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32-522: The poem concerns Dietrich's fight with the eponymous giant Sigenot, who defeats Dietrich and takes him prisoner. Dietrich must be rescued by his mentor Hildebrand , who himself is defeated by the giant but manages to escape with the help of the dwarf Eggerich and kill the giant. The Sigenot exists in two principle versions. It was by far the most popular of all Dietrich poems, being transmitted in eight extant manuscripts and twenty-one printings until 1661. It inspired various artistic depictions as well. It

64-582: A courtly manner toward women, something which, the poem notes, he is never said to have done. The poem thus appears to be turning away from the topic of heroic poetry to the subject matter of courtly romance. Joachim Heinzle suggests that Albrecht may have had the Dietrich poem Laurin in mind specifically, as it also concerns Dietrich's battle against a dwarf king and is characterized by extreme violence. Victor Millet argues that Albrecht, in deliberately turning away from traditional tales about Dietrich, shows that

96-405: A wild man who is keeping the dwarf Baldung captive. As a reward, the dwarf gives Dietrich a protective jewel and directs him to Sigenot. Dietrich fights Sigenot and is taken prisoner. Sigenot throws Dietrich into a snake pit , but the jewel protects him. Sigenot decides to head for Bern. Hildebrand , now worried by Dietrich's long absence, sets out to find him: on the way he encounters Sigenot and

128-495: A "version" of these two overarching versions. Formerly, it was believed that the "younger Sigenot " represented an expansion of the shorter version found in the "older Sigenot ". Now the "younger Sigenot is widely believed to be the older version of the two. Given the age of the first manuscript, the poem must have existed before 1300, most likely in the Swabian-Alemannic dialect area. Like almost all German heroic poems , it

160-541: A cycle of frescoes in Wildenstein Castle , probably in the 1520s. The frescoes, of which 32 survive in poor condition, were perhaps based on the woodcuts found in the printing of 1520. The late manuscript hs 1 (S 3 ), created for Margaret of Savoy has been extensively illuminated , with around 201 miniatures . Nearly every stanza of the poem is accompanied with an illumination. The illuminations are very similar to each other on each page, showing every stage of

192-540: A girl with them, and immediately falls in love. The dwarfs attempt to hide the girl, and their king, Goldemar, responds when Dietrich asks them about her. The text breaks off in the middle of his speech. From the Heldenbuch-Prosa we know that the girl's name is Herlin, a princess from Portugal. King Goldemar had abducted her after her father was slain by heathens, but the girl had resisted Goldemar's attempts to sleep with her. Dietrich then rescued and married her. From

224-503: A princess. It is the only poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic poetry with a named author that is accepted as genuine. Only the first nine stanzas of the Goldemar have survived. They tell that Dietrich once set off into the forest to defeat the giants who live in Trutmunt forest. While on this quest, he comes across a mountain where dwarfs make their home. He notices that the dwarfs have

256-621: A written poem about Hilde and Grim; the tale may have been a purely oral one and well known to the Sigenot's audience In the Thidrekssaga, Hilde and Grim are said to give their name to Dietrich's helmet, the Hildegrim; George Gillespie argues that they are likely a late addition to the oral tradition in order to explain the meaning of name Hildegrim (meaning battle specter) once this was no longer obvious. Count Gottfried Werner von Zimmern commissioned

288-403: Is able to free himself, slays the giant and frees Dietrich with the help of the dwarf Duke Eggerich. The two heroes then return to Bern. In the jüngerer Sigenot , the poem begins with Hildebrand telling Dietrich about Sigenot. He warns him not to go into the forest to fight the giant. Dietrich ignores this advice and sets out to find Sigenot. Then, before encountering the giant, Dietrich fights

320-467: Is anonymous. The "older Sigenot is attested in one manuscript: It is likely that this version of 44 stanzas has been deliberately shortened to serve as an introduction or prologue to the Eckenlied , which follows it in the manuscript. The final stanza of the poem includes an explicit mention that the Eckenlied will begin next. The "younger Sigenot has around 2000 stanzas, varying by attestation, and

352-678: Is attested both in Tyrol and in Thurgau , meaning the poet may come from either area. 19th century scholars attempted to ascribe the authorship of the Eckenlied , the Virginal , and the Sigenot to Albrecht due to the use of the same stanzaic form (the "Berner Ton") in all, as well as various supposed stylistic similarities, but this theory has been given up. The "Berner Ton" consists of thirteen lines rhyming in

