Siegfried drinks the dragon's blood, which makes it possible for him to understand the language of birds, and consequently he enters into a peculiar relation with Nature, a dominating position, the result of his knowledge, and finally wins the treasure.
Hort is a mediæval and Old High German word with the meaning of "collected and guarded treasure"; Gothic, huzd; Old Scandinavian, hodd; Germanic hozda, from pre-Germanic kuzdhó—for kudtho—"the concealed." Kluge[69] adds to this the Greek [Greek: keu/thô, e/kuthon] = "to hide, to conceal." Also hut (hut, to guard; English, hide), Germanic root hud, from Indo-Germanic kuth (questionable), to Greek [Greek: keu/thô] and [Greek: ky/sthos], "cavity," feminine genitals. Prellwitz,[70] too, traces Gothic huzd, Anglo-Saxon hyde, English hide and hoard, to Greek [Greek: keu/thô]. Whitley Stokes traces English hide, Anglo-Saxon hydan, New High German Hütte, Latin cûdo = helmet; Sanskrit kuhara (cave?) to primitive Celtic koudo = concealment; Latin, occultatio.
The assumption of Kluge is also supported in other directions; namely, from the point of view of the primitive idea:
"There exists in Athens[71] a sacred place (a Temenos) of Ge,
with the surname Olympia. Here the ground is torn open for
about a yard in width; and they say, after the flood at the time
of Deucalion, that the water receded here; and every year they
throw into the fissure wheatmeal, kneaded with honey."
We have observed previously that among the Arrhetophorian,
pastry in the form of snakes and phalli, was
thrown into a crevice in the earth. This was mentioned
