sage is remarkable from the connection of the
name of Attila with that extraordinary cycle of poetry, which is found
in different forms in almost all the Teutonic languages.]

A Latin poem, de prima expeditione Attilae, Regis Hunnorum, in Gallias,
was published in the year 1780, by Fischer at Leipsic. It contains,
with the continuation, 1452 lines. It abounds in metrical faults, but is
occasionally not without some rude spirit and some copiousness of fancy
in the variation of the circumstances in the different combats of the
hero Walther, prince of Aquitania. It contains little which can be
supposed historical, and still less which is characteristic concerning
Attila. It relates to a first expedition of Attila into Europe which
cannot be traced in history, during which the kings of the Franks, of
the Burgundians, and of Aquitaine, submit themselves, and give hostages
to Attila: the king of the Franks, a personage who seems the same
with the Hagen of Teutonic romance; the king of Burgundy, his daughter
Heldgund; the king of Aquitaine, his son Walther. The main subject of
the poem is the escape of Walther and Heldgund from the camp of Attila,
and the combat between Walther and Gunthar, king of the Franks. with his
twelve peers, among whom is Hagen. Walther had been betrayed while he
passed through Worms, the city of the Frankish king. by paying for his
ferry over the Rhine with some strange fish, which he had caught during
his flight, and which were unknown in the waters of the Rhine. Gunthar
was desirous of plundering him of the treasure, which Walther had
carried off from the camp of Attila. The author of this poem is unknown,
nor can I, on the vague and rather doubtful allusion to Thule, as
Iceland, venture to assign its date. It was, evidently, recited in a
monastery, as appears by the first line; and no doubt composed there.
The faults of metre would point out a late date; and it may have been
formed upon some local tradition, as Walther, the hero, seems to have
turned monk.

This poem, however, in its character and its incidents, bears no
relation to the Teutonic cycle, of which the Nibelungen Lied is the most
complete form. In this, in the Heldenbuch, in some of the Danish Sagas.
in countess lays and ballads in all the dialects of Scandinavia, appears
King Etzel (Attila) in strife with the Burgundians and the Franks. With
these appears, by a poetic anachronism, Dietrich of Berne. (Theodoric of
Verona,) the celebra