Die Nibelungenlied

Written by Michaela Macha

Thursday, 01 January 2009 00:00

Michaela Macha

"To us, in olden legends, / is many a marvel told
Of praise-deserving heroes, / of labours manifold,
Of weeping and of wailing, / of joy and festival;
Of bold knights’ battling shall you / now hear a wondrous tale."
- First stanza, transl. by Alice Horton, 1898

The epic poem Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, was written in Middle High German by an unknown author and is commonly dated around 1200 CE. It recounts how the dragon-slayer Siegfried of Xanten joins the kings of Burgundy, marries their fair sister Kriemhild, is killed by Hagen on the instigation of queen Brunhild; and how Kriemhild marries the Hunnish king Etzel to take terrible revenge on her brothers for the death of her husband, which leads to a terrible slaughter between Huns and Burgundians, and the latters' utter doom.
The Song of the Nibelungs is based on Germanic heroic motifs and amalgamates historic individuals and events of the 5th and 6th centuries with personalities of Old Norse legends like the Völsunga Saga, the Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda and other texts. Thus the epic´s personalities stem from pre-Christian times, but their ethics, courtly manners, and hierarchy of loyalties reflect the time the epic was composed in, which makes it a multi-layered tale challenging us to look at the way the many original strands were woven into a new tale in its own right.
What are the driving forces? The eternal human traits of love, jealousy and a resented lover´s hate, wealth and greed, power and envy. Where lies the conflict? In the tragic twistings of fate that set people against each other, people that are inextricably bound to each other by bonds of kinship, fealty, clan loyalty and oaths sworn freely, in a way that leaves no escape but dishonor or death. At the end, one of the few to survive is the epic´s minstrel, to sing us this sorrowful tale.

"Nor can I tell you further / what later did befall,
But that good knights and ladies / saw ye mourning all,
And many a noble squire, / for friends in death laid low.
Here hath the story ending, / –that is the Nibelungen woe."
- Last stanza, transl. by George Henry Needler, text public domain

BIOGRAPHY

odins-gift.com

skaldenmet.com

asatruringfrankfurt.de

Michaela Macha

Michaela Macha was born and is living in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She is working as a doctor of medicine. Her poetry collection websites center on Norse-Germanic mythology and feature over 1.200 poems, songs and MP3 (www.odins-gift.com), and 600 works (www.skaldenmet.com, German site). She herself has written 260 poems and songs in both languages, which have been published in various magazines and books. She released her first album "Der Ruf der Goetter (The Call of the Gods)" in 2008.
She is an active follower of Asatru, the belief in the Scandinavian Gods, about which she offers information and resources at www.asatruringfrankfurt.de .