The Nibelungenlied

Overview

Composed

Around 1200, probably in the Danube region between Passau and Vienna; the poem was known by about 1205, when Wolfram von Eschenbach alludes to it in Parzival

Author

Anonymous. A cleric or educated court poet, perhaps in the circle of Wolfger von Erla, Bishop of Passau (1191–1204); the poet never names himself

Language

Middle High German, the literary language of the courts of the Hohenstaufen age

Length

39 'adventures' (aventiuren) and 2,379 strophes in the standard Bartsch–de Boor numbering, which follows manuscript B

Metre

The Nibelungenstrophe: four rhyming long lines (aabb), each divided by a caesura; the last half-line of the strophe has an extra stress, which gives every strophe a weighty close

Manuscripts

More than thirty manuscripts and fragments; the three chief ones are A (Munich), B (St Gall) and C (Karlsruhe, formerly Donaueschingen). A and B end with the 'Not' of the Nibelungs, C with their 'Lied'

Setting

Worms on the Rhine, Xanten in the Netherlands, Brünhild's Iceland, and Etzel's Hungary, reached by the Danube through Passau, Pöchlarn and Vienna

Historical core

The destruction of the Burgundian kingdom on the Rhine by Hunnish troops in 436–437; Attila (Etzel), who died in 453; and Theoderic the Great (Dietrich of Bern), who died in 526

Companion poem

The Klage ('Lament'), a sequel in rhymed couplets describing the mourning and burial of the dead, copied after the Lied in nearly all the complete manuscripts

Key themes

Loyalty (triuwe) and honour (êre); revenge; the clash of courtly manners with heroic violence; deceit and its discovery; treasure and power; the fate of women in a world of men; joy turning to sorrow

Context

The Nibelungenlied was written down around the year 1200 by a poet who did not give his name. Several details point to the Danube country of Austria and Bavaria: the poet knows the route from Passau to Vienna in detail, and he introduces into the story a tenth-century Bishop Pilgrim of Passau as Kriemhild's uncle, a compliment that makes most sense if the work was composed at the court of a later bishop of Passau, Wolfger von Erla, who was a known patron of poets. Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to an episode of the poem in Parzival, so it was in circulation within a few years of 1200 (Heinzle 1987) (McConnell 1998).

The poem is written in strophes of four long lines, each divided by a caesura and rhymed in couplets; the last half-line of each strophe is heavier than the others, and the poet often uses it for a grim forecast of what is to come. This Nibelungenstrophe resembles the lyric strophe of the early Danube love poets, especially the Kürenberger, and it shows that the poet worked within a native German tradition rather than in the French-derived rhyming couplets of the courtly romances. George Henry Needler's English version of 1904, used for all quotations here, keeps the strophic form and marks the caesura with a stroke (Needler 1904). Poetry Codex also holds William Nanson Lettsom's verse translation of 1850, The Fall of the Nibelungers, and Daniel Bussier Shumway's prose translation of 1909 (Lettsom 1850) (Shumway 1909). Among modern versions, A. T. Hatto's Penguin prose translation and Cyril Edwards's Oxford translation are the most widely read in English, and Siegfried Grosse's bilingual edition is a standard way into the Middle High German text (Hatto 1965) (Edwards 2010) (Gentry 1995) (Grosse 1997).

Behind the poem lies history that had been reshaped by centuries of oral tradition. In 436–437 the kingdom of the Burgundians on the middle Rhine, under King Gundaharius, was destroyed by Hunnish troops in Roman service; a Burgundian law code of about 500 names the royal family as Gibica, Gundomaris, Gislaharius and Gundaharius, who correspond to the poem's Gibeche, Gernot, Giselher and Gunther. Attila, who had nothing to do with that defeat, died in 453 on the night of his marriage to a Germanic bride, which gave rise to tales that a woman had killed him in revenge. Theoderic the Great, the Ostrogothic king of Italy who died in 526, entered the story as Dietrich of Bern (Verona), although he was born after Attila died. The figures of Siegfried and Brünhild belong to another strand of legend whose oldest surviving forms are Norse: the heroic poems of the Poetic Edda and the thirteenth-century Völsunga saga, where Sigurd and Brynhild meet a different fate (Haymes 1996) (Andersson 1980) (Byock 1990).

