Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine Part 24

CHAPTER VI?WORMS AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED

Worms is celebrated as the locality of the Nibelungenlied and the epic of Walthar of Aquitaine. But it has other claims to fame. Before entering on the consideration of Germany?s greatest epic we will recount several of the lesser legends of the locality.

The Rose Garden: A Tale of Dietrich of Bern

Dietrich of Bern is the King Arthur of German story. Like his prototype of Britain, he has become the central figure of innumerable medieval tales and epics, a model of chivalry and martial prowess, distinguished everywhere by high deeds and mighty feats of arms, and in not a few cases displacing the rightful hero of still older myths, which thus became grafted on to the Dietrich legends. Originally he was a bona-fide historical personage, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, and as such gained a widespread popularity among his people. His historical character, however, was soon lost in the maze of legendary lore which surrounded his name, and which, as time went on, ascribed to him feats ever more wildly heroic. Among the various traditions there is one relating to the Rhenish town of Worms which calls for inclusion here as much on account of its intrinsic merit as because of its undoubted popularity. The legend of the Rose Garden of Worms is a quaint and fanciful tale, and even the circ.u.mstance that it ends with the death of several good knights and true does not rob it of a certain humorous quality it possesses.

By the time Dietrich had reached the prime of his adventurous life?so runs the story?he had gathered a considerable company of doughty paladins at his court?he formed, in fact, a kind of Round Table?and the knights who composed it were as eager as their lord to seek fresh fields wherein to display their prowess, and were second only to him in skill and valour. Among them were numbered such ill.u.s.trious warriors as Herbrand, his son Hildebrand, Eckehart, Wolfhart, and Amelung.

On one occasion, as Dietrich was seated at table with his followers, he vowed that no court in Christendom could boast of such warriors as he could muster. The a.s.sembled knights greeted the a.s.sertion with hearty acclamations?all, that is, save the old warrior Herbrand, and he was silent. Dietrich looked at him in surprise.

?Hast thou nothing to say, Herbrand?? he asked.

?Thinkest thou to find better knights than these???indicating his followers with a wave of his hand.

Herbrand seemed somewhat reluctant to uphold his tacit objection to Dietrich?s claim. ?Ay,? he said at length, ?there are such warriors to be found.?

?And where may we seek such paragons?? inquired the king, none too well pleased.

?In the town of Worms,? replied the old knight, ?there lies a wondrous rose garden, of great extent, where the queen and her ladies take their pleasure. None save these may enter its precincts unless the queen give him leave, and that the sacred boundaries may not be overstepped twelve warriors are set to guard the garth. Such is their strength and courage that none has ever succeeded in pa.s.sing them, whatever his skill and renown.?

?But wherefore should one seek to pa.s.s the guard?? asked a young knight.

?Is there a prize to be won, then??

?Truly,? sighed old Herbrand, ?I would not give a hair of my head for the prize. ?Tis but a crown of roses and a kiss from one of the queen?s ladies; though it is said, indeed, that they are as lovely as women may be.?

?Are there no fair maids in Bern?? cried the warriors indignantly. ?Must we go to the Rhine for them??

?For myself,? said Dietrich, ?I care little for the reward; yet methinks that for the honour and glory I would e?en meet these doughty warriors, and peradventure overcome them. Who will follow me to Burgundy??

As with one voice his knights responded to his appeal, and he chose eight from among them to accompany him on his quest. As there were still but nine, including Dietrich himself, to meet the twelve guardians of the Rose Garden, the king decided to send for three knights who were absent from the court. At the suggestion of Hildebrand he selected Rudiger of Bechlarn, Dietleib of Styria, and Ilsan, who was brother to Hildebrand and at that time a monk in the monastery of Munchenzell.

Rudiger was margrave to King Etzel, and had to obtain his lord?s permission to venture forth on the romantic undertaking; Dietleib?s father strongly recommended that the quest be abandoned, though the youth himself was as eager as any to accompany Dietrich; while as for Ilsan, he found it especially difficult to obtain leave of absence, for, naturally, his abbot deemed the enterprise a strange one for a monk who had fled all earthly delights. However, all difficulties were eventually overcome, and when the party was ready for departure Rudiger was sent on an emba.s.sy to King Gib.i.+.c.h at Worms, to prepare him for their coming.

Gib.i.+.c.h gave his ready consent to the proposed trial of strength, whereupon the warriors set out for the Rhine to see whether they might not win a kiss and a garland from some fair lady.

