic sources Kriemhild, under the name of Gudrun, does not avenge her husband’s death upon his brothers but the murder of the brothers upon her husband. This form of the saga is certainly the original one, being more closely aligned with the historical fact, since Attila is known to have died on his wedding night to the German princess Hildico, and as was then believed, by her hand. The alteration may perhaps be attributed to an evolution in Germanic ethical concepts, namely the growing primacy of the marital bond over the tie of blood.
As preserved, the saga of the Nibelungen has lost every trace of paganism and, especially in the German poem, has assumed a markedly Christian and chivalric coloring. Nevertheless, the principles that inform the substance of the action—namely, that barbaric moral law by which blood demands blood, that pessimistic sense of tragic fatality governing the characters’ deeds, that gravitational pull toward ruin and death, and above all that concept of loyalty in relations of vassalage, not abstract but practical, which not only excludes loyalty toward the enemy of one’s lord but enjoins treachery—are characteristics that are unmistakably pagan. Hence this saga may be called a typical and representative product of the ancient Germanic world and a mirror of its tragic fortunes in the centuries of the Völkerwanderung.