The medieval German legend that most resembles the imaginative sweep and dramatic impact of The Lord of the Rings is the tale of the hero Dietrich von Berne and Virginal, the Ice Queen of Jeraspunt. There are aspects of this tale that are suggestive of the major themes and characters in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.
Of all the heroes of medieval German romance, Dietrich von Berne is certainly the greatest. This mighty Ostrogoth hero who was also called Dietrich of Verona was, like Arthur and Charlemagne, a central figure around which a large number of hero cycles were told. Also like Charlemagne, Dietrich was based on a real historical figure: in this case, Theodoric the Goth, who eventually became Theodoric the Great, the sixth-century (454-526) Roman Emperor.
From Tolkien’s letters, we know that he was fascinated with the Goths. As a student, he stumbled on a book of Gothic grammar that ‘took him by storm’. He felt that surviving fragments of Gothic text combined with reading of Latin historical documents gave him exciting insights into an authentic ancient German culture. And although he was more interested in the historical Theodoric the Goth, he was obviously imaginatively provoked by the adventures of the romantic Dietrich von Berne.
The tale of Dietrich and the Ice Queen begins with the hero entering the realm of a race of Mountain Giants ruled over by Orkis the cannibal Giant, and his evil son, Janibas Wizard. Dietrich learns that the Giants were making war on the highest mountain kingdom of the Ice Faeries in the snow-peaked Alps. This was the domain of the magical snow maidens who were ruled by Virginal, the Ice Queen, from her glittering Castle of Jeraspunt, on the highest peak in the Alps.
Dietrich carries out a long campaign of war on the Mountain Giants, slaying one after the other and taking mountain castle after mountain castle. In one titanic battle, he meets and kills the terrible Giant Orkis himself. However, when he arrives within sight of the Ice Castle, he finds the way barred by the son of the Giant King - a foe more formidable than Orkis himself. For Janibas the Wizard has laid siege to the shining castle with an awesome army of Giants, evil men, and monsters. To his foes, Janibas appears as a phantom Black Rider who commands tempests and is backed by demons and hell-hounds. But the Wizard’s most terrifying power is his ability to command those who were slain in battle to rise up from the dead and fight again.
Beyond his ambition to seize the realm of the Ice Queen and the Ice Castle, Janibas’ main driving desire is to enhance his sorcerer’s powers by taking possession of the magical jewel in the crown of the Ice Queen. For by the powers of this jewel she can command the elements of the lands of ice and snow, and by it she rules the mountains.
Dietrich can see the siege army lying like a black sea around the many-towered Ice Castle. It is obvious that, however well defended, the Castle must eventually fall to the never-dwindling numbers of the sorcerer’s army. Despite what would seem an impossible task, Dietrich is spurred to a battle frenzy by the sight of the beautiful Ice Queen on the battlements of the tallest tower. Her radiance matches even that of the star-like jewel dancing in her crown with icy light.
In his valiant attempt to raise the siege Dietrich slaughters all before him, but this proves futile as the dead simply rise up to fight gain. Dietrich then decides on another strategy. Seeing that Janibas commands his forces by means of a sorcerer’s iron tablet held aloft, Dietrich pursues the Black Horseman himself. Striking Janibas down from his phantom steed, Dietrich lifts his sword and smashes the iron tablet. As the tablet breaks, the glaciers of the mountains split and shatter, thundering down in massive avalanches that bury the whole evil host of Giants and phantoms and undead forever.
Dietrich triumphantly makes his way to the Castle as the gates are flung open to greet him. He is welcomed by the incomparable Ice Queen herself, surrounded by her dazzling court of snow maidens, all aglow with fairy light and the glitter of diamond veils. Here in the Ice Castle of Jeraspunt, in the realm of the Ice Faeries, Dietrich and the Ice Queen are wed.
In the legend of the Ice Queen, Janibas the Necromancer as the Black Horseman is very like a combination of Sauron the Necromancer and his chief lieutenant, the Witch-king lord of the Ringwraiths. The One Ring is replaced by an iron tablet, but the climax of the tale reads very like Sauron’s ultimate battle at the Black Gate at the end of The Lord of the Rings. The result of the destruction of the iron tablet on Janibas’ evil legions is identical to the destruction of the One Ring on those of Sauron.
Janibas’ father Orkis, the King of the Mountain Giants, is very like Sauron’s ancient master, Morgoth the Dark Enemy, who ruled the evil mountain realm of Angband in The Silmarillion. It is interesting to note that the cause of Morgoth’s war with the Elves is the star-like Silmaril jewels that Morgoth wears in his Iron Crown. The cause of Orkis’s war with the Faeries is the star-like jewel that the Ice Queen wears in her crown.
