gobione of Italy, goujon of France (whence adapted in M. English as gojon), and Grässling or Gründling of Germany. Gudgeons thrive in streams and lakes, keeping to the bottom, and seldom exceeding 8 in. in length. In China and Japan there are varieties differing only slightly from the common European type.
GUDRUN (Kudrun), a Middle High German epic, written
probably in the early years of the 13th century, not long after
the Nibelungenlied, the influence of which may be traced upon
it. It is preserved in a single MS. which was prepared at the
command of Maximilian I., and was discovered as late as 1820
in the Castle of Ambras in Tirol. The author was an unnamed
Austrian poet, but the story itself belongs to the cycle of sagas,
which originated on the shores of the North Sea. The epic falls
into three easily distinguishable parts—the adventures of King
Hagen of Ireland, the romance of Hettel, king of the Hegelingen,
who woos and wins Hagen’s daughter Hilde, and lastly, the
more or less parallel story of how Herwig, king of Seeland, wins,
in opposition to her father’s wishes, Gudrun, the daughter of
Hettel and Hilde. Gudrun is carried off by a king of Normandy,
and her kinsfolk, who are in pursuit, are defeated in a great
battle on the island of Wülpensand off the Dutch coast. The
finest parts of the epic are those in which Gudrun, a prisoner in
the Norman castle, refuses to become the wife of her captor,
and is condemned to do the most menial work of the household.
Here, thirteen years later, Herwig and her brother Ortwin find
her washing clothes by the sea; on the following day they
attack the Norman castle with their army and carry out the
long-delayed retribution.
The epic of Gudrun is not unworthy to stand beside the greater Nibelungenlied, and it has been aptly compared with it as the Odyssey to the Iliad. Like the Odyssey, Gudrun is an epic of the sea, a story of adventure; it does not turn solely round the conflict of human passions; nor is it built up round one all-absorbing, all-dominating idea like the Nibelungenlied. Scenery and incident are more varied, and the poet has an opportunity for a more lyric interpretation of motive and character. Gudrun is composed in stanzas similar to those of the Nibelungenlied, but with the essential difference that the last line of each stanza is identical with the others, and does not contain the extra accented syllable characteristic of the Nibelungen metre.
Gudrun was first edited by von der Hagen in vol. i. of his Heldenbuch (1820). Subsequent editions by A. Ziemann and A. J. Vollmer followed in 1837 and 1845. The best editions are those by K. Bartsch (4th ed., 1880), who has also edited the poem for Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur (vol. 6, 1885), by B. Symons (1883) and by E. Martin (2nd ed., 1901). L. Ettmüller first applied Lachmann’s ballad-theory to the poem (1841), and K. Müllenhoff (Kudrun, die echten Teile des Gedichts, 1845) rejected more than three-quarters of the whole as “not genuine.” There are many translations of the epic into modern German, the best known being that of K. Simrock (15th ed., 1884). A translation into English by M. P. Nichols appeared at Boston, U.S.A., in 1889.
See K. Bartsch, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kritik der Kudrun (1865); H. Keck, Die Gudrunsage (1867); W. Wilmanns, Die Entwickelung der Kudrundichtung (1873); A. Fécamp, Le Poème de Gudrun, ses origines, sa formation et son histoire (1892); F. Panzer, Hilde-Gudrun (1901). For later versions and adaptations of the saga see O. Benedict, Die Gudrunsage in der neueren Literatur (1902.)
GUÉBRIANT, JEAN BAPTISTE BUDES, Comte de (1602–1643),
marshal of France, was born at Plessis-Budes, near St
Brieuc, of an old Breton family. He served first in Holland, and
in the Thirty Years’ War he commanded from 1638 to 1639 the
French contingent in the army of his friend Bernard of Saxe-Weimar,
distinguishing himself particularly at the siege of
Breisach in 1638. Upon the death of Bernard he received
the command of his army, and tried, in conjunction with J.
Baner (1596–1641), the Swedish general, a bold attack upon
Regensburg (1640). His victories of Wolfenbüttel on the
29th of June 1641 and of Kempen in 1642 won for him the
marshal’s bâton. Having failed in an attempt to invade Bavaria
in concert with Torstensson he seized Rottweil, but was mortally
wounded there on the 17th of November 1643.
