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97-438: Sigurðarkviða ("lay of Sigurd ") may refer to: Sigurðarkviða hin skamma Brot af Sigurðarkviðu Grípisspá ( a.k.a. Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana I ) Reginsmál (a.k.a. Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana II ) See also [ edit ] Völsunga saga Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

194-418: A certain ruler also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogeneous. Following, more or less, the political divisions of the time, several large dialect groups can be distinguished. However, the borders between them were not strong, and a dialect continuum existed between them, with spoken varieties near the edges of each dialect area showing more features of

291-657: A dragon, bathed in its blood, and thereby received skin as hard as horn that makes him invulnerable. Of the features of young Siegfried's adventures, only those that are directly relevant to the rest of the story are mentioned. In order to win the hand of Kriemhild, Siegfried becomes a friend of the Burgundian kings Gunther , Gernot, and Giselher. When Gunther decides to woo the warlike queen of Iceland , Brünhild , he offers to let Siegfried marry Kriemhild in exchange for Siegfried's help in his wooing of Brünhild. As part of Siegfried's help, they lie to Brünhild and claim that Siegfried

388-409: A dragon. Regin wants Sigurd to kill the dragon. He makes the sword Gram for Sigurd, but Sigurd chooses to kill Lyngvi and the other sons of Hunding before he kills the dragon. On his way he is accompanied by Odin. After killing the brothers in battle and carving a blood eagle on Lyngvi, Regin praises Sigurd's ferocity in battle. In Fáfnismál , Sigurd accompanies Regin to Gnita-Heath, where he digs

485-538: A fight between Siegfried and the hero Heime , in which Siegfried knocks Heime's famous sword Nagelring out of his hand, after which both armies fight for control over the sword. The text also relates that Dietrich once brought Siegfried to Etzel's court as a hostage, something which is also alluded to in the Nibelungenlied . The so-called "Heldenbuch-Prosa" , first found in the 1480 Heldenbuch of Diebolt von Hanowe and afterwards contained in printings until 1590,

582-605: A good deal seems to have been transformed by the context of the Christianization of Iceland and Scandinavia: the frequent appearance of the heathen gods gives the heroic stories the character of an epoch that is irrevocably over. Although the earliest attestations for the Scandinavian tradition are pictorial depictions, because these images can only be understood with a knowledge of the stories they depict, they are listed last here. The so-called Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson

679-459: A higher rank. Brynhild claims that Sigurd is not of noble birth, after which Grimhild announces that Sigurd and not Gunnar deflowered Brynhild. Brynhild convinces Gunnar and Högni (Hagen) to murder Sigurd, which Högni does while Sigurd is drinking from a spring on a hunt. The brothers then place his corpse in Grimhild's bed, and she mourns. The author of the saga has made a number of changes to create

776-588: A historical figure. The most popular theory is that Sigurd has his origins in one or several figures of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks : the Merovingians had several kings whose name began with the element *sigi- . In particular, the murder of Sigebert I (d. 575), who was married to Brunhilda of Austrasia , is often cited as a likely inspiration for the figure, a theory that was first proposed in 1613. Sigibert

873-423: A hook. The next night, Siegfried uses his cloak of invisibility to overpower Brünhild, allowing Gunther to sleep with her. Although he does not sleep with Brünhild, Siegfried takes her belt and ring, later giving them to Kriemhild. Siegfried and Kriemhild have a son, whom they name Gunther. Later, Brünhild and Kriemhild begin to fight over which of them should have precedence, with Brünhild believing that Kriemhild

970-514: A labial or velar consonant. Some former class 1 weak verbs retained so-called Rückumlaut . These verbs had undergone umlaut in the present tense, but the umlaut-triggering vowel was syncopated in the past tense already in Old Dutch, preventing umlaut from taking hold there. Thus, senden had the first- and third-person singular past tense sande . These verbs tended to be reinterpreted as strong verbs in later Middle Dutch; sande itself gave rise to

1067-698: A more or less coherent story out of the many oral and possibly written sources that he used to create the saga. The author mentions alternative Scandinavian versions of many of these same tales, and appears to have changed some details to match the stories known by his Scandinavian audience. This is true in particular for the story of Sigurd's youth, which combines elements from the Norse and continental traditions attested later in Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid , but also contains an otherwise unattested story of Siegfried's parents. The Thidrekssaga makes no mention of how Sigurd won

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1164-406: A pit. He stabs Fafnir through the heart from underneath when the dragon passes over the pit. Fafnir, before he dies, tells Sigurd some wisdom and warns him of the curse that lays on the hoard. Once the dragon is dead, Regin tears out Fafnir's heart and tells Sigurd to cook it. Sigurd checks whether the heart is done with his finger and burns it. When he puts his finger into his mouth, he can understand

