SOURCE: “The Saga of the Niblungs” in Northern Hero Legends, J. M. Dent & Co., 1902, pp. 10-61.

[In the following excerpt, Jiriczek discusses the historical and mythical foundations of the Nibelungenlied, and the development, continuance, and extinction of the saga.]

… III. THE HISTORICAL FOUNDATION OF THE SAGA.

In German and Norse sources mention is made of a Burgundian king Gibich, Norse Gjuki [in the Nibelunlied his name is Dancrât] who is said to have three sons, Gunther, Gernot, Giselher; in Norse, Gunnar, Guthormr, Hogni [Hagen stands for Giselher in the Seyfriedslied also]. The historical origin of some of these names may be proved. In the Lex Burgundionum, which was proclaimed at the beginning of the sixth century, King Gundobad enumerates his ancestors and predecessors: Gibica, Godomar, Gislaharius and Gundaharius. These four alliterative names are therefore an historical genealogy of ancient Burgundian kings. The list of names affords indeed no clue as to the relationship or the chronological order of the persons mentioned. Whether the four succeeded each other in the above order, or whether we must assume the three last (as in the saga) to have been brothers and co-rulers—a state of things which is not unknown in Germanic history—must remain an open question. In Norse tradition the name Godomar became corrupted to Guthormr, in German sagas it was replaced by Gernot. Hagen was substituted for Giselher in Norse tradition, and in the Seyfriedslied.

Other historical sources afford further evidence bearing on King Gundaharl. From the year 413 the Burgundians, an East Germanic tribe related to the Goths, whose oldest known home was between the Oder and the Vistula, dwelt in Germania prima, on the left bank of the Rhine, roughly speaking, in the district of the present Palatinate. But their power was short-lived. As early as the year 435 they were defeated by Aëtius, and in 437 King Gundicarius, with his whole clan and people, fell by the sword of the Huns. The remnant of the Burgundians settled in Savoy and soon became Romanized. After barely a century's existence this Burgundian kingdom perished at the hands of the Franks. The second king of these Burgundians of Savoy was the Gundobad mentioned above. Our information concerning the destruction of the Rhenish Burgundians is scanty. We do not hear whence these Huns came, whether they were allies of Aëtius, and whether Gundahari's tragic fate was brought about by a surprise, or, as seems probable, by treachery. But we know enough to realize that the saga of the destruction of the Burgundian kings by the Huns rests upon an historical foundation. Attila himself, who, together with his brother Bleda, had ruled the Huns of the Theiss valley since 433, was not engaged in this battle, but it seemed so natural to assume that the celebrated ruler of the Huns must have played a part in this Hunnish victory that not only the saga, but later historians also, attributed the destruction of the Burgundians to him.

Etzel-Attila is not the only historical character among the Huns immortalized by the saga: Bloedelin is Attila's brother Bleda, and Helche is known in history as Attila's wife. … The connection between Theodoric and Attila reflects the historical connection of the Ostrogoths (before Theodoric) with Attila (cf. for further details the Dietrich cycle). The death of Attila (in the Norse form of the saga) is also founded on history. In the year 453 Attila married a Germanic princess, named Hildico. On the morning after his wedding his servants discovered him weltering in his blood. He had died from an attack of hæmorrhage. Naturally a report that he had been murdered by Hildico began to spread, and before long this rumour was accepted by historians as an historical fact, a motif for which was not long wanting. The murder was said to be an act of vengeance on the part of the Germanic princess for the murder of her father (her kinsmen) by Attila. Thus the development of an historical saga may be traced in historical sources. The saga underwent yet further changes in the epic, and connected the vengeance of Hildico with the destruction of the Burgundians, by making Hildico a sister of the Burgundian kings.

We find the saga in this older form in Norse tradition, where Gudrun avenges the death of her brothers on Atli. The German saga has undergone considerable changes, the result of the fusion of the Burgundian saga with the Siegfried myth. The identity of the avenging Kriemhild (it was only in Norse tradition that the name of Gudrun was substituted) with the historical character of Hildico, is proved by the name. Hildico is a pet name formed from Hilde, which is the second element in the compound Kriemhild.

