26: Detailed accounts of "Gudrun" and several other of these
subordinate epics can be found in the author's "Legends of the Middle
Ages."]

[Footnote 27: See the author's "Legends of the Middle Ages."]

[Footnote 28: See the author's "Stories of the Wagner Operas."]

THE NIBELUNGENLIED[29]

The Nibelungenlied, or Song of the Nibelungs, was written about the
beginning of the thirteenth century although it relates events dating
back to the sixth or seventh. Some authorities claim it consists of
twenty songs of various dates and origin, others that it is the work
of a single author. The latter ascribe the poem to Conrad von
Kuerenberg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, or
Walther von der Vogelweide. The poem is divided into thirty-nine
"adventures," and contains two thousand four hundred and fifty-nine
stanzas of four lines each. The action covers a period of about thirty
years and is based on materials taken from the Frankish, Burgundian,
Austro-Gothic, and Hunnish saga cycles.

Dietrich von Bern, one of the characters, is supposed to be Theodoric
of Italy, while Etzel has been identified with Attila the Hun, and the
Gunther with a king of the Burgundians who was destroyed with all his
followers by the Huns in 436.

_1st Adventure._ Three Burgundian princes dwell at Worms on the Rhine,
where, at the time when the poem opens their sister Kriemhild is
favored by a vision wherein two eagles pursue a falcon and tear it to
pieces when it seeks refuge on her breast.

A dream was dreamt by Kriemhild the virtuous and the gay,
How a wild young falcon she train'd for many a day,
Till two fierce eagles tore it; to her there could not be
In all the world such sorrow as this perforce to see.[30]

Knowing her mother expert at interpreting dreams, Kriemhild inquires
what this means, only to learn that her future spouse will be attacked
by grim foes. This note of tragedy, heard already in the very
beginning of the poem, is repeated at intervals until it seems like
the reiterated tolling of a funeral bell. _2d Adventure._ The poem
now transfers us to Xanten on the Rhine, where King Siegmund and his
wife hold a tournament for the coming of age of their only son
Siegfried, who distinguishes himself greatly and in whose behalf his
mother lavishes rich gifts upon all present.

The gorgeous feast it lasted till the seventh day was o'er;
Siegelind the wealthy did as they did of yore;
She won for