The work survives in more than thirty manuscripts and fragments, which shows how widely it was read in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The three most important are A (Munich), B (St Gall) and C (formerly at Donaueschingen, now in Karlsruhe). A and B end with the words 'daz ist der Nibelunge nôt', 'this is the Nibelungs' doom', and are called the Not version; C ends 'daz ist der Nibelunge liet' and is a careful revision that tends to blame Hagen and excuse Kriemhild. Nearly all complete manuscripts also contain the Klage, a sequel in rhyming couplets in which the survivors bury the dead and argue about who was to blame (Brackert 1963) (Bumke 1996) (Heinzle 2013).

After the late Middle Ages the poem was forgotten until manuscript C was found at Hohenems Castle in 1755. Once rediscovered, it was quickly hailed as a German Iliad, and in the age of Napoleon and the wars of liberation it became a national epic. Richard Wagner drew mainly on the Norse sources for Der Ring des Nibelungen (first performed complete at Bayreuth in 1876), but the poem's name was attached to his work. In 1909 the German chancellor Bernhard von Bülow spoke in the Reichstag of German 'Nibelungentreue' towards Austria-Hungary, and in January 1943 Hermann Göring compared the army at Stalingrad to the Burgundians fighting to the end in Etzel's hall. This history of use and abuse is now itself a subject of research (Heinzle 1991) (Münkler 2009) (Gentry 2002).

Plot overview

At Worms on the Rhine the beautiful Kriemhild lives under the protection of her brothers, the Burgundian kings Gunther, Gernot and Giselher, and their mighty vassal Hagen of Tronje. She dreams of a falcon killed by two eagles, and her mother tells her it means a noble husband she will lose. Siegfried, prince of Xanten, who has won the treasure of the Nibelungs, a cloak of invisibility and a skin made horn-hard by dragon's blood, comes to Worms to win her. He fights for the Burgundians against the Saxons and Danes and at last meets Kriemhild. In return for her hand he helps Gunther win Brünhild, the warrior queen of Iceland, by defeating her in athletic contests while invisible and pretending to be Gunther's vassal. When Brünhild refuses Gunther on their wedding night and hangs him from a nail, Siegfried, again invisible, overpowers her for him, and takes away her ring and girdle, which he gives to Kriemhild.

Years later, at a feast in Worms, the two queens quarrel over whose husband is greater. Brünhild calls Siegfried a vassal; Kriemhild calls Brünhild Siegfried's concubine and shows the ring and girdle as proof. Hagen, seeing his queen in tears, vows Siegfried's death. He tricks Kriemhild into marking the one vulnerable spot on her husband's back with a cross, and during a hunt he spears Siegfried as he drinks from a spring. Kriemhild suspects Hagen from the first, and the wounds bleed afresh when he approaches the bier. She remains at Worms in mourning; when the Nibelung treasure is brought to her and she begins to win followers with it, Hagen seizes it and sinks it in the Rhine.

Thirteen years after Siegfried's death, the widowed Etzel, king of the Huns, sends the margrave Rüdiger to woo Kriemhild. She accepts only after Rüdiger has secretly sworn to avenge any wrong done to her. After many more years in Hungary she persuades Etzel to invite her brothers to a feast. Hagen foresees what she intends but will not be called a coward. On the journey water-sprites prophesy that only the chaplain will return; Hagen tries to drown him, sees him saved, and destroys the boat. The Burgundians are entertained by Rüdiger at Pöchlarn, where Giselher is betrothed to his daughter, and are warned by Dietrich of Bern on their arrival.