But there is no further historical evidence for the saga. Important features of it, such as the connection of the Burgundian kings with Siegfried, and some of the chief characters, such as Siegfried, Hagen and Brunhild, have no prototypes in history. Hagen is said to have been Aëtius.¹

Various historical characters have been traced in the person of Siegfried, for instance, the Austrasian King Sigibert, husband of Brunihildis, who was murdered in 575 at the instigation of the notorious Fredegunde. He has even been taken to be Arminius, but none of these hypotheses are tenable. Siegfried and the other characters of the saga mentioned above are not historical, but have originated in poetry and myth.

IV. THE MYTHICAL FOUNDATION OF THE SAGA.

A hero of superhuman strength and beauty was brought up by a demonic smith in the forest. He slew a dragon, and thereby acquired an immense treasure. He penetrated the magic flames which encircled a rock, and awakened a walkyrie from her charmed sleep. He wedded her, but forgot her in consequence of a draught of oblivion, which brought him into the power of the King of the Niblungs, whose sister he married. He surrendered his own bride to the Niblungs, who won his treasure by treacherously slaying him. This is, in brief outline, the story of Siegfried, which, though lacking any historical basis, appears in our sources in connection with the historical saga of the Burgundians.

If, on the one hand, the second part of the Saga of the Niblungs, the destruction of the Burgundian kings by Attila, is clearly recognizable as historical, and, on the other, the story of Siegfried's youth up to his arrival at the court of Burgundy is as clearly mythical in character, the fact that the rest of the story of Siegfried is only preserved in combination with the Saga of the Gjukings renders the differentiation of the two elements and the reconstruction of the Siegfried myth extremely difficult.

The difficulty is enhanced by the discrepancies and inconsistencies of the authorities—on the one hand by the divergence of the German version from the Norse, on the other by the incompatibility of the one with the other. In Norse tradition the acquisition of the hoard is combined with the struggle against the dragon, whilst in the Nibelungenlied these are independent features. But the Seyfriedslied proves that in Germany also these two elements of the saga were originally united, and that the version of the Nibelungenlied is a deviation from the original saga. The story of how Siegfried was to divide the hoard between the two brothers who had quarrelled, and how he then slew them both, is a widespread, originally Indian motif which has no connection with the ancient Siegfried myth.

No German versions relate the awakening of the Walkyrie by Siegfried and his marriage with her. Obscure allusions in the Nibelungenlied and somewhat more distinct ones in the Seyfriedslied, corrupt though it be, indicate, however, that this portion of the Siegfried saga was also current in Germany. The authorities are not agreed as to the identity of the walkyrie whom Siegfried awakens from sleep, and the one whom he wins for Gunther (for further details cf. the remarks sub. Sketch of the Saga).

Such divergencies afford scope for the greatest possible diversity of opinion as to the reconstruction of the original poem on Siegfried, and yet more as to the mythological interpretation of the original form of the saga. It is impossible to enter more closely into these diverse opinions in this connection, and it must suffice to have indicated in some measure the partially hypothetical character of the reconstruction and mythological interpretations of the saga.

The justification for a mythological interpretation of the Siegfried saga may be deduced from a whole series of features which in other connections also are proved to be undoubtedly mythical. The slaying of a dragon by a hero, and his consequent acquisition of a treasure, are a well-known form of the heroization of an elemental process of nature common to all Arian mythologies. A thunderstorm in spring is the destruction by a Light-God of a cloud-dragon, from whose downfall proceeds the fertilizing rain that begets vegetation; in this form the vegetation of summer is the hoard. The deliverance of a maiden by a hero who presses through the flames is an achievement attributed even to gods. Thus Skirnir wins Gerda for Freyr, thus Svipdag wins Menglöd. The latter name, which signifies her ‘who rejoices in the necklet,’ is a distinct allusion to the old Germanic Sun-goddess Frija (Norse Frigg) who is in possession of the Brisingamen.²