Although the Ice Queen is comparable to the Elf Queen Galadriel in her enchanted forest realm of Lothlórien, or even the Elf Princess Arwen in Imladris in The Lord of the Rings, the siege of the Ice Faerie Castle of Jeraspunt in the middle of the Alps is more like the many-towered Elven city of Gondolin in the middle of the Encircling Mountains in The Silmarillion.
Although in the tale of Dietrich and the Ice Queen aspects of the ring are taken on by the iron tablet and the star-like jewel, there are many legends of German romance where the ring is overtly the key element. This is certainly true of the Langobard and the Amelung hero cycles.
The fierce Langobards were one of the many powerful Germanic tribes who invaded the eastern European borderlands of the Roman Empire. These warrior people later swept into northern Italy, where they were known as the Lombards and gave their name to the region today called Lombardy. Described by Latin historians as the supreme horsemen of the Germanic peoples, the Langobards were Tolkien’s models for the Rohirrim. Historical accounts of the Langobard cavalry in battle closely resemble the dramatic ‘Charge of the Rohirrim’ in The Lord of the Rings. The hero of the Langobard cycle is Ortnit, who is given a gold ring by his mother that gives him the strength of twelve men. This ring allows him to subdue an innocent-looking, unarmed child blessed with huge physical strength, who has slain scores of knights. Once Ortnit makes this rather embarrassing conquest, it is revealed to him that the child is actually none other than the powerful Dwarf King Alberich (the German name for Andvari). He acknowledges that he is the same Dwarf of legend and is now more than five hundred years old. Furthermore, the Dwarf King reveals that the ring on Ortnit’s hand once belonged to him, but he gave it to Ortnit’s mother as a token of love, for in truth Alberich was Ortnit’s true father.
The Dwarf King now joyfully gives his son armour and a sword. The sword, called Rosen, and the armour were both forged by Alberich and tempered in dragon’s blood. The sword is unbreakable and the armour is impenetrable. He also tells him that the ring will not only increase his strength, but can also be used to heal the sick and wounded, and can be used magically to summon Alberich himself. With the sword, the armour and the ring, Ortnit wins fame and riches and becomes King of Lombardy. In the end, however, Ortnit meets his end when two dragons crush him to death. His sword and armour remain in their cavern, but his ring is retained by Alberich, until the coming of a hero who might be a worthy heir to Ortnit.
The heir to the ring emerged in the Amelung hero cycle. The Amelungs were a German tribe who rose to prominence when their warrior-king Anzius was crowned Emperor of the Eastern Empire in Constantinople. The greatest hero of the Amelung cycle is Wolfdietrich, who is the rightful heir to the Emperor. However, abandoned in childhood by his brothers, he is raised by wolves. After many adventures, Wolfdietrich comes to Lombardy, where he is challenged by the Dwarf Alberich. Winning a test of strength with Alberich, he is awarded Ortnit’s ring and goes on to fight the two Dragons of Lombardy. Taking the sword Rosen from Ortnit’s dead hand within the cave, Wolfdietrich slays the Dragons. Thc victorious Wolfdictrich is married to Ortnit’s widow and becomcs King of Lombardy. Armed with the ring, sword and armour, Wolfdietrich raises an army, marches on Constantinople and lays claim to his birthright. He is crowned Emperor of the Eastern Empire, but his dcstiny is not yet fulfilled. He returns to Lombardy with an even greater army, then marches south to Rome, where he is crowned Emperor of the West as well. Once again, the master of the ring reunites the ancient broken empire.
In the many German hero cycles, the most persistent character in the ring quest tradition is the guardian of the ring and the treasure. This is the Dwarf known as Andvari in Norsc tales, and Alberich in Gcrman legends. Although capable of being tamed, he is usually a sinister figure; however, in later romances his appearance and powers often change. He often lends help to other heroes under alternative names: Alferich, Laurin and Elbeghast. Increasingly, this character supplies all the supernatural elements in German romance: dwarf, wizard, elf, smith, guardian and god. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he is entirely transformed. In Britain, he becomes Auberon, and by Shakespeare’s time is the remarkable Oberon, the King of the Faeries. In this role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he is said to be the radiant god of love, and the immortal son of Julius Caesar and Morgan the Fay. Quite a remarkable evolution from a rather nasty Norse Dwarf.
In Tolkien, the Dwarves are often hoarders and guardians of various treasures. However, his equivalent figure to the Dwarf Andvari/Alberich in The Lord of the Rings is manifest in the strange character of Sméagol Gollum, the former Hobbit, turned into a tormented ghoul by the curse of the One Ring. He is not far off bccoming a Ringwraith enslaved by the power of the One Ring, but manages in some perverse Hobbitish way to remain his own creature.