An imposing array did the knights of the Rose Garden make as they awaited the approach of the strangers, but no less imposing were Dietrich and his warriors. Each chose an opponent and immediately engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, which was to end disastrously for more than one brave knight. The first to dispatch his antagonist was Wolfhart, who submitted to being crowned with a rose-wreath, but disdained to accept the rest of the reward. The monk, who was the next victor, took the roses and kissed the maiden heartily. But alas! a bristly beard covered his chin, and the maid was left ruefully rubbing her pouting lips. One by one Dietrich?s knights overcame their adversaries, some of whom were slain and some wounded. Toward nightfall a truce was called, and Dietrich and his company set out to return to Bern, well satisfied with having disproved the a.s.sertion of Herbrand that there were better warriors in the world than Dietrich and his n.o.ble company.

The Devil?s Vineyard

There is a curious legend told to account for the excellent quality of the wine of Worms. An old n.o.bleman who at one time lived in that neighbourhood was in the habit of drinking more of the Rhenish wine than was good for him. In every other respect he was a most worthy man, kind, generous, and pious.

His piety, in an age when such qualities were rare, roused the ire of the Devil, who determined to bring about his fall, and as the old man?s love of wine was his only serious weakness, it was through this that the Fiend set himself to compa.s.s the n.o.bleman?s destruction.

The Devil therefore disguised himself as a strolling musician and made the acquaintance of the old man. The latter set before him some of the wine of the country, extolling meanwhile its rare qualities. The guest seemed not at all impressed by the recital, but spoke of a wine which he had tasted in the South and which far surpa.s.sed any other vintage. The n.o.bleman was all curiosity. The stranger talked of the wonderful wine with feigned reluctance, and at length his host promised to give him anything he should ask if only he would fetch him some of the wine.

Satan promised to plant a vineyard in Worms, asking in exchange the soul of his host, to be forfeited at the end of a fixed period.

To this the old man consented, and the strolling musician planted a vineyard which sprang up as though by magic. When the first vintage was produced it was found to be delicious beyond the dreams of the old n.o.bleman, who was indeed a connoisseur in wines. In his delight he christened the wine Liebfrauenmilch, signifying ?Milk of our Blessed Lady.? The Devil was furious at this reference to the Holy Virgin, but he consoled himself with the thought that in due course the man?s soul would be his. But the Virgin herself was pleased with the christening of the vineyard, and rather sorry for the foolish old n.o.bleman who had bartered his soul for the Devil?s wine. When, therefore, the time arrived for the Evil One to claim his fee, she sent her angels to drive him away, and thus he was robbed of his prey.

The old man, having learned the danger of treating with the Devil, now built a chapel to the Virgin in his vineyard. He lived for a long time to enjoy the luscious wine, under the protection of the saints, and never again did he make a compact with Satan.

Now, if anyone requires a proof of this marvellous story, is there not the Liebfrauenmilch, most delicious of wines to convince him of its truth?

The Maiden?s Caprice

In the town of Worms there stands an old manor, built in the style of the Renaissance and known as the Wampolder Hof. At one time it belonged to the lord of Wampold, a wealthy n.o.ble of Mainz, who had appointed as castellan a kinsman of his, himself a n.o.bleman, though landless and poor and no longer able to uphold his former dignities. In his youth the keeper had lived a gay and careless life, but now he was old and infirm and cared no longer for worldly vanities. His sole pride was his young daughter, a bewitching maiden who had more lovers than one could readily count, and who smiled upon them all impartially. With so many lovelorn youths at her beck and call it is hardly surprising that she should grow exacting and capricious, but this, as usually happens, only made them love her the more.

There was one among her suitors, however, for whom she cherished a real affection. Handsome, cultured, and, like herself, of n.o.ble birth, he was, notwithstanding his poverty, by far the most eligible of the youths who sought her in marriage, and the castellan readily granted his consent to their betrothal. So for a time everything seemed to indicate happiness in store for the young couple.

Yet the maiden remained as capricious as ever. On Walpurgis-night, when a party of lads and la.s.ses were gathered in the Wampolder Hof, and tales of witches and witchcraft were being told in hushed tones, she conceived a wild scheme to test her lover?s affection: she bade him go to the cross-roads at midnight, watch the procession of witches, and return to tell her what he saw. The awed company protested vigorously against the proposed test, but the girl persisted, and at last her lover, seeing that she was already piqued at his refusal, laughingly set out for the bewitched spot, convinced that no harm would befall him.

Meantime the company in the manor anxiously awaited his return. One o?clock came, then two?three; still there was no sign of him. Glances of horror and pity were cast at the castellan?s daughter, who now wrung her hands in futile grief. At length a few braver spirits volunteered to go in search of their comrade, but no trace of him could they find. His widowed mother, of whom he had been the only son, cursed the maid who was the cause of his ghastly fate, and not long afterward the castellan?s daughter lost her reason and died. On Walpurgis-nights she may still be heard in Worms calling for her lost lover, whom she is destined never to find.