At Etzel's court Hagen openly admits that he killed Siegfried and sits with Siegfried's sword across his knees. Fighting begins when Kriemhild's ally Blödel attacks the Burgundian squires; Hagen strikes off the head of Kriemhild's son Ortlieb, and the Burgundians hold the great hall against the Huns. Kriemhild has the hall set on fire; the survivors drink blood to quench their thirst. Rüdiger, torn between his oath to Kriemhild and his friendship with the guests, fights them and dies with Gernot. Dietrich's men join the fighting and are all killed except old Hildebrand. Dietrich himself overpowers the exhausted Gunther and Hagen and hands them to Kriemhild. When Hagen refuses to reveal the treasure, she has Gunther beheaded and then kills Hagen with Siegfried's sword, and Hildebrand, enraged that a woman has slain such a warrior, cuts her down. Etzel and Dietrich are left weeping among the dead.

Part by part

Characters

Burgundians

Kriemhild

Sister of the Burgundian kings, wife of Siegfried and later of Etzel. In the first half she is the ideal courtly lady, beautiful, loving and proud; her boast in the queens' quarrel and her trust in Hagen contribute to Siegfried's death. In the second half she devotes her life to avenging him and recovering his treasure, and is called a devil by her enemies. Whether she is a loving widow destroyed by grief, a monster of revenge, or both, is the poem's most debated question.

Gunther

King of the Burgundians at Worms, eldest son of Dancrat and Ute. He is courteous and generous but weak: he wins Brünhild only through Siegfried, is humiliated on his wedding night, and consents to Siegfried's murder. In the second half he dies as a king among his men, beheaded at his sister's command.

Hagen of Tronje

Gunther's chief vassal and kinsman, the most complex character in the poem. He knows the old stories of Siegfried, plans and carries out his murder, and sinks the treasure in the Rhine. In the second half he foresees the catastrophe, goes to it with open eyes, and becomes the defiant hero of the last stand. Loyal to his lords to the end, he dies by Kriemhild's hand with Siegfried's sword.

Gernot

The second of the royal brothers, brave and moderate. He calms Siegfried's challenge at Worms, but joins the plot against him. At Bechelaren he receives a sword from Rüdiger, with which he later kills Rüdiger as they slay each other.

Giselher

The youngest brother, innocent of Siegfried's murder and loyal to his sister, the only one she kisses on arrival. He is betrothed to Rüdiger's daughter, refuses to give up Hagen, and dies in combat with Wolfhart.

Ute

Mother of Kriemhild and the kings. She interprets Kriemhild's falcon dream and, before the journey to Hunland, dreams that all the birds of the land are dead.

Dankwart

Hagen's younger brother and the Burgundian marshal. He kills Gelfrat on the journey and Blödel at Etzel's court, survives the massacre of the squires and brings the news to the hall.

Volker of Alzey

A noble warrior and minstrel, Hagen's companion and friend in the second half. He plays the guests to sleep, keeps watch at night, wields his bow like a sword, and is killed by Hildebrand.

Ortwin of Metz

A Burgundian vassal, nephew of Hagen, who offers to take vengeance on Siegfried after the queens' quarrel.

Siegfried and Xanten

Siegfried

Son of Siegmund and Sieglind of Xanten, lord of the Nibelung land and its treasure, owner of the sword Balmung and the cloak of invisibility, invulnerable except for one spot between his shoulders. A courtly and generous hero, he wins Kriemhild by serving Gunther, and deceives Brünhild for him twice. He is murdered by Hagen at a spring during a hunt.

Siegmund

King of the Netherlands at Xanten, Siegfried's father. He gives his crown to his son, comes to Worms for the fatal festival, and returns home after Siegfried's death without Kriemhild.

Alberich

The dwarf who guards the Nibelung treasure for Siegfried after being defeated by him and losing his cloak of invisibility. He hands the treasure over when it is brought to Worms.

Iceland

Brünhild

Queen of Iceland (Isenstein), of superhuman strength, who will marry only the man who defeats her in contests. Deceived by Siegfried and Gunther, she loses her strength when the marriage is consummated. Her complaint after the queens' quarrel sets Hagen on Siegfried; after the first half she disappears from the poem.

Huns and their court

Etzel

King of the Huns, the poem's version of Attila. A powerful, generous and tolerant heathen ruler, he marries Kriemhild after the death of his queen Helche and invites her brothers without suspecting her purpose. He is drawn into the fighting only when his son is killed.