In medieval German romance, the same Dwarf of the Langobard cycle of Ortnit and the Amelung cycle of Wolfdietrich reappears in the hero cycles of the Goths. Inevitably, their hero Dietrich von Berne encounters Alberich. Legend dictates that Dietrich von Berne was the great-grandson of the Amelung hero, Wolfdictrich. Dietrich goes into battle with the Dwarf King Alberich, who in this particular manifestation rules a subterranean kingdom in the Tyrolean mountains. After various intrigues and battles, Dietrich overthrows the Dwarf and wins his magical golden ring, a girdle of strength, a cape of invisibility, a vast golden treasure, and the sword Nagelring.
Dietrich’s exploits as the premier German hero are as extensive as Arthur’s and Charlemagne’s. His adventures cross over many other ring quest cycles in many rather unexpected ways. Inevitably, the peripatetic Dietrich makes an appearance in the German people’s greatest medieval epic, the Nibelungenlied. As a liegeman to the Hun Emperor Etzel, he is reluctantly drawn into the Nibelung tragedy. He becomes the deus ex machina of the epic tale and is forced into a position where he must destroy the last vestige of the Nibelung dynasty.
Although many of the German romances of hero cycles used elements of the Norse Volsunga Saga, the medieval epic the Nibelungenlied is the most direct rendering of that particular tale. Its hero Siegfried is definitely the Norse Sigurd the Dragonslayer. In part, the Nibelungenlied is an attempt by German royal houses to claim mythic ancestors in established heroic tradition; and in part it is authentic history.
The heroic age for all the Teutonic (Germanic and Scandinavian) races of northern Europe was the chaotic fifth and sixth centuries, when the authority of the Roman Empire was collapsing before the migrating Teuton tribes. The historical chieftains of those times became the subjects of oral traditions that elevated them to mythic status.
The events in the Volsunga Saga and the Nibelungenlied are both based on the historical events surrounding the catastrophic annihilation of the Burgundians in ad 436 by the Huns of Attila, who were acting as mercenary agents for the Roman Emperor.
The Nibelungenlied, as we know it, was written by an anonymous poet around ad 1200 for performance in the Austrian court - or rather, he was the last poet to contribute to the Nibelungenlied, for the work was the product of a heroic poetic tradition that began sometime in the fifth century.
The Nibelungenlied legend concerns itself with an early Germanic people called the Burgundians, who early in the fifth century settled on the Rhine near Worms, which at the time was Roman territory. In the year 436 they arose in rebellion against the Roman governor Aetius. By 437 they had been all but exterminated by a contingent of Huns acting on behalf of the Empire.
What remained of the annihilated Burgundians fled the Rhinelands westward and settled along the Rhône Valley, roughly in that part of France now called Burgundy. The memory of this catastrophic end to a once powerful German tribe was recalled vividly by the neighbouring Franks on the Rhine around Cologne. The story was adapted by their Norse neighbours and integrated into the Volsung legend, then - centuries later - was readapted and reclaimed by medieval Germans in the epic tale of the Nibelungenlied.
Although Attila was certainly the Hun King at the time of the Burgundian uprising, he did not participate in its quelling and was elsewhere at the time. However, as the legend grew, inevitably he became part of the tale. (He is the Norse Atli, and the German Etzel.) The source of the Volsung Hun King Atli’s death at the hands of his wife is undoubtedly related to the historical events surrounding Attila’s death in the year 453.
Reliable historical accounts tell us that Attila died of a throat haemorrhage after drinking and feasting on the first night of his marriage to a German princess called Hildico. Immediately there sprang up a belief that Hildico had killed Attila in revenge for the Burgundian massacre.
The names of the two great queens of the Nibelungenlied arc in fact etymologically connected with this historical German princess. Hildico means ‘Little Warrior Maid’; which is fairly close to both Kriemhild, ‘Helmed Warrior Maid’, and Brunhild, ‘Armoured Warrior Maid’.
The characters of Brunhild and Kriemhild - and much of the plot for the Nibelungenlied and the Volsunga Saga - are also partly shaped by another historical character: the notorious Visigoth Queen Brunhilda. Born in about ad 540, Brunhilda was married to King Sigebert of the Eastern Franks. King Sigebert’s brother Chilperic was the King of the Western Franks and married Queen Brunhilda’s sister. In the ensuing war between brothers, King Sigebert was murdered through intrigue in 575, and Brunhilda was made a captive. Her life was saved and her freedom won, however, by her captor’s son, who took her as his wife. She soon became a powerful force among the Franks, and over the thirty years of her influence she brought about the murders of no less than ten royal noblemen. Finally, in 613, a group of Frank noblemen decided to put an end to her intrigues. They tortured Brunhilda for three days, had her torn apart by wild horses, and then burned her on a pyre - a spectacular and barbaric end to a remarkable historical character.
