NIBELUNGENLIED, ne'bedung'en-let' (Ger., Song of the Nibeltings). A great German epic, composed by an unknown poet on the basis of earlier German songs, traditions. and possibly Latin poems. at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The original form of the poem is probably in none I if the ten complete MSS., but that known as 11 seems closest to the original. A seems an abridgment, C an en largement of B, and to one of these three types all the MSS. and fragments belong. The song falls into two parts, the first dealing with the woo ing, marriage, and murder of Siegfried, the sec ond with the vengeance of his widow, Nriem lnld. The scene of the former is the Burgundian court of Gunther and his wife, Brunhilda, at Worms. of the latter the Hunnish court of Etzel or Attila; but both parts appear to have got their present form among the Franks, whence the legends spread over Germany and to Scan dinavia. where we find them nmeli modified in the Edda and the Thidreksaga. The outline of the story is this: Siegfried, King of the Sibe lungs in Nether Germany, wows Kriemhild, sis ter of the Burgundian King Gunther, for 111101n lie procures to wife Brunhilda, Queen of Iceland, by wearing a magic cloak, and is rew:11•ded w•itIi Krieinhihrs hand. Brunhilda discovers the decep tion 1111(1 procures the murder of Siegfried by Hagen. To avenge herself, Kriemhild accepts the suit of Etzel and invites Gunther with his brothers and courtiers to visit her. Hagen per ceives her intent, buries the Nibelungen treasure in the Rhine, and, after vain efforts to dissuade the King, accompanies him. The Burgundians are attaeked in a hall and all are tinally killed, Ind without loss to Etzel of Kriemhild, of their son, and of all Ids warriors, save only Dietrich von IBe•n (Theodorie of Verona) and his com panion• Hildebrand, hero of the Ilildebrandslied. Then follows. in all a Lament (Die Kluge) older than the Song and also anonymous. The historical substratum of the legend is the defeat of the Burgundian King Gundahari by Attila in 437. Kriemhild seems identical with the girl Ildico (!tilde), who was with him at his death, according to Jordanes, but the actual Theodorie belongs to a later period, and if Siegfried be, as many have thought, identical with Arminins, he is more than four centuries earlier. Others regard Siegfried, with Brunhilda. as mythi cal. The poeni thrives such unity as it has from various forms of the conflicting claims of double allegiance. In Kriemhild there is the conflict betwCell wife, sister, and inother; in Siegfried between husband and vassal; in Hagen between chivalrie honor and allegiance; and in Etzel's great vassal. between hospitality
and loyalty. Thus in one form or another that faithfulness (Ti-cue) that said was the strongest characteristic of the German nation is the mainspring of tragic action. But the Sony lacks tinily of inner structure. Passages of deep feeling and pathos alternate not alone with those of tierce, rugged strength, but with others trivial, grotesque, or even, as in Gunther's downright burlesque. The episodes, too, are so inarti:tieally welded that a school of critics, Eachmann at their head, even thought they could distinguish the elements of compilation; hut this position is now generally abandoned. The his tory of the Nibelungenlied is not in• terest. For centuries it was quite forgotten. Bodmer (q.v.) printed fragments of it in 1757, but it was received with inditl'e•ence by scholars and with contempt by King Frederick 11. The national spirit roused by the War of Liberation was more favorable to the legend. A soldiers' edition was printed in 1815. and in the nest year Karl Lachtnann published his epoch-making study. Since then the Nibelmigenlied has grown steadily in scholastic ;Old popular finer t ill it S contents hove beeome part "f :ertna 11 literary emisciousness. It has been the subject of critical studies by the Grinuns, Mfillenhoff. Zarneke, 1;artsell. and Scherer; has been edited sc‘eral in its three version., and well trans lated into modern German• IW Sintroek. Bart sib, and Freytag. There are English version:: by Lett-on ( 1530 ), FiNfcr.4'.2rha ( 1887 ) and 1:irch 115471.
ItintamnAeuv. The history of the Nibelungen controversy is told in Fischer, Di, Porschn»ora uber• dos nlied seit K. Lochmann (Leipzig. 1474). Consult. also, Aluth, Eintri• lung (Paderborn, 1877) ; WilImanns, Beitrdge zur• E rkla nq nod Gcschichte des A ibelongenlitd (Halle. 1877) ; Henning, Nib( lungenstudiea (ib., 1883) ; \V. Grimm, Die deutsche Heiden sage, 3d ed., by Steig (Giitersloh. 189)) ; Hein zel, Leber• die Nibelungensage (Vienna, 1553); 31 filler. .1/ytifo/ogic der den ischen lichicassage (Heilbronn, 1880) ; Lichtenberger, Le puc'nee• ( in h'yende tics ibelungen (Pari;, 1891) ; and Gaston Paris, in Pounce ct levendcs du utoye'll (ib., 1901). There is a poetical analysis in Carlyle's Miscellaneous Essays. The Nibelungen lied has furnished Jordan the material for ftis epic, Die _Vibefungi n, and Wagner the subject for the .\ ibelungen Trilogy, which has, however, more Nurse than German elements. Siegfried plays a prominent part in other High German epics, e.g. Ritcroff and Der Roscngarten.