Rüdiger of Bechelaren

A margrave in Etzel's service, exiled from his own land, who woos Kriemhild for Etzel and secretly swears to avenge her wrongs. He entertains the Burgundians and betroths his daughter to Giselher. Forced to choose between his oath and his friendship, he fights the guests and dies at Gernot's hand. He is the poem's model of courtly virtue.

Gotelind

Rüdiger's wife, who welcomes Kriemhild and later the Burgundians, and gives Hagen the shield of her dead son.

Ortlieb

The young son of Etzel and Kriemhild, whose head Hagen strikes off at the feast.

Blödel

Etzel's brother, who attacks the Burgundian squires at Kriemhild's bidding and is killed by Dankwart.

Iring

A Danish warrior at Etzel's court who wounds Hagen in single combat and is killed on his second attack.

Werbel and Swemmel

Etzel's minstrels, who carry the invitation to Worms. Hagen strikes off Werbel's hand in the hall.

Others

Dietrich of Bern

An exiled king living at Etzel's court, the poem's version of Theoderic the Great. He warns the Burgundians, stays out of the fighting until all his men are killed, and then captures Gunther and Hagen, whom he hands to Kriemhild in the hope of saving their lives.

Hildebrand

Dietrich's old armourer and mentor, the only survivor of his warriors. He kills Volker, is wounded by Hagen, and at the end kills Kriemhild.

Wolfhart

Hildebrand's fiery nephew, whose insults start the battle between Dietrich's men and the Burgundians. He and Giselher kill each other.

Pilgrim

Bishop of Passau and Kriemhild's uncle, who receives her on her journey to Hunland. The historical Pilgrim was bishop from 971 to 991; his presence is usually taken as a sign that the poem was written at Passau.

Themes

Loyalty (triuwe)

Triuwe, loyalty or good faith, is the virtue on which every relationship in the poem depends: between lord and vassal, husband and wife, brother and sister, host and guest. The tragedy arises because these bonds conflict. Hagen kills Siegfried out of loyalty to his queen and his king; Kriemhild destroys her brothers out of loyalty to her murdered husband; Rüdiger must break one bond to keep another (Gentry 1975).

The poem does not present loyalty as simply good. Hagen's loyalty is unswerving and deadly, and Kriemhild's is so absolute that it consumes everyone she has. The phrase 'Nibelungentreue', later used for patriotic devotion, turns a tragic theme into a slogan the poem itself would hardly support.

Honour and shame (êre)

Êre means both reputation and the material signs of rank. Characters act constantly to preserve it: the queens quarrel over precedence at the church door, Hagen refuses to rise because rising would look like fear, and the Burgundians go to Hunland because refusing would seem cowardly. Public shame is unendurable, and it must be paid for in blood (Haymes 1986).

Rüdiger's lament shows the deepest form of the problem: his honour before the world and his honour before God point in different directions, and he cannot keep both.

Revenge

Revenge structures the whole poem. The first half ends with a murder, the second with the vengeance for it, and each act of violence creates new obligations of revenge: for Siegfried, for the stolen treasure, for Blödel, for Ortlieb, for Rüdiger, for Hagen. By the end, the duty of revenge has destroyed both the Burgundian and the Hunnish courts.

The poem's treatment of Kriemhild's revenge is notably ambivalent. It is presented as justified grief for a real crime, and yet as a demonic force that sacrifices kin, son and guests alike. The poet leaves the reader to weigh the two views.

Court and heroic world

The poem is written for a courtly audience of around 1200 and is full of the courtly world: tournaments, clothing, festivals, gifts, greetings and kisses. But it tells an old heroic story whose values are older and harsher. Again and again the polished surface breaks: Siegfried challenges his hosts, a wedding night becomes a wrestling match, a hunt becomes a murder, a feast becomes a massacre (McConnell 1998).

Some critics see the poem as a critique of courtly culture, which cannot contain the violence it covers; others see it as an attempt to honour the heroic past by dressing it in contemporary forms. Both readings recognise the tension.