The fate of the youth remains uncertain. The most popular account is that he was torn limb from limb by the infuriated witches and his remains scattered to the winds. But some, less superst.i.tious than their neighbours, declared that he had been murdered by his rivals, the disappointed suitors, and that his body had been cast into the Rhine?for not long afterward a corpse, which might have been that of the missing youth, was drawn from the river by fishermen.

The Nibelungenlied

The greatest Rhine story of all is that wondrous German Iliad, the Nibelungenlied, for it is on the banks of the Rhine in the ancient city of Worms that its action for the most part takes place. The earliest actual form of the epic is referred to the first part of the thirteenth century, but it is probable that a Latin original founded on ballads or folk-songs was in use about the middle or latter end of the tenth century. The work, despite many medieval interpolations and the manifest liberties of generations of bards and minnesingers, bears the unmistakable stamp of a great antiquity. A whole literature has grown up around this mighty epic of old Germanic life, and men of vast scholars.h.i.+p and literary ac.u.men have made it a veritable battle-ground of conflicting theories, one contending for its mythical genesis, another proving to his satisfaction that it is founded upon historic fact, whilst others dispute hotly as to its Germanic or Scandinavian origin.

So numerous are the conflicting opinions concerning the origin of the Nibelungenlied that it is extremely difficult to present to the reader a reasoned examination of the whole without entering rather deeply into philological and mythical considerations of considerable complexity.

We shall therefore confine ourselves to the main points of these controversies and refrain from entering upon the more puzzling bypaths which are only to be trodden by the ?Senior Wranglers? of the study, as they have been called.

Its Original Form

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Karl Lachmann, a philologist of some repute, put forward the theory that the poem was made up of a number of distinct ballads or lays, and he eliminated from it all parts which appeared to him to be interpolations. This reduced the whole to twenty lays, which he considered the work of twenty separate minstrels; but if certain ballads relating to episodes in the Nibelungenlied once existed in Germany it is the spirit of these more than the matter which is incorporated into the great epic. In medieval times, when the Nibelungenlied story was popular, minnesingers and harpers, in an attempt to please their audiences, would cast about for fresh incidents to introduce into the story. Popular as was the tale, even a medieval audience could tire of the oft-repeated exploits of its dramatis personae, and the minstrel, dependent upon their goodwill for bed and board, would be quick to note when the tale fell flat. Accordingly he would attempt to infuse into it some new incident or series of incidents, culled from other stories more often than not self-created.

Such an interpolation is probably to be noted in the presence of Dietrich of Bern, otherwise Theodoric the Ostrogoth, at the court of Etzel or Attila. To say nothing of the probability of anachronism, geographical conditions are not a little outraged in the adoption of this incident, but the question arose who was to worst the mighty Hagen, whose sombre figure dominates in its gloomy grandeur the latter part of the saga. It would not do for any Hunnish champion to vie successfully with the Burgundian hero, but it would be no disgrace for him to be beaten by Dietrich, the greatest champion of antiquity, who, in fact, is more than once dragged into the pages of romance for the purpose of administering an honourable defeat to a hitherto unconquered champion.

We can thus see how novel and subsidiary pa.s.sages might attach themselves to the epic.

But a day came when the minnesingers of Germany felt that it behoved them to fix once and for all time the shape of the Lay of the Nibelungs.

Indeed, not one, but several poets laboured at this task. That they worked with materials immediately to their hand is seen from the circ.u.mstance that we have proof of a Low German account, and a Rhenish version which was evidently moulded into its present shape by an Austrian or Tyrolese craftsman?a singer well versed in court poetry and courtly etiquette. The date when the Nibelungenlied received its latest form was probably about the end of the twelfth century, and this last version was the immediate source of our present ma.n.u.scripts. The date of the earliest known ma.n.u.script of the Nibelungenlied is comparatively late. We possess in all twenty-eight more or less complete ma.n.u.scripts preserved in thirty-one fragments, fifteen of which date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Its Fragmentary Nature

Even a surface examination is sufficient to testify to the fragmentary nature of the Nibelungenlied. We can discern through the apparent unity of texture of the work as we now possess it the patchwork where scribe or minstrel has interpolated this incident or joined together these pa.s.sages to secure the necessary unity of narrative. Moreover, in none of the several versions of the Siegfried epic do we get the ?whole story.? One supplements another. And while we shall follow the Nibelungenlied itself as closely as possible we shall in part supplement it from other kindred sources, taking care to indicate these where we find it necessary to introduce them.