1261-407: A place called "Thjod." Sigurd is raised at the court of king Hjálprek, receives the sword Gram from the smith Regin, and slays the dragon Fafnir on Gnita-Heath by lying in a pit and stabbing it in the heart from underneath. Sigurd tastes the dragon's blood and understands the birds when they say that Regin will kill him in order to acquire the dragon's gold. He then kills Regin and takes the hoard of

1358-487: A potion that will make him forget his promise and marry Gudrun. He will then acquire Brynhild as a wife for Gunnar and sleep with Brynhild without having sex with her. Brynhild will recognize the deception, however, and claim that Sigurd did sleep with her, and this will cause Gunnar to have him killed. The poem is likely fairly young and seems to have been written to connect the previous poems about Helgi Hundingsbane with those about Sigurd. The following three poems form

1455-493: A prophecy about his life. Grípir tells Sigurd that he will kill Hunding's sons, the dragon Fafnir , and the smith Regin , acquiring the hoard of the Nibelungen. Then he will wake a valkyrie and learn runes from her. Grípir does not want to tell Sigurd any more, but Sigurd forces him to continue. He says that Sigurd will go to the home of Heimer and betroth himself to Brynhild, but then at the court of King Gjuki he will receive

1552-503: A purely mythological figure without a historical origin. Nineteenth-century scholars frequently derived the Sigurd story from myths about Germanic deities including Odin , Baldr , and Freyr ; such derivations are no longer generally accepted. Catalin Taranu argues that Sigurd's slaying of the dragon ultimately has Indo-European origins, and that this story later became attached to the story of

1649-707: A purely mythological origin. Richard Wagner used the legends about Sigurd/Siegfried in his operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung . Wagner relied heavily on the Norse tradition in creating his version of Siegfried. His depiction of the hero has influenced many subsequent depictions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Siegfried became heavily associated with German nationalism. The Thidrekssaga finishes its tale of Sigurd by saying: [E]veryone said that no man now living or ever after would be born who would be equal to him in strength, courage, and in all sorts of courtesy, as well as in boldness and generosity that he had above all men, and that his name would never perish in

1746-481: A single unit in the manuscript of the Poetic Edda , but are split into three by modern scholars. They likely contain old material, but the poems themselves appear to be relatively recent versions. The poems also mix two conceptions of Sigurd: on the one hand, he is presented as an intelligent royal prince, on the other, he is raised by the smith Regin and is presented as stupid. It is most likely that Sigurd's youth with

1843-565: A wall of flames to wed her; Sigurd rides through the flames and weds Brynhild, but does not sleep with her, placing his sword between them in the marriage bed. Sigurd and Gunnar then return to their own shapes. Sigurd and Gudrun have two children, Svanhild and young Sigmund. Later, Brynhild and Gudrun quarrel and Gudrun reveals that Sigurd was the one who rode through the fire, and shows a ring that Sigurd took from Brynhild as proof. Brynhild then arranges to have Sigurd killed by Gunnar's brother Guthorm . Guthorm stabs Sigurd in his sleep, but Sigurd

1940-433: A word could be found spelled differently in different occurrences within the same text. There was the matter of personal taste, and many writers thought it was more aesthetic to follow French or Latin practice, leading to sometimes rather unusual spellings. The spelling was generally phonetic, and words were written based on how they were spoken rather than based on underlying phonemes or morphology. Final-obstruent devoicing

2037-541: Is ] , the name of the place where Sigurd kills the dragon in the Scandinavian tradition, represents the battlefield for the Teutoburg Forest, modern scholarship generally dismisses a connection between Sigurd and Arminius as tenuous speculation. The idea that Sigurd derives from Arminius nevertheless continues to be promoted outside of the academic sphere, including in popular magazines such as Der Spiegel . It has also been suggested by others that Sigurd may be

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2134-421: Is Gunther's vassal. Any wooer of Brünhild's must accomplish various physical tasks, and she will kill any man who fails. Siegfried, using his cloak of invisibility, aids Gunther in each task. Upon their return to Worms, Siegfried marries Kriemhild following Gunther's marriage to Brünhild. On Gunther's wedding night, however, Brünhild prevents him from sleeping with her, tying him up with her belt and hanging him from

2231-580: Is a late medieval/early modern heroic ballad that gives an account of Siegfried's adventures in his youth. It agrees in many details with the Thidrekssaga and other Old Norse accounts over the Nibelungenlied , suggesting that these details existed in an oral tradition about Siegfried in Germany. According to the Hürnen Seyfrid , Siegfried had to leave his father Siegmund's court for his uncouth behavior and