So far it is clear that the Siegfried myth is originally a nature-myth: a Light-Hero (as in related myths a Light-God) wins the sun-maiden. Whether it be founded upon a season-myth or a day-and-night-myth—both conceptions are closely allied and both probably contributed to the formation of the myth—the result is in either case the tragic issue of the myth in its heroic form. The sun sets in the darkness whence it rose, and the earth that blossoms in summer lapses into the bondage of winter, whence a new summer will deliver her; or, in the heroic form of the saga: the Light-Hero or Summer-Hero succumbs after a brief existence to the Powers of Darkness who slay him. These Powers of Darkness are the Niblungs (Norse, Niflungar), the children of the mist, whose very name marks them as the demonic powers of death. Niflheimr, Niflhel is the Scandinavian Hades, and ‘Nebulo’ is translated in Old High German glosses by ‘magic being,’ ‘fiend,’ ‘spectre.’ The epic symbol for the surrender of the hero to the gloomy powers of death is the allurement of a fair demonic maiden who presents him with the draught of oblivion. This elf-myth survives to the present day in songs and sagas in Norway and the Faröe Islands and is supported by the evidence of Saxo Grammaticus and of Icelandic sagas, in which young men succumb to powers of the nether world, the ‘hulder,’ i.e. veiled, invisible ones; cf. the names Niblungs, Grimhild (i.e. the masked, veiled one), when a wondrously fair hulder-maiden tenders them a draught of oblivion, whereupon they are drawn into the subterranean realm of the demons in the mountains, to stay there for ever, or to suffer mutilation and death. Thus Siegfried succumbs to the Niblungs, and is by them deprived of bride, treasure and life.

The epic form in which this myth is conveyed, the deeply tragic touch which represents Siegfried as winning his own bride for the Niblungs in the form of another, a deed which brings about both his and his bride's death, must be looked upon as a purely poetic-epic elaboration of the myth, influenced, however, probably by a deep under-current of nature-symbolism: ‘The maiden slumbering upon the lonely peak is the sun, the wall of flame which encircles her is the red glow of dawn, Siegfried is the young day. He ascends the peak, the glow of dawn fades before his splendour, radiant the sun rises from her couch, and bestows her glad greeting upon the whole expanse of nature. But light and shade are indissolubly linked; by its own inexorable advance, day must needs turn to night. When in the evening the sun sinks to rest, and is again surrounded by a rampart of flame, the glow of evening, day again approaches, but no longer in the youthful form of morning to arouse the maiden from sleep, but in the gloomy shape of Gunther to lie down beside her. Day has turned to night (saga-transformation), the rampart of flame fades away, the day and the sun glide into the realm of darkness.’ [Wilmanns.]

The demonic Niblungs were replaced by the Burgundian kings who belong to the historical saga. How and why this substitution was accomplished, we are now unable to say, but through this younger stratum of the saga we get distinct glimpses of the older mythical foundation. Hagen, who appears by the side of the Burgundian kings, is a purely mythical demonic being, borrowed from the previous period. The name Grimhild (bellona larvata) also belongs, apparently by virtue of its significance, to the older mythical stratum. Its resemblance to the name of the historical Hildico may perhaps be one of the points which have produced a coalescence of the Saga of the Niblungs with the Saga of the Burgundians. But the original connection is most plainly indicated by the application of the name Niblungs (Norse, Niflungar) to the Burgundian kings. In German and Norse tradition the name is applied to the G jukings only in the second part of the saga (after Siegfried's death), and this circumstance, for which no adequate explanation has so far been found, has been taken to imply that the name was attributed to the Burgundian kings, only in so far as they were the possessors of the treasure of the Niblungs. But if that were the case, Siegfried would have the foremost claim to the name, and yet he is never called Niblung. This interpretation must therefore be rejected in favour of the assumption that the older mythical name of Siegfried's opponents has penetrated into the younger historical period of the saga. On the other hand, the coalescence of the two forms has, in some respects, considerably modified the character of the mythical saga. The fact that human beings have taken the place of the demonic adversaries of Siegfried has lifted the veil of gloomy twilight in which the saga was wrapped. The demonic traits of the bewitching elf-maiden have faded. Kriemhild is no longer a baleful demon in the semblance of a woman, but a loving wife. Nor is the relation of her brothers to Siegfried one of natural antagonism. It is only the disastrous blows of an unkindly fate which turn it to Siegfried's destruction. Further variations in the subject-matter resulting from the treatment of the saga in epic poetry will be discussed in the following paragraph.

Parallels which may be traced in myths of the gods do not justify the assumption that Siegfried is the incarnation of some god, perhaps Wodan or Freyr; they only prove that such myths were the result of the same nature-symbolism. Locations of the Siegfried-Brunhild saga, such as the above-mentioned ‘Bed of Brunhild,’ have been looked upon as shrines of the heroes who were worshipped there as gods. We have, however, no evidence for the divine worship of Siegfried, nor do these locations imply such worship. But the term ’Bed of Brunhild’ indicates that the location was determined in part by a reminiscence of the nature-myth according to which the sun-maiden was asleep upon the mountain.