In The Lord of the Rings, the basic central plot of the Nibelungenlied can be found in an understated sub-plot involving the four-way romance of Aragorn-Arwen-Éowyn-Faramir. The shield maiden Princess Éowyn of Rohan falls in love with Aragorn in the same hopeless way as, it is implied, the Amazon warrior Queen Brunhild of Iceland falls for Siegfried. Siegfried is betrothed to the beautiful Kriemhild, in the same way that Aragorn is betrothed to beautiful Arwen of Rivendell. Tolkien’s resolution of the love triangle in The Lord of the Rings is far happier and more gentlemanly, with none of the low trickery or bloody retribution of the Nibelungenlied.
The Nibelungenlied displays many perspectives that sound strange to a modern reader. The Nibelungenlied epic is not primarily a vehicle for the hero Siegfried, as, say, the Iliad is for Achilles. It also appears that our sympathies with the valiant Siegfried in the first half are supposed to shift in the second half to the heroic deeds of his murderers, Hagen and Gunther. The epic is not even a history of a single dynasty or race. The Nibelungs are first one people, then another, then a third, depending on who controls the Nibelung treasure, which has become separated from the ring. As Richard Wagner concluded in his studies of the epic: ‘the Hoard of the Nibelungen, as the epitome of earthly power, and he who owns it, who governs by it, either is or becomes a Nibelung.’
There are aspects of the medieval Nibelungenlied that are different from the more worldly ones portrayed in the Volsunga Saga. One is that the ring-hoard of the Volsunga Saga has suffered severe inflation by the time it reaches the Nibelungenlied. Gold among the Norsemen was a rare commodity. We find the golden hoard that Sigurd’s horse Grani carried in the Volsunga Saga is so inflated in the Nibelungenlied that a baggage train consisting of hundreds of wagons is required to transport it.
There are also other curiosities about the epic. In the Volsunga Saga, the historical Attila the Hun is Atli, a savage and treacherous tyrant. However, in the Nibelungenlied, the Hun King known as Etzel is portrayed as a humane and sympathetic character. This is certainly because of the politics of the Austrian court for whom the Nibelungenlied was composed.
Christian morality and chivalric traditions also resulted in changes. The extreme courtly behaviour of the knights and the coyness concerning the defloration of Brunhild is at odds with the straight-forward Norse version. Also, there is undoubtedly a war-of-the-sexes aspect to the epic. Siegfried makes this clear in his battle with the Amazon. ‘If I now lose my life to this girl, the whole sex will become uppish and never obey their husbands forever after,’ he says. It does not seem to matter that Siegfried and Gunther cheat and lie to this obviously superior woman in the arena and in the bedroom. It all serves the higher moral purpose of keeping women subservient.
The warrior-maiden is also humbled and transformed - but more gently and without humiliation - in The Lord of the Rings. The shield maiden Éowyn who slew the Witch-king of Morgul is transformed by marriage into the gentle and subservient wife of Faramir; just as the unconquerable Amazon Queen Brunhild is transformed by marriage into the gentle and subservient wife of Gunnar.
The double standard is also vividly demonstrated in the last remarkable scene of the Nibelungenlied. Here the narrator suggests that the proper and chivalric attitude of Queen Kriemhild towards Hagen - the knight who murdered her husband, stole her treasure, and decapitated her only child - should have been mercy. When she demurs by cutting Hagen’s head off with Siegfried’s sword, her behaviour is seen as monstrous. In the chivalric tradition of the time, vengeance is a male prerogative and the slaying of even the vilest of knights by a woman is unforgivable. Immediately, a knight acts out the collective will of the court. He draws his own sword and executes her.
In the Nibelungenlied, the ring is obviously separated from the treasure before the tale properly begins. It is not with the treasure, but on the hand of the Amazon Queen. However, one aspect of the ring is taken on in the treasure trove by Tarnkappe, the cloak of invisibility that Siegfried wins by wrestling with the Dwarf Alberich. (In the same way the god Loki won the ring by wrestling with the Dwarf Andvari; and Frodo twice wrestled with Gollum for possession of the One Ring.) The trick of invisibility that the One Ring possesses is not present in Norse tales. In the Nibelungenlied Siegfried uses the Tarnkappe for invisibility against the Amazon; while both Bilbo and Frodo use the One Ring’s invisibility against various enemies, dragons and wraiths.
It is important also to point out that even though the treasure and the cape of invisibility take over aspects of the ring’s power, the ring remains the key to the epic’s tragic plot. It is the ring taken by Siegfried from Brunhild and given to Kriemhild that ultimately seals the fate of all in the Nibelungenlied; just as surely as the movement of the One Ring seals the fate of all in The Lord of the Rings.