2328-469: Is able to slice Guthorm in half by throwing his sword before dying. Guthorm has also killed Sigurd's three-year-old son Sigmund. Brynhild then kills herself and is burned on the same pyre as Sigurd. The Poetic Edda appears to have been compiled around 1270 in Iceland, and assembles mythological and heroic songs of various ages. The story of Sigurd forms the core of the heroic poems collected here. However,

2425-514: Is also mentioned that he was buried in a marble sarcophagus—this may be connected to actual marble sarcophagi that were displayed in the abbey, having been dug up following a fire in 1090. In the Rosengarten zu Worms (c. 1250), Siegfried is betrothed to Kriemhild and is one of the twelve heroes who defends her rose garden in Worms. Kriemhild decides that she would like to test Siegfried's mettle against

2522-585: Is buried in Worms. The redaction of the text known as the Nibelungenlied C makes several small changes to localizations in the text: Siegfried is not killed in the Vosges, but in the Odenwald , with the narrator claiming that one can still visit the spring where he was killed near the village of Odenheim (today part of Östringen ). The redactor states the Siegfried was buried at the abbey of Lorsch rather than Worms. It

2619-404: Is considered one of the most important attestations of a continued oral tradition outside of the Nibelungenlied , with many details agreeing with the Thidrekssaga . The Heldenbuch-Prosa has very little to say about Siegfried: it notes that he was the son of King Siegmund, came from "Niederland", and was married to Kriemhild. Unattested in any other source, however, is that Kriemhild orchestrated

2716-619: Is convincing. As the Merovingian parallels are not exact, other scholars also fail to accept the proposed model. But the Sigurd/Siegfried figure, rather than being based on the Merovingian alone, may be a composite of additional historical personages, e.g., the "Caroliginian Sigifridus" alias Godfrid, Duke of Frisia (d. 855) according to Edward Fichtner (2015). Franz-Joseph Mone  [ de ] (1830) had also believed Siegfried to be an amalgamation of several historical figures, and

2813-596: Is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles , dating from the 11th century. It is possible that he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty , with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius , victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . He may also have

2910-510: Is impossible. The Poetic Edda identifies Sigurd as a king of the Franks . Frá dauða Sinfjötla is a short prose text between the songs. Sigurd is born at the end of the poem; he is the posthumous son of Sigmund, who dies fighting the sons of Hunding, and Hjordis. Hjordis is married to the son of Hjálprek and allowed to raise Sigurd in Hjálprek's home. In Grípisspá , Sigurd goes to Grípir, his uncle on his mother's side, in order to hear

3007-471: Is only the wife of a vassal. Finally, in front of the door of the cathedral in Worms, the two queens argue who should enter first. Brünhild openly accuses Kriemhild of being married to a vassal, and Kriemhild claims that Siegfried took Brünhild's virginity, producing the belt and ring as proof. Although Siegfried denies this publicly, Hagen and Brünhild decide to murder Siegfried, and Gunther acquiesces. Hagen tricks Kriemhild into telling him where Siegfried's skin

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3104-472: Is so unruly that Mimir sends him to his brother Regin, who has transformed into a dragon, in the hopes that he will kill the boy. Sigurd, however, slays the dragon and tastes its flesh, whereby he learns the language of the birds and of Mimir's treachery. He smears himself with dragon's blood, making his skin invulnerable, and returns to Mimir. Mimir gives him weapons to placate him, but Sigurd kills him anyway. He then encounters Brynhild (Brünhild), who gives him

3201-520: Is the earliest non-pictorial attestation of the Scandinavian version of Sigurd's life, dating to around 1220. Snorri retells the story of Sigurd in several chapters of the section of the poem called Skáldskaparmál . His presentation of the story is very similar to that found in the Völsunga saga (see below), but is considerably shorter. This version does not mention Sigurd's vengeance for the death of his father. The text identifies Sigurd as being raised in

3298-405: Is thus able to penetrate Siegfried's skin with his sword, and Siegfried becomes so afraid that he flees to Kriemhild's lap. Only the reappearance of Hildebrand prevents Dietrich from killing Siegfried. Siegfried's role as Kriemhild's fiancé does not accord with the Nibelungenlied , where the two are never formally betrothed. The detail that Kriemhild's father is named Gibich rather than Dancrat,

3395-556: Is unclear. The following can be said: The vowels /eɛ̯/ , /øœ̯/ and /oɔ̯/ , termed "sharp-long" and denoted with a circumflex ê ô , developed from Old Dutch long vowels. The opening diphthong pronunciation was probably widespread, and perhaps once universal, as it is nowadays still found in both West Flemish and in Limburgish, at opposite ends of the Middle Dutch language area. In the general area in between, including standard Dutch,

