Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/66

34 WORKMEN AND HEROES 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 Ice- landic 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 de- liverer of Germany from the Roman yoke. It has been assumed that the con- tents 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 con- quest of Britain by Hengest. Recently, the Norse scholar, Gudbrand Vigfusson, has once more started this " Armin " interpretation of the tale, under the impres- sion that he was the first to do so ; whereas, in Germany, Mone and Giese- brecht 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 Eddie text, into " Cheruskian." He imagined the former name to be absurd, because Siegfried was not a Hunn ; but Vigfusson was unac- quainted 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 Burgun- dian 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 Burgun- dian 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 Prankish family of the Pipins, from whom Karl the Great hailed, by way of try- ing to explain some parts of the Siegfried story. With the Pipins of " Nivella," we come upon a word in consonance with " Nibelung." Then the wars which the Prankish Kaiser Karl waged against the Saxons of Witukind, have been held to be indicated in the war which the Prankish Sieg- fried, in the " Nibelungen Lied," wages against the Saxons. To all appearance, however, the tale is a mixture of mythological and historical traditions. In the Middle Ages, and still much later, Siegfried was looked upon as an undoubtedly historical figure. His praise was sung through all Germany. His very tomb, one of his weapons, as well as his carved image, were shown under the name of Siegfried's grave, Siegfried's spear, and Siegfried's statue. So persistent was this belief that when, in the fifteenth century, Kaiser Frederick III. came to Worms, he had the alleged grave of " that second Hector and powerful giant" opened, to see whether his bones could be found. Only a head and a few bones were dug up, " larger than men's heads and bones usually are." At Worms, the Siegfried story was pictured, in ancient times, in the Town Hall and on the Mint. All round Worms, place-names connected with the Nibelung tale occur with re-