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384-468: Is attested in all the remaining manuscripts and printings: There are also more than 21 printings, with the last being printed in Nuremberg in 1661. Although the Sigenot was one of the most popular poems about Dietrich von Bern, it has not been treated kindly by scholars, with both Joachim Heinzle and Victor Millet dismissing it as uninteresting. The poem shows little self-reflexively: Hildebrand stylizes

416-422: Is nevertheless not regarded very highly as a work of art and has received little scholarly attention. The poem exists in two principle versions: the so-called elder Sigenot ( älterer Sigenot ), and the younger Sigenot ( jüngerer Sigenot ) (see "Transmission, versions, and dating" below). In the älterer Sigenot , Dietrich awakens the giant Sigenot in the forest by kicking him. The giant then recognizes Dietrich by

448-547: Is possible that this is an authorial fiction, Albrecht is generally accepted as the genuine author of the poem. His being named, as opposed to the usual practice of anonymous heroic poems, likely marks Albrecht's ambition to write a poem more similar to a courtly romance. He is praised and mentioned as alive in Rudolf von Ems 's Alexander (c. 1230), but dead in Rudolf's Willehalm von Orlens (c. 1235/40). The family name "von Kemenaten"

480-492: Is taken prisoner. Left alone in Sigenot's cave, Hildebrand frees himself and dresses in Dietrich's armor. He then slays Sigenot and frees Dietrich with Eggerich's help. The Sigenot exists in two overarching versions, the so-called "older Sigenot " and the "younger Sigenot " ( jüngerer Sigenot ). Because of the heavy variability between manuscripts in the fantastical Dietrich poems, each individual manuscript can be considered to be

512-712: Is very likely of Lombardic origin. He is associated with the cycle of legends about Theodoric the Great , called Dietrich in German, to whom he is a companion. Hildebrand appears in many works, most prominently in the Old High German Hildebrandslied , the Middle High German Nibelungenlied , in the Old Norse song "Hildebrand's Death" in Ásmundar saga kappabana (called Hildibrandr ), and in

544-488: Is wounded fatally by him and the shield with the picture of his son falls near to his head on the ground. He begs his half-brother to cover his body, and to bury him properly. Although associated with historical characters from the 5th and 6th centuries, Theodoric and Odoacer , Hildebrand himself has not been identified as a historical personage. Goldemar Goldemar is a fragmentary thirteenth-century Middle High German poem by Albrecht von Kemenaten about

576-500: The Eckenlied can stand in as an example: Werner Hoffmann describes the entire poem as an invention of the thirteenth century, as there are no attestations for a giant named Sigenot or a dwarf named Eggerich before the poem. However, the poem may connect to Dietrich's captivity among giants, as referenced in the Waldere and found in Virginal : Joachim Heinzle suggests that it was created in

608-484: The 13th century under the influence of this traditional story. The text also makes reference to Dietrich's battle with Hilde and Grim, which is told in the Thidrekssaga and referenced in the Eckenlied , but about which no poem survives. The story of Hilde and Grim functions as a sort of prequel to Sigenot , showing an attempt to connect the poems together in a cycle. Victor Millet suggests that there may never have been

640-600: The Goldemar, medical recipes, a Latin-German glossary of the names of herbs, and a second Dietrich poem, the Virginal are found. The manuscript is found today in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (Hs. 80). The poem itself probably dates to sometime around 1230, as this the time when its author is attested. Goldemar is the only German heroic poem with a named author, Albrecht von Kemenaten. Though it

672-413: The coat of arms on his shield as the slayer of Hilde and Grim, two giant relatives of his, and forces Dietrich to fight him, despite a sudden reluctance ( zagheit ) on Dietrich's part. Dietrich is thrown into a dungeon. Sigenot now heads to Bern ( Verona ) to defeat Hildebrand , and, encountering him in the forest, takes him prisoner as well. However, once Hildebrand has been dragged to Dietrich's prison, he