Deceit and its discovery

The poem's crimes depend on secrets: the invisible help in the games, the false vassalage, the substitution in the bedroom, the false war, the cross on the tunic, the hiding-place of the treasure. Each secret is eventually exposed, in the queens' quarrel, at the bier, or in the last words of Hagen. The poem shows a world in which deceit is effective in the short term and fatal in the long.

Women and power

The two queens are the most powerful figures of the poem, and both are deprived of power by men: Brünhild by Siegfried's strength and Gunther's deception, Kriemhild by the loss of her husband and her treasure. Each then acts through men, Brünhild through Hagen and Kriemhild through Etzel's warriors. The poem's final judgment, spoken by Etzel and carried out by Hildebrand, is that a woman who kills a hero has broken the order of the world, but modern readers have often found Kriemhild's case more sympathetic than her killers do (McConnell 1998).

Joy turning to sorrow

The poem begins and ends with the idea that joy is followed by sorrow (liebe and leit). Kriemhild says it in the first adventure, and the narrator repeats it in the last. Between these points each festival, from the knighting at Xanten to the wedding at Vienna and the feast in Etzel's hall, becomes the scene or the cause of later grief. This view of the world is closer to medieval reflections on the transience of fortune than to Christian hope.

Motifs

Forecasts of doom

The narrator constantly tells the audience what will happen, often in the last half-line of a strophe: a gift will later cause grief, a man will soon lose his life. These forecasts remove suspense about outcome and replace it with a sense of fate and of the irony of the characters' ignorance.

Prophetic dreams

Kriemhild's falcon dream, her dream before the hunt, and Ute's dream of dead birds before the journey all foretell disaster. They are always understood, and never heeded.

Festivals and feasts

Almost every major event happens at a festival: the knighting at Xanten, the victory feast at Worms, the double wedding, the feast that leads to the quarrel, the wedding at Vienna, and the midsummer festival at Etzel's court. The repeated pattern turns celebration into the setting of catastrophe.

Gifts and their return

Gifts bind people together in the poem and also carry fate. Kriemhild's distribution of treasure makes her dangerous; Rüdiger's gifts at Bechelaren return as the sword that kills him and the shield he gives away; even the ring and girdle are, in a sense, gifts that destroy their givers.

Messengers and reports

Much of the story is driven by messengers, from the youth who tells Kriemhild of the Saxon war to the false messengers of Hagen's plot and the minstrels who carry Kriemhild's invitation. News, true or false, is one of the poem's main instruments of action.

Symbols

The Nibelung treasure

Siegfried's hoard stands for power, since wealth in this society buys followers. It becomes Kriemhild's morning-gift, is stolen by Hagen and sunk in the Rhine, and is finally the secret Hagen dies to keep. It passes its name to whoever holds it: the Burgundians become 'Nibelungs' once they possess it.

The ring and girdle

Brünhild's ring and girdle, taken by Siegfried and given to Kriemhild, represent Brünhild's virginity and her strength, and in the quarrel they become evidence of her shame.

The cross on Siegfried's tunic

The little silk cross sewn by Kriemhild to protect her husband marks the place where he is killed. A sign of faith and loving care becomes the target of treachery.

Balmung

Siegfried's sword passes to Hagen after the murder and is displayed before Kriemhild at Etzel's court. She finally uses it to kill Hagen, so that the sword itself completes the circle of revenge.

Critical debates

The two halves and Kriemhild's character

The poem falls into two halves, the story of Siegfried and the destruction of the Burgundians, which derive from separate legends. Critics have long asked whether the poet made them into a unity, and the question centres on Kriemhild, who seems to change from a loving courtly lady to a ruthless avenger. Some read her as a single consistent character whose love becomes the motive for her revenge; others see in her the seam where two traditions, each with its own Kriemhild, were joined (Andersson 1987) (Mowatt 1967).

In the older tradition preserved in the Norse sources, Gudrun avenges her brothers on Atli; in the German poem Kriemhild avenges her husband on her brothers. This reversal, made somewhere in the German tradition, is what binds the two halves, and much criticism has focused on how plausibly the poet makes it (Haymes 1996).

Hagen: villain or hero?

