Parergon

What do The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have in common? Both echo the Nibelungenlied, a thirteenth-century heroic epic written in Middle High German. Falling in and out of obscurity until the eighteenth century, the poem partially inspired Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle), fully propelled Fritz Lang’s two-part silent film of 1924 Die Nibelungen, and was later misused by the Nazis for propaganda. This is a poem that has suffered the weight of parody and fascist appropriations—it can be difficult to read it on its own terms.

To peer through these layers of reception is to find a poem of emotional range, one that is far less reliant upon magical elements or grandiose settings than other contemporaneous works. There is secular appeal in the character studies, with brute strength and warring factions matched by clever dialogue and deliberations. Love oscillates with deception; romance is superseded by revenge [End Page 270] and bloody slaughter. This is the story of the downfall of a mighty clan, a powerful exploration of extremes.

Why this new translation, given several extant English versions? William Whobrey set himself three goals to distinguish his translation from the rest. First, to provide a contemporary prose rendition of the medieval verse, without the use of anachronistic language. Second, to include and be informed by scholarship on the transmission of the poem in multiple manuscripts, and the related difficulties of translating. Third, to present the Nibelungenlied as a three-part epic by including (for the first time in English) the Klage (Lament), an epilogue that is contemporaneous with the poem but not always published with it.

The excellent introduction details the original thirteenth-century manuscripts, and the historical events and figures that were likely sources: the fifth-century Burgundians, Norse sagas, Theodoricus of Ravenna, Attila and the Huns. The tenuous connection to history is shown to be a moot point, because the Nibelungenlied exceeds any single origin. It remains of interest because it is a palimpsest, with historical figures and heroic archetypes, facts, and literary invention, all coalesced through oral transmission and layered into a complex poem.

At its core is the romance of Siegfried and Kriemhild, whose union leads to the wholescale destruction of the Burgundians. The pair have their foils in Kriemhild’s brother King Gunther, his queen, Brunhild, and the mighty soldier Hagen. With the arrival of the hero Siegfried at court rivalries and jealousies warp decorum, and power struggles emerge from all angles. Sparks fly when Kriemhild and Brunhild argue, hapless Gunther cannot keep his court in order, there is the sinister plotting of Hagen, and spoiler alert: everyone will die.

Magical elements are the exceptions rather than the norm. Siegfried’s enviable strengths include his cloak of invisibility and aura of invincibility. After killing a dragon and bathing in its blood, Siegfried’s skin becomes impenetrable, like armour, excepting one spot between his shoulders where a leaf fell. This weakness is later exploited by Hagen, who murders him with a simple stab in the back. The dragon is one of only two supernatural characters in the poem, the other a group of mermaids who advise Hagen and foretell his own demise.

There are tender and memorable registers of emotion. Siegfried blushes when he first meets Kriemhild. The smallest gestures matter: ‘Did he press her fair hand gently as a sign of love? I couldn’t say. But I don’t think it didn’t happen either’ (p. 26). The women are as powerful and resilient as the men. Kriemhild spends thirteen years grieving for Siegfried before she avenges his murder. Widowed, she marries King Etzel of the Huns. She then strategises to bring the Burgundians and Huns into an epic battle, all so that she can kill Hagen and avenge her husband’s death. Along the way, both clans are destroyed.

As is to be expected for a medieval epic, there is a strong investment in...