HILDEBRAND, LAY OF (Das Hildebrandslied), a unique example of Old German alliterative poetry, written about the year Boo on the first and last pages of a theological manuscript by two monks of the monastery of Fulda. The fragments only extend to 68 lines, and are clearly a transcript of an older original, which the copyists imperfectly understood. The language of the poem shows a curious mixture of Low and High German forms; as the High German elements point to the dialect of Fulda, the in ference is that the copyists were reproducing an originally Low German lay in the form in which it was sung in Franconia.
The fragment is mainly taken up with a dialogue between Hilde brand and his son Hadubrand. When Hildebrand followed his master, Theodoric the Great, who was fleeing eastwards before Odoacer, he left his young wife and an infant child behind him. At his return to his old home, after 3o years' absence among the Huns, he is met by a young warrior and challenged to single combat. Hildebrand asks for the name of his opponent, and discovering his own son in him, tries to avert the fight, but in vain; Hadubrand only regards the old man's words as the excuse of cowardice. The Old High German Hildebrandslied is dramati cally conceived and written in a terse, vigorous style; it is the only remnant that has come down from early Germanic times of an undoubtedly extensive ballad literature, dealing with the national sagas.
The ms. of the Hildebrandslied is now in the Landesbibliothek at Cassel. The literature on the poem will be found in K. Miillenhoff and W. Scherer, Denkmdler deutscher Poesie and Prosa aus dem VIII. bis XI. Jahrh., 3rd ed. (1892), and in W. Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 5th ed. 0902). The poem was discovered and first printed (as prose) by J. G. von Eckhart, Commentarii de rebus Franciae orientalis (1729), i. 864 ff.; the first scholarly edition was that of the brothers Grimm (1812) . Facsimile reproductions of the ms. have been published by W. Grimm (183o) , E. Sievers (1872) , G. Konnecke in his Bilderatlas (1887i 2nd ed., 1895) and M. Enneccerus (1897). See also K. Lachmann, Ober das Hildebrandslied (1833) in Kleine Schriften, i. 407 ff.; C. W. M. Grein, Das Hildebrandslied (1858, 2nd ed., 188o) ; O. Schroder, Bemerkungen zum Hildebrands lied (188o) ; H. Moller, Zur althochdeutschen Alliterationspoesie (1888) ; R. Heinzel, Ober die ostgotische Heldensage (1889) ; B. Busse, "Sagengeschichtliches zum Hildebrandslied," in Paul and Braune's Beitrhge, xxvi., pp. I ff. (19o1) ; R. Koegel, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, i., pp. 210 ff. and R. Koegel and W. Bruckner, in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 2nd ed., ii. pp. 71 ff. (i poi) .