Hagen is the murderer of the first half and the heroic defender of the second. Nineteenth-century readers often admired him as the embodiment of loyalty; others have seen him as a cold political schemer whose motives include envy and greed for Siegfried's power. The C version blames him more sharply than B. Recent criticism tends to see the poet's portrait as deliberately divided, so that the reader's judgment shifts with the action (McConnell 1998) (Heinzle 1987).

Oral tradition and the literate poet

Andreas Heusler reconstructed the poem's prehistory as a series of earlier lays: a Brünhild lay and a lay of the Burgundians' fall, expanded in stages until the Austrian poet of about 1200 united them in a written epic. His model shaped scholarship for decades, while Theodore Andersson, working against the lay theory, stressed instead the shaping hand of the single poet who adapted inherited stories (Heusler 1921) (Andersson 1987).

Under the influence of oral-formulaic theory, Franz Bäuml and others asked whether the poem itself bears the marks of oral composition, such as its formulas and repetitions, an approach Haymes applied to the poem in 1986. Bäuml argued instead that the text is a written work that imitates the style of oral poetry for an audience that knew such poetry only by hearing. Most scholars now see the Nibelungenlied as a literate composition drawing on a living oral tradition (Bäuml 1980) (Haymes 1986).

The manuscript question

Since the nineteenth century scholars have argued which manuscript best represents the original. Karl Lachmann favoured A; later scholars defended C; and Wilhelm Braune's study of 1900 made B the basis of the standard text edited by Karl Bartsch and Helmut de Boor. In 1963 Helmut Brackert challenged the very idea of recovering a single original, arguing that the versions should be seen as parallel forms of a work that was always being reshaped (Brackert 1963).

Joachim Bumke's work on the Klage developed this into a general theory of medieval 'versions' (Fassungen) of equal standing. Modern editions often present B or C in their own right rather than as witnesses to a lost original, and the differences between them, especially in the judgment of Kriemhild and Hagen, are now studied as interpretations in their own right (Bumke 1996) (Heinzle 2013).

The poem and the Norse tradition

The story of Siegfried and Brünhild survives in fuller form in Old Norse: in the heroic poems of the Poetic Edda and in the Völsunga saga, where Sigurd was first betrothed to Brynhild and his death follows from her jealousy. Scholars have used these sources to reconstruct a common Germanic legend and to explain puzzling features of the German poem, such as Brünhild's prior knowledge of Siegfried. The relation is complex, because the Norse texts survive in manuscripts later than the Nibelungenlied and in places were probably influenced by German tradition (Andersson 1980) (Byock 1990) (Haymes 1996).

Christianity and the heroic past

The poem's characters go to mass, Siegfried's cross becomes a target, and Etzel worries about marrying a Christian as a heathen. Yet the action is governed by honour, revenge and fate, and the only figure saved by God, the chaplain, is excluded from the story's end. Critics disagree whether the poet offers an implicit Christian criticism of heroic values, as the Klage seems to do, or simply presents the old world on its own terms (Mowatt 1967) (Hoffmann 1961).

Nationalism and reception

After its rediscovery the Nibelungenlied was turned into a national epic, issued in field editions for soldiers in the First World War and taught in schools as the German Iliad. Bülow's 'Nibelungentreue' of 1909, Göring's speech on Stalingrad in 1943, and the use of the legend in Nazi propaganda gave the poem a long political afterlife. Since the 1980s scholars have studied this reception critically, distinguishing the medieval poem from the myths built on it (Heinzle 1991) (Münkler 2009) (Gentry 2002).

Key passages

Questions for study

1. Why does the narrator reveal the ending of the story in the first adventure?

   Consider the forecasts of doom throughout the poem, the audience's knowledge of old tales, and the effect of irony on scenes of joy.

2. Is Kriemhild the same character in the two halves of the poem?

   Compare her words to Ute in Adventure 1, her trust in Hagen in Adventure 15, and her actions in Adventures 23 and 39.

3. What does the poem gain by making Siegfried pretend to be Gunther's vassal?

   Think about Brünhild's tears at the wedding, her complaint in Adventure 12, and the dispute at the church door.

