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 manuscripts.  The date of the earliest known manuscript of the Nibelungenlied is comparatively late.  We possess in all twenty-eight more or less complete manuscripts 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 passages 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 noble 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 noble husband, “whom God 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