GUDRUN, gri8-drU5n'. The chief of the Low German epic sagas, taking the place of the Nibelungen saga in High Germany. The legend is preserved only in a High German poem by an unknown author. It tells how King Hagen of Ireland had a daughter, Hihle, whose suitors be was wont to kill. Undiscouraged, King Ilettel of Denmark sends a secret embassy, who per suade the willing maid to flee with them to him over sea. Hettel meets the bride on the shore, but the father is in hot pursuit. There is a fight on the beach. Hettel saves Hagen's life, and there is a happy reconciliation. This is the pre lude. Hilde has a daughter, Gudrun. She, too, loves a foreign prince, Herwig of Zealand: but while her father is away 'fighting the Moors,' a rival, Hartung of Normandy, carries her away. As before, the father pursues on his return and with him Herwig. There is another fine battle scene. Ilettel is killed, and Hartung carries away Gudrun for seven years' hard captivity, soothed by Hartung's sister. Ortrun, and terminated by a rescue through her lover and her brother Ortwin, all ending as before in a reconciliation. We have a higher stage of moral evolution, a more Christian standard than in the Nibelungenlied, and so, naturally, in the course of the epic there is a more thoughtful insight into the complex aspects of human nature. There is also a more
delicate humor, though not the effeminate sen timentality of some other epics in this cycle. The time of the Gudrun saga is evidently that of the Danish raids on the English and Irish coasts. The subject is as old as the stories of Europa and Ilelen, but it was essentially a story of the seaside. Hence, though it was the more artistic, it appealed less to popular taste, and was not like the Nibelungenlied subjected to popular re vision and extension. It bad its origin, like the other, in epic songs, but it had an original poet for its author, and shows a constructive develop ment by conscious plan. Thus it stands between the true popular epic and the studied epic of the Court. The best modern edition of the Gudrun is by Martin (Halle, 1902). There are transla tions into modern German by Simrock (1843) ; Klee (1878) ; Weitbrecht (1884, a paraphrase) ; Freytag (1888) ; Lemmermayer (1890) ; and Legerlotz (1900). Consult Wilmanns, Die Ent wiaelung der Kudrundichtung (Halle, 1873).