4. Who is responsible for Siegfried's death?

   Weigh the parts of Brünhild, Kriemhild, Hagen, Gunther and Siegfried himself, including his taking of the ring and girdle.

5. How does the poet make Hagen sympathetic in the second half without excusing the murder?

   Look at his warnings in Adventure 24, the boat and the chaplain, the scene on the bench, and his response to Rüdiger's shield.

6. What role do gifts play in the poem?

   Consider Kriemhild's distribution of the treasure, the gifts at Bechelaren, and how they return in Adventures 37 and 39.

7. Why is Rüdiger's dilemma insoluble?

   Read his lament in Adventure 37 and ask what he owes to Etzel, to Kriemhild, to the Burgundians, and to God.

8. How does the courtly world of the poem relate to its heroic violence?

   Compare the festivals, tournaments and greetings with the hunt, the burning hall and the drinking of blood.

9. What does Dietrich of Bern represent?

   Consider his warning on the Burgundians' arrival, his neutrality, his offer to Gunther and Hagen, and his lament for his men.

10. Why might later readers have turned this tragic poem into a national symbol, and what does that use leave out?

    Think about 'Nibelungentreue' and the last stand in the hall, and compare them with what the poem actually says about loyalty and its costs.

Further reading

• Andersson, Theodore M. The Legend of Brynhild. Islandica 43. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
• Andersson, Theodore M. A Preface to the Nibelungenlied. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
• Bäuml, Franz H. "Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy." Speculum 55 (1980): 237–265.
• Brackert, Helmut. Beiträge zur Handschriftenkritik des Nibelungenliedes. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963.
• Bumke, Joachim. Die vier Fassungen der 'Nibelungenklage': Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte und Textkritik der höfischen Epik im 13. Jahrhundert. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996.
• Byock, Jesse L., trans. The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
• Edwards, Cyril, trans. The Nibelungenlied: The Lay of the Nibelungs. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Gentry, Francis G. Triuwe and vriunt in the Nibelungenlied. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1975.
• Gentry, Francis G., ed. German Epic Poetry: The Nibelungenlied, the Older Lay of Hildebrand, and Other Works. The German Library 1. New York: Continuum, 1995.
• Gentry, Francis G., Winder McConnell, Ulrich Müller, and Werner Wunderlich, eds. The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Grosse, Siegfried, ed. and trans. Das Nibelungenlied: Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch. Text after Karl Bartsch and Helmut de Boor. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997.
• Hatto, A. T., trans. The Nibelungenlied. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.
• Haymes, Edward R. The Nibelungenlied: History and Interpretation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
• Haymes, Edward R., and Susann T. Samples. Heroic Legends of the North: An Introduction to the Nibelung and Dietrich Cycles. New York: Garland, 1996.
• Heinzle, Joachim. Das Nibelungenlied: Eine Einführung. Munich: Artemis, 1987.
• Heinzle, Joachim, and Anneliese Waldschmidt, eds. Die Nibelungen: Ein deutscher Wahn, ein deutscher Alptraum. Studien und Dokumente zur Rezeption des Nibelungenstoffs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991.
• Heinzle, Joachim, ed. and trans. Das Nibelungenlied und die Klage: Nach der Handschrift 857 der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen. Bibliothek des Mittelalters 12. Berlin: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 2013.
• Heusler, Andreas. Nibelungensage und Nibelungenlied: Die Stoffgeschichte des deutschen Heldenepos. Dortmund: Ruhfus, 1921.
• Hoffmann, Werner. Das Nibelungenlied. Sammlung Metzler 7. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1961.
• Lettsom, William Nanson, trans. The Fall of the Nibelungers. London: Williams and Norgate, 1850.
• McConnell, Winder, ed. A Companion to the Nibelungenlied. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
• Mowatt, D. G., and Hugh Sacker. The Nibelungenlied: An Interpretative Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.
• Münkler, Herfried. Die Deutschen und ihre Mythen. Berlin: Rowohlt Berlin, 2009.
• Needler, George Henry, trans. The Nibelungenlied. New York: Henry Holt, 1904.
• Shumway, Daniel Bussier, trans. The Nibelungenlied. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909.