BOOK I.
he finally wins Br}mhild as a wife, so Siegfried in his turn marries
Kriemhild, sister of the Burgundian Gunther, having wooed Bryn-
hild for his brother-in-law. If, again, Brynhild causes the death of
Sif^urd, the man in whom she has garnered up her soul, so Siegfried
is murdered at Brynhild's instigation. If in the Helgi Saga the son
of Hogni bears the news of Helgi's death to Sigurd, so in the Volsung
tale Hogni informs Gudrun of Sigurd's death, and in the Nibelung
song Hagen brings to Kriemhild the tidings of the death of Siegfried.
Like Swava and Sigrun, Brynhild kills herself that her body may be
burnt with that of Sigurd ; and as in the story of the A^olsungs, Atli
(who appears as the comrade of the first Helgi) gets possession of
Gunnar and Hogni and has them put to death, so Kriemhild in the
Nibelungenlied marries Etzel, who catches Gunther and his brothers
in the same trap in which Gunnar and Hogni had been caught by
Atli.^
- On the historical residuum which
may possibly be contained in the later forms of these myths it is really unne- cessary to say anything. In Bunsen's words, ' ' The fundamental element com- mon to them all is purely mythological, namely, the combat of the Sun-God, who is slain by his brother and avenged by a younger brother. . . . This ele- ment constitutes the basis of the Sigurd Saga, and the substance of the Helgi Saga, with the exception of some later additions ; it is the oldest form of the German myth of Herakles." — God in History, ii. 474. Nevertheless, Bunsen thinks it worth while to make an at- tempt to determine the amount of historical matter wrapped up in it. He finds the name Atli or Etzel, and this represents the historical Attila, a con- clusion which is strengthened by the mention of Bludi as the father of Attila, whereas history speaks of Bleda as his brother. He finds also Gunnar, the brother of Gudrun, and Gunther the king of the Burgundians. Beyond this, seemingly, it is impossible to advance. " It is certainly difficult to make an expedition by Attila himself to the Rhine fit in with what we know of the history of these years. This, no more and no less, is the historical element in that great tragedy of the woes of the Nibelungs." — God in History, ii. 478. If any can be satisfied with claiming for this belief a historical sanction on such evidence as this, it may perhaps be a pity to break in upon their self- complacence ; but on the other side it may fairly be asserted that two or three names, with which not a single known historical event is associated, and of which the stories told cannot be recon- ciled with anything which comes down to us on genuine historical testimony, furnish a miserably insecure foundation for any historical inferences. If this is all that we learn from the popular tradition, can we be said to learn any- thing ? In the one Bleda is the brother of Attila, in the other he is not : it seems rash, then, to speak of Bludi as a "perfectly historical person." To us they must remain mere names ; and while we turn aside from the task of measuring the historical authority of these Sagas as a mere waste of time, we cannot on the same plea refuse con- sideration to evidence which may seem to trace such names as Atli, Bleda, and Gunnar to a time long preceding the days of Attila, Bludi, and Gunther. It might have been supposed that this question had been long since set at rest. But the controversy has been reopened with singular boldness of assertion by Mr. Mahaffy in his Prolc_s;om€na to An- cit-nt History. Mr. ^lahaffy takes comfort from the thought that the his- torical basis of the Nibelungenlied is so certain that not even the mythologers can gainsay it ; but he admits that this basis is one resting on the names of some few of the actors in the drama, and on these alone. Nor does he pre- tend to believe that the historical Attila, or Siegbert, or Gundicar, did any of the things which they are said to do in the