A biography was published by Le Laboureur, Histoire du mareschal de Guébriant, in 1656. See A. Brinzinger in Württembergische Vierteljahrschrift für Landesgeschichte (1902).
GUELDER ROSE, so called from Guelderland, its supposed
source, termed also marsh elder, rose elder, water elder (Ger.
Wasserholder, Schneeball; Fr. viorne-obier, l’obier d’Europe),
known botanically as Viburnum Opulus, a shrub or small tree
of the natural order Caprifoliaceae, a native of Britain, and
widely distributed in the temperate and colder parts of Europe,
Asia and North America. It is common in Ireland, but rare
in Scotland. In height it is from 6 to 12 ft., and it thrives best
in moist situations. The leaves are smooth, 2 to 3 in. broad, with
3 to 5 unequal serrate lobes, and glandular stipules adnate to
the stalk. In autumn the leaves change their normal bright
green for a pink or crimson hue. The flowers, which appear in
June and July, are small, white, and arranged in cymes 2 to 4 in.
in diameter. The outer blossoms in the wild plant have an
enlarged corolla, 34 in. in diameter, and are devoid of stamens
or pistils; in the common cultivated variety all the flowers are
sterile and the inflorescence is globular, hence the term “snowball
tree” applied to the plant, the appearance of which at the
time of flowering has been prettily described by Cowper in his
Winter Walk at Noon. The guelder rose bears juicy, red, elliptical
berries, 13 in. long, which ripen in September, and contain each a
single compressed seed. In northern Europe these are eaten,
and in Siberia, after fermentation with flour, they are distilled
for spirit. The plant has, however, emetic, purgative and narcotic
properties; and Taylor (Med. Jurisp. i. 448, 2nd ed., 1873)
has recorded an instance of the fatal poisoning of a child by
the berries. Both they and the bark contain valerianic acid.
The woody shoots of the guelder rose are manufactured into
various small articles in Sweden and Russia. Another member
of the genus, Viburnum, Lantana, wayfaring tree, is found in dry
copses and hedges in England, except in the north.
GUELPH, a city of Ontario, Canada, 45 m. W. of Toronto,
on the river Speed and the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific
railways. Pop. (1901) 11,496. It is the centre of a fine agricultural
district, and exports grain, fruit and live-stock in large
quantities. It contains, in addition to the county and municipal
buildings, the Ontario Agricultural College, which draws students
from all parts of North and South America. The river affords
abundant water-power for flour-mills, saw-mills, woollen-mills
and numerous factories, of which agricultural implements,
sewing machines and musical instruments are the chief.
GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES. These names are doubtless
Italianized forms of the German words Welf and Waiblingen,
although one tradition says that they are derived from Guelph
and Gibel, two rival brothers of Pistoia. Another theory derives
Ghibelline from Gibello, a word used by the Sicilian Arabs to
translate Hohenstaufen. However, a more popular story tells
how, during a fight around Weinsberg in December 1140 between
the German king Conrad III. and Welf, count of Bavaria, a
member of the powerful family to which Henry the Lion, duke
of Saxony and Bavaria, belonged, the soldiers of the latter
raised the cry “Hie Welf!” to which the king’s troops replied
with “Hie Waiblingen!” this being the name of one of Conrad’s
castles. But the rivalry between Welf and Hohenstaufen, of
which family Conrad was a member, was anterior to this event,
and had been for some years a prominent fact in the history of
Swabia and Bavaria, although its introduction into Italy—in a
slightly modified form, however—only dates from the time of
the Italian expeditions of the emperor Frederick I. It is about
this time that the German chronicler, Otto of Freising, says,
“Duae in Romano orbe apud Galliae Germaniaeve fines famosae
familiae actenus fuere, una Heinricorum de Gueibelinga, alia
Guelforum de Aldorfo, altera imperatores, altera magnos duces
producere solita.” Chosen German king in 1152, Frederick
was not only the nephew and the heir of Conrad, he was related
also to the Welfs; yet, although his election abated to some
extent the rivalry between Welf and Hohenstaufen in Germany,
it opened it upon a larger and fiercer scale in Italy.
During the long and interesting period covered by Frederick’s Italian campaigns, his enemies, prominent among whom were the cities of the Lombard League, became known as Welfs, or Guelphs, while his partisans seized upon the rival term of