The credibility of this assumption is increased by a second location in the Rhenish Palatinate.³ A rock in the forest near Dürkheim is known as ‘Brummholzstuhl,’ which turns out to be a corrupt form of ‘Brinholdestul’ (Brunhild's seat), which is mentioned in a charter of 1360. Until recently fires were kindled there in spring, and inscriptions and tokens dating from the Roman occupation which imply the worship of the gods [Mercurius Cisustius Deus is mentioned] and of the spring [sun-wheels] prove the spot to have been a shrine. The fact that the Siegfried-Brunhild saga, which must be far older than the date of the charter quoted above, was subsequently localized there, proves that the consciousness of its having originally been a nature-myth had survived.

V. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAGA.

The historical events upon which the second part of the saga is founded took place on the banks of the Rhine, which also provide the background for the saga, and Norse tradition also points to Germany and the districts along the Rhine as having been its home. It is ‘into the Rhine’ that Sigurd dips his sword when testing it against the flock of wool; he is slain ‘to the south of the Rhine’; the treasure of the Niblungs is buried ‘in the Rhine’; Sigmund holds sway over ‘the land of the Franks’; Sigurd is riding towards ‘the land of the Franks’ when he comes upon the flame-encircled mountain of the Walkyrie; he is called ‘the Southern, the German (inn húnski) hero.’ The Saga of the Niblungs originated among the Rhine-Franks, the immediate successors of the Burgundians in Germania prima, and travelled thence northwards, though how and in what form remains an unsolved problem.

No literary document has preserved any account of the saga in its original German form. A mere name now and again (cf. p. 19) proves its existence, and not until the 13th century do songs afford information in greater detail. Norse tradition has preserved the saga at an earlier stage in lays which were composed in Norway, Iceland and Greenland between the 9th and 11th centuries. This Norse tradition being older than the German, has preserved the saga in a form which is in many respects purer. For instance, Kriemhild-Gudrun takes vengeance on Atli for her brothers' death, a touch which corresponds more closely than the German version to the original historical saga. Norse heathendom preserved the mythical elements for a longer period of time and in a purer form than would have been possible in Christianized Germany.

But the Norse version must not in every respect be credited with greater purity and originality. The intimate connection of Odin with the fate of the Volsungs, at least to the extent related in the Saga of the Volsungs, is certainly a subsequent Norse addition. The names Kriemhild and Sieglind have been correctly preserved in the German version, as proved in the first case by the connection between Kriemhild and Hildico, and, in the second, by the alliteration. The Norse version has replaced them by Gudrun and Hjördis. In Scandinavia, moreover, the saga became corrupted by the arbitrary introduction of other characters—Atli, for instance, is represented as Kriemhild's brother—and it has become confused by contamination with Norse sagas. Thus the Norse hero Helgi Hundingsbane is made out to be a son of Sigmund. It is, moreover, only in Scandinavia that the Ermanarich-saga is linked with the Saga of the Niblungs by the introduction of Svanhild as the daughter of Gudrun and Sigurd (cf. p. 89). The genealogical ambition of Norse dynasties, which manifested itself in a desire to prove their descent from the most eminent legendary heroes, led to the creation of Aslaug, the ostensible daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild, who was made the ancestress of famous kings.

The most important transformation which the German form of the saga underwent, is the change in the relation of Kriemhild to Etzel and her brothers. Without Etzel's consent, in fact against his express desire, she dooms her brothers to destruction. In the old saga Siegfried's death remained unavenged. Ethical feeling demanded that the Burgundian kings should perish in retaliation and atonement for Siegfried's murder. This change in the saga is due to a change in ethical principles. From the Germanic point of view the bond of kinship is stronger than the bond of wedlock. An altered moral conception, in consequence of which marriage was held to constitute a higher and more sacred claim, laid upon Kriemhild the obligation of exacting blood-vengeance for her husband.