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704-510: The fight against giants as the chief task of any hero. The text also includes some comical elements, as when Sigenot is able to carry Dietrich under his arm, or when Dietrich's fiery breath, with which he defeated Siegfried in the Rosengarten zu Worms , proves useless against the giant. That Dietrich and Hildebrand together defeat the giant likely shows the solidarity of the noble warriors rather than any suggestion of Dietrich's inadequacy. Like

736-519: The following scheme: aabccbdedefxf . The following stanza from Lienert's edition of Goldemar can serve as a typical example: Helmut de Boor argues that, even if Albrecht was not the author of all four poems in the "Berner Ton", he was clearly the inventor of such a complicated metrical form, an opinion shared by Werner Hoffmann. This would make Albrecht the "inventor" of the fantastical poems about Dietrich. Joachim Heinzle, however, has argued that Albrecht's metrical form actually shows him to be using

768-485: The form of the "Berner Ton" given above, rather than that found in the earliest attested example, the single Eckenlied stanza transmitted in the Codex Buranus . Heinzle concludes from this fact that Albrecht adapted an already existing form. The poem begins with a sharp critique of existing heroic poetry as a glorification of brutality. Albrecht will instead tell a tale of how Dietrich came to fall in love and behave in

800-418: The heroic material could now be invented freely rather than told and retold. Notwithstanding Millet's opinion, some aspects of the Goldemar may still be connected to an oral tradition. Goldemar, for instance, shares his name with a spirit said to haunt houses. He is attested in the work of fifteenth-century historian Person Gobelinus as Rex Goldemer . Heinzle sees this a connection between this spirit and

832-573: The late medieval Jüngeres Hildebrandslied . He also appears as Hildiger in Gesta Danorum . In the Nibelungenlied , he is the armourer, brother-in-arms, and fatherly friend of Dietrich von Bern . Hildebrand kills Kriemhild , after she orders her brother's death and then kills Hagen herself. Hildebrand plays a supporting role to Dietrich in the numerous poems of the Dietrich cycle; in poems such as Virginal and Sigenot , Hildebrand tutors

864-413: The late medieval romance Reinfrid von Braunschweig we also know that Dietrich had to defeat various giants who were at Goldemar's command. In the process, Dietrich and his companions destroyed the Trutmunt forest and the dwarfs' mountain. The Goldemar is transmitted in a single paper manuscript dating from the middle of the fourteenth-century (c. 1355-1357). Only eight leaves survive, on which, besides

896-459: The legendary hero Dietrich von Bern , the counterpart of the historical Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great in Germanic heroic legend . It is one of the so-called fantastical ( aventiurehaft ) Dietrich poems, so called because it more closely resembles a courtly romance than a heroic epic . The poem concerns Dietrich's fight with the dwarf king Goldemar after he sees the dwarf absconding with

928-466: The majority of German heroic epics , the Sigenot is written in stanzas. The poem is composed in a stranzaic form known as the "Berner Ton," which consists of 13 lines in the following rhyme scheme: aabccbdedefxf . It shares this metrical form with the poems Goldemar , Eckenlied , and Virginal . Early modern melodies for the "Berner Ton" have survived, indicating that it was meant to be sung. The following stanza from S 1 connecting that poem to

960-555: The poem's narrative, so that one gets the impression of a series of film stills. The illuminations appear to be from the workshop of Ludwig Henfflin. Hildebrand Hildebrand is a character from Germanic heroic legend . Hildebrand is the modern German form of the name: in Old High German it is Hiltibrant and in Old Norse Hildibrandr . The word hild means "battle" and brand means "sword". The name itself

992-494: The young Dietrich and saves him from various scrapes. In the Hildebrandslied , which is older, Hildebrand fights his own son Hadubrand. Hildebrand had gone into exile with Dietrich. 30 years later, Hildebrand returns and encounters his son Hadubrand, who is leading his army against Hildebrand. The two leaders meet between the armies. They converse before fighting, and Hadubrand says that he is "Hadubrand Hildebrand's son", but he

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1024-571: Was told that Hildebrand died, and he accuses Hildebrand of being an old Hun and refuses to believe that he is his father. The poem ends before a conclusion is reached, but in "Hildebrand's Death" it is related that he killed his son. The Old Norse Thidrekssaga and the Jüngeres Hildebrandslied both contain versions in which Hildebrand defeats his son (here named Alebrand) but does not kill him. The Scandinavian song "Hildebrand's death" tells how Hildebrand fights against his half-brother. He

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