Kriemhild?s Dream

In the stately town of Worms, in Burgundy, dwelt the n.o.ble and beauteous maiden Kriemhild, under the care of her mother Ute, and her brothers Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher. Great was the splendour and state which they maintained, and many and brave were the warriors who drank wine at their board. Given to martial exercises were those men of might, and day by day the courts of the palace rang to the clangor of sword-play and manly sport. The wealth of the chiefs was boundless, and no such magnificence as theirs was known in any German land, or in any land beyond the German frontiers.

But with all this stateliness and splendour Kriemhild, the beautiful, was unhappy. One night she had had an ominous dream. She dreamed that she had tamed a falcon strong and fierce, a beauteous bird of great might, but that while she gazed on it with pride and affection two great eagles swooped from the sky and tore it to pieces before her very eyes.

Affected by this to an extent that seemed inexplicable, she related her dream to her mother, Ute, a dame of great wisdom, who interpreted it as foretelling for her a n.o.ble husband, ?whom G.o.d protect, lest thou lose him too early.? Kriemhild, in dread of the omen, desired to avert it by remaining unwed, a course from which her mother attempted to dissuade her, telling her that if ever she were destined to know heartfelt joy it would be from a husband?s love.

Siegfried

Siegfried, of the Netherlands, son of Siegmund and Sieglind, a warrior bold as he was young and comely, having heard of the great beauty of Kriemhild, desired to visit Worms that he might see the far-famed princess for himself. Until this time he had been wandering through the world doing great deeds: he had won the sword and treasure of the Nibelungs, had overcome their monarchs, had conquered a dwarf Alberich, gaining possession of his cloak of darkness. Hagen, a mighty Burgundian paladin (in a pa.s.sage which is obviously adapted from another version for the purpose of recounting Siegfried?s previous adventures), tells how ?he had slain a dragon and made himself invulnerable by bathing in its blood. We must receive him graciously, and avoid making him our enemy.? Siegfried sojourned at Worms for over a year, distinguis.h.i.+ng himself in all the martial exercises of the Burgundians and rendering them splendid service in their wars against the Saxons and Danes. A year pa.s.sed without his having been allowed to meet Kriemhild, who in secret cherished the utmost admiration for him. Chagrined at the treatment meted out to him, he finally made up his mind to depart. But his hosts did not desire to lose such a valuable ally, and brought about a meeting between him and the lady of his dreams. The pa.s.sage describing their first sight of one another is full of the essence of romance.

We are told that Kriemhild appeared before his eyes as does the rosy flush of dawn breaking from sombre clouds. As he beheld her his heart was soothed and all his trouble vanished, for there stood she who had cost him many a love-pang, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, brighter than the rich jewels which covered her raiment, her cheeks suffused with the blushes of maidenhood. No one had, he thought, ever seen so much beauty before. As the silver moon obscures the light of the stars by its superior splendour, so did Kriemhild obscure the beauty of the ladies who surrounded her. When he beheld her each hero drew himself up more proudly than ever and appeared as if ready to do battle for such a paragon of beauty. She was preceded by chamberlains in rich attire, but no ushers might keep back the knights from sight of her, and they crowded about her to catch a glimpse of her face. Pleased and sad was Siegfried, for, thought he, ?How may I ever hope to win so peerless a creature? The hope is a rash one. Better were I to forget her?but then, alas, my heart would have ceased to beat, and I should be dead!? Pale and red he grew. He recked not of his own great worth. For all there agreed that so handsome a warrior had never come to the Rhineland, so fair of body, so debonair was he.

The Wooing of Brunhild

Siegfried now resolved to win Kriemhild, and on Gunther?s asking him to accompany him on an adventure the purpose of which is to gain the hand of Queen Brunhild of Isenstein, he accepted on condition that on their return he should be rewarded by the hand of his sister. To this Gunther gave a.s.sent, and they set out, accompanied by Hagen and his brother Dankwart. But the Nibelungenlied proper is silent regarding Siegfried?s previous relations with Brunhild. In Scandinavian versions?such as the Volsunga Saga, where this legend, originally a German one, is preserved in its pagan form?Brunhild was a Valkyr, or war-maiden of Odin, who sent her to sleep with a p.r.i.c.k of a magic thorn and imprisoned her within a circle of flame, through which Siegfried (in this version almost certainly the G.o.d of nature, springtide, and the sun) broke, delivered the captive, and took her as his bride, soon, however, departing from her. In the Nibelungenlied this ancient myth is either presupposed or intentionally omitted as unfitting for consumption by a Christianized folk, but it is hinted that Brunhild had a previous claim upon Siegfried?s affections.