In the further development of the saga various characters were added which were absent from the older form—Dietrich von Bern, for instance, who lived as an exile at the court of Etzel. Older Norse tradition does not mention him. His introduction is due to the cultivation of the saga in Austria and Bavaria, where Etzel's character also underwent a complete change.⁴ The cruelty and avarice of Etzel's character as it appears in Norse tradition, reflect the impression produced by the ‘Scourge of God’ upon his adversaries, and represent the original Franconian conception of the saga. Etzel in the Nibelungenlied is the figure of a wise, gentle and high-minded king, such as the imagination of the Ostrogoths, his faithful, favoured and honoured allies, painted him, a conception which passed over into the Austro-Bavarian hero-saga of Etzel and Dietrich.

In Austria, too, the figure of the generous Margrave Rüdiger was linked with the saga. He is mentioned as early as the 12th century as a hero famous in song. So far no historical or mythical interpretation of this legendary character has been discovered. But the saga underwent poetic treatment and cultivation in other lands besides Austria, and, in consequence, yet further characters were added.

The introduction of Volker of Alzei is due to Rhenish minstrels who perhaps borrowed the type of minstrel and hero—a combination which does not occur elsewhere in German saga—from old French epics, in which it is not unusual.

Irnfried and Iring are characters taken from the Saxon saga. Irnfried is the historical king of the Thuringians who in the year 530 lost throne and life in a struggle against the allied Franks and Saxons. Iring, however, whom the Saxon historian Widukind introduces into the Irmenfried saga, is a mythical being of whose original significance we know no more than that the Milky Way was called ‘Iring's Way’ after him. The two Margraves Gero and Eckewart are apparently also Saxons, namely, the historical Margrave Gero of East Saxony (+ 965) and Eckewart of Meissen (+ 1002). But whether Saxon or Franconian minstrels introduced these semi-mythical, semi-historical Saxon heroes into the saga cannot be determined. The Thidrekssaga mentions only Iring, which seems to militate against the assumption that these characters were added by Saxon minstrels, though the fact that the Thidrekssaga is a later version must also be taken into consideration. An originally mythical character is incorporated with the historical figure of Eckewart, namely the faithful warner Eckehart, who appears in the Nibelungenlied as the guardian of Rüdiger's march. His legendary significance has been almost entirely lost sight of, which renders the whole scene in Rüdiger's marches enigmatic and obscure.

The most far-reaching changes in the German saga, as contained in the Nibelungenlied, are produced by the gradual disappearance of the mythical portions of the saga. This may in part be due to the gradual fading of heathen reminiscences in Christian times, but in a large measure it is the outcome of the poet's own æsthetic principles and literary taste. The Seyfriedslied and several other authorities prove that Siegfried's training in the forest by a smith, his struggle with the dragon, the rescue of a maiden, are by no means unknown to the German saga. The absence of these features, or their gradual disappearance, from the Nibelungenlied must therefore be regarded as an act of deliberate and personal elimination on the part of a poet conforming to a canon of courtly æstheticism. For instance, Siegfried is bred at his father's court in pomp and honour and all chivalrous accomplishments. The ancient saga of his having been brought up as an orphan by a smith in the forest would have struck the poet as unseemly and lacking in ‘courtoisie.’⁵

VI. CONTINUANCE AND EXTINCTION OF THE SAGA.

A considerable number of extant MSS. dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries prove the extreme popularity of the Nibelungenlied. The Seyfriedslied appeared in print as late as the sixteenth century, and it was dramatized by Hans Sachs in 1557. Allusions in Fischart and other sixteenth-century authors presuppose a knowledge of the saga, and a chap-book of the ‘hürnen Seyfried,’ the Horny Siegfried, which is founded upon the Seyfriedslied (earliest printed edition 1726), appeared in numerous successive editions in the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and may still be found on book-stalls at wakes and fairs.

These testimonies are, however, merely proofs of the perpetuation of the saga in literary tradition. Others tend to show that the saga itself was current among the people until the end of the Middle Ages. Der Marner, an itinerant Swabian minstrel, who as a blind old man was murdered towards the end of the thirteenth century, enumerates among the songs favoured by his audience ‘The Death of Siegfried,’ and ‘Kriemhild's Treachery,’ and in Hugo von Trimberg's Renner, a didactic poem belonging to the fourteenth century, Siegfried's fight with the dragon, Kriemhild's treachery, and the hoard of the Niblungs are quoted as being popular subjects of the minstrelsy of the day. Local tradition survived for a considerable period at Worms (due, of course, to a late localization of the saga). In the year 1188 the grave of the ‘hürnen Seyfried,’ a giant, was shown to the Emperor Frederick III. As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the trunk of a huge fir-tree was exhibited in a church at Worms, as having been the shaft of the horn-clad giant Seyfried.

