the peasant's hut, first by oral
tradition, and then by rudely printed and illustrated chap-books ("Die
Geschichte vom huernenen Siegfried"). In this "Volksbuch" there are
remarkable details concerning the hero's early life in a smithy and the
prophecy of his assassination, which are lost in the "Nibelungen Lied,"
but preserved in the "Edda." This circumstance--overlooked even by
Simrock, who, like Jacob Grimm, has done much to show the German origin
of the Norse Sigurd saga--is another curious bit of evidence of the
undeniable Teutonic source of the corresponding Scandinavian and
Icelandic stories and poems.

Many attempts have been made to get at the historical kernel of the
tale. Some would see in it traces of the songs which, according to
Tacitus, were sung, of old, in honor of Armin (usually, though
mistakenly, called Hermann), the deliverer of Germany from the Roman
yoke. It has been assumed that the contents of these songs were combined
with traditions of the deeds of Civilis, the leader of the Batavian
Germans against Roman dominion, as well as of the conquest of Britain by
Hengest. Recently, the Norse scholar, Gudbrand Vigfusson, has once more
started this "Armin" interpretation of the tale, under the impression
that he was the first to do so; whereas, in Germany, Mone and
Giesebrecht had worked out that idea already some sixty years ago. In
order to support his theory, Vigfusson boldly proposed to change the
Hunic name of Sigurd, in the Eddic text, into "Cheruskian." He imagined
the former name to be absurd, because Siegfried was not a Hunn; but
Vigfusson was unacquainted with the wide historical distribution of the
Hunic name in Germany and England.

Others saw in the Siegfried story an echo of the overthrow of the
Burgundian king Gundahari (Gunther), by Attila, on the Rhine. Gundahari,
who first threw himself with an army of 20,000 men against the Hunnic
leader, gloriously fell with all his men. In the same way, in the
"Nibelungen Lied," the Burgundian king, Gunther, is killed, with all his
men, in the land of Etzel, the ruler of the Hiunes. Again, others have
pointed to the feats of Theodorick, the king of the Eastern Goths; or to
the fate of Siegbert, the king of the Austrasian Franks, who was
murdered at the instigation of Fredegunda; or to the powerful Frankish
family of the Pipins, from whom Karl the Great hailed, by way of trying
to explain some parts of the Siegfried story. With the Pipins of
"Nive