II.

GUDRUN.

Maximilian I., Emperor of Germany, rendered a great service to posterity by
ordering that copies of many of the ancient national manuscripts should be
made. These copies were placed in the imperial library at Vienna, where,
after several centuries of almost complete neglect, they were discovered by
lovers of early literature, in a very satisfactory state of preservation.
These manuscripts then excited the interest of learned men, who not only
found therein a record of the past, but gems of literature which are only
now beginning to receive the appreciation they deserve.

[Sidenote: Origin of poem of Gudrun.] Among these manuscripts is the poem
"Gudrun," belonging to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is evidently
compiled from two or more much older lays which are now lost, which are
alluded to in the Nibelungenlied. The original poem was probably Norse, and
not German like the only existing manuscript, for there is an undoubted
parallel to the story of the kidnaping of Hilde in the Edda. In the Edda,
Hilde, the daughter of Hoegni, escapes from home with her lover Hedin, and
is pursued by her irate father. He overtakes the fugitives on an island,
where a bloody conflict takes place, in which many of the bravest warriors
die. Every night, however, a sorceress recalls the dead to life to renew
the strife, and to exterminate one another afresh.

The poem "Gudrun," which is probably as old as the Nibelungenlied, and
almost rivals it in interest, is one of the most valuable remains of
ancient German literature. It consists of thirty-two songs, in which are
related the adventures of three generations of the heroic family of the
Hegelings. Hence it is often termed the "Hegeling Legend."

[Sidenote: Kidnaping of Hagen.] The poem opens by telling us that Hagen was
the son of Sigeband, King of Ireland, which was evidently a place in
Holland, and not the well-known Emerald Isle. During a great feast, when
countless guests were assembled around his father's hospitable board, this
prince, who was then but seven years of age, was seized by a griffin and
rapidly borne away.

"Young Hagen, loudly crying, was filled with dire dismay;
The bird with mighty pinions soared high with him away."
_Gudrun_ (Dippold's tr.).

The cries of the child, and the arrows of Sigeband's men at arms, were
equally ineffectual in checking the griffin, which flew over land a