Moreover, though in the numerous examples of folk-songs which go to prove the survival of popular poetry in the Middle Ages, Dietrich von Bern is the favourite figure, yet Seyfried is now and again mentioned side by side with him. The terrors of the Thirty Years' War, which swept over the national life of Germany like a devastating fire, destroyed the last surviving traces of the hero-saga, as well as almost every other popular mediæval tradition. Since then the memory of Siegfried, as of all other legendary heroes, has been extinct among the people. Only in fairy lore the ancient hero may perchance survive, though nameless. This is almost certainly the case in the tale of Dornröschen, the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, which, oddly enough, perpetuates a portion of the pure Siegfried myth, namely, the hero's awakening of a maiden out of the bonds of a death-like sleep. But a hedge of thorns has taken the place of the original rampart of flames.

Scandinavian popular tradition is more abundant and longer-lived. In Denmark so-called Kæmpeviser (heroic ballads) concerning the Lady Grimild, Siward and Brynhild were sung down to modern times, and the Chronicle of Hven, which was written in Latin in the sixteenth century (a version which is unfortunately lost), and translated into Danish in the seventeenth century, proves that the Saga of the Niblungs was localized upon the island of Hven in the Sound between Seeland and Schonen.⁶ Fragments of the saga survive to this day among the inhabitants of Hven.

The great abundance of Norwegian folk-songs dealing with Siegfried, even towards the end of the Middle Ages, is proved by the songs and fragments of songs which have been collected from current popular tradition, even in our day, and which probably still survive in remote districts. Though the greater number of these Danish and Norwegian songs may trace back to literary sources, they afford valuable evidence for the reintroduction and survival of the saga among the people.

Sweden supplies only one Kæmpevise bearing on this subject, the Swedish origin of which is, moreover, not above suspicion. But a few scenes from the Sigurd saga scratched on stones found in Södermannsland, Upland and other Swedish districts, prove that in heathen and early Christian times the saga was as extensively known in Sweden as in other Scandinavian countries. For instance, on the curious Ramsundsberg stone, which also bears a Runic inscription, we may see ‘the otter in the Andvara-waterfall, also the anvil, the tongs, the hammer and the bellows of Regin the dwarf, and, further, Sigurd slaying the grim dragon, and roasting its heart on the coals. There is also a picture of Sigurd's horse Grani, laden with Fafnir's hoard, and of the two birds perched upon a tree, whose twittering revealed to Sigurd Regin's intended treachery, and of the headless trunk of Regin, slain by Sigurd.’⁷

The tradition of the saga is most varied upon the Faröe Islands. But the songs sung there as an accompaniment to the dance,⁸ are no more proofs of the survival of the saga from the Old Norse period than the Danish-Norwegian Kæmpeviser. Both have sprung from later literary sources, yet they are fully five hundred years old, and have become so thoroughly popularized that to this day Sigurd and Brunhild may be said to survive in the folk-song of a Germanic tribe.

Notes

1. In ancient documents Hagen bears the appellation ‘von Troja,’ ‘von Tronje.’ In this case the semi-classical fable of the Trojan origin of all the Franks has been applied to the person of a famous hero celebrated in song by the Franks, and probably also claimed as a Frank. The Nibelungenlied and other sources, misled by the resemblance in name, then represented him as being a native of Tronje = Kirchberg in the north of Alsatia, and thus produced a local connection between him and the kings of Worms.

2. For further details cf. the Hilde-Gudrun saga, and North. Mythology sub. ‘Freyr’ and ‘Brisingamen.’

3. The following information was supplied by Fr. Vogt.

4. After Vogt. Cf. the sketch of the Dietrich saga.

5. Cf. Samml. Göschen: Nibelungen and Kudrun. Introduction to the Nibelungenlied.

6. Translated by Rassmann, vol. II. p. 188 ff

7. Montelius after Säve.

8. Translated by Rassmann, I. 306 ff.; ‘Regin the Smith,’ I. 313 ff.; Brunhild, II. 134 ff.; ‘Högni.’