3492-601: Is vulnerable, and Gunther invites Siegfried to take part in a hunt in the Waskenwald (the Vosges ). When Siegfried is slaking his thirst at a spring, Hagen stabs him on the vulnerable part of his back with a spear. Siegfried is mortally wounded but still attacks Hagen, before cursing the Burgundians and dying. Hagen arranges to have Siegfried's corpse thrown outside the door to Kriemhild's bedroom. Kriemhild mourns Siegfried greatly and he

3589-592: The Middle Dutch Zegevrijt . In Early Modern German , the name develops to Seyfrid or Seufrid (spelled Sewfrid ). The modern form Siegfried is not attested frequently until the 17th century, after which it becomes more common. In modern scholarship, the form Sigfrid is sometimes used. The Old Norse name Sigurðr is contracted from an original *Sigvǫrðr , which in turn derives from an older *Sigi-warðuR . The Danish form Sivard also derives from this form originally. Hermann Reichert notes that

3686-499: The r in *Sigi-ward could have taken place in Anglo-Saxon England, where variation between -frith and -ferth is well documented. Reichert, on the other hand, notes that Scandinavian figures who are attested in pre-12th-century German, English, and Irish sources as having names equivalent to Siegfried are systematically changed to forms equivalent to Sigurd in later Scandinavian sources. Forms equivalent to Sigurd , on

3783-577: The 13th century. Its characteristics are: Hollandic was spoken in the County of Holland . It was less influential during most of the Middle Ages but became more so in the 16th century during the "Hollandic expansion", during which the Eighty Years' War took place in the south. It shows the following properties: Limburgish was spoken by the people in the provinces of modern Dutch and Belgian Limburg . It

3880-411: The 7th century and become frequent in Anglo-Saxon England in the 9th century. Jan-Dirk Müller argues that this late date of attestation means that it is possible that Sigurd more accurately represents the original name. Wolfgang Haubrichs suggests that the form Siegfried arose in the bilingual Frankish kingdom as a result of romance-language influence on an original name *Sigi-ward . According to

3977-621: The German tongue, and the same was true with the Norsemen. The names Sigurd and Siegfried do not share the same etymology. Both have the same first element, Proto-Germanic *sigi- , meaning victory. The second elements of the two names are different, however: in Siegfried , it is Proto-Germanic *-frið , meaning peace; in Sigurd , it is Proto-Germanic *-ward , meaning protection. Although they do not share

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4074-401: The Middle Dutch period. The consonants of Middle Dutch differed little from those of Old Dutch. The most prominent change is the loss of dental fricatives. In addition the sound [z] was phonemicised during this period, judging from loanwords that retain [s] to this day. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings. Notes: Most notable in

4171-408: The Middle Dutch period. A new second person plural pronoun was created by contraction of gij/jij and lui ('people') forming gullie/jullie (literally, 'you people'). Note: There are several other forms. Definite Article ( die , dat = the) Middle Dutch mostly retained the Old Dutch verb system. Like all Germanic languages, it distinguished strong , weak and preterite-present verbs as

4268-467: The Middle Dutch vowel system, when compared to Old Dutch, is the appearance of phonemic rounded front vowels, and the merger of all unstressed short vowels. Long vowels and diphthongs cannot be clearly distinguished in Middle Dutch, as many long vowels had or developed a diphthongal quality, while existing diphthongs could also develop into monophthongs. Sometimes, this occurred only in restricted dialects, other developments were widespread. Many details of

4365-405: The Nibelungen for himself. He rides away with the hoard and then awakens the valkyrie Brynhild by cutting the armor from her, before coming to king Gjuki 's kingdom. There he marries Gjuki's daughter, Gudrun, and helps her brother, Gunnar, to acquire Brynhild's hand from her brother Atli. Sigurd deceives Brynhild by taking Gunnar's shape when Gunnar cannot fulfill the condition that he ride through

4462-624: The Old Dutch long ā , and "soft-long" ā being the result of lengthening. These two vowels were distinguished only in Limburgish and Low Rhenish at the eastern end, and in western Flemish and coastal Hollandic on the western end. The relative backness of the two vowels was opposite in the two areas that distinguished them. The closing diphthong /ɛi̯/ remained from the corresponding Old Dutch diphthong. It occurred primarily in umlauting environments, with /eɛ̯/ appearing otherwise. Some dialects, particularly further west, had /eɛ̯/ in all environments (thus cleene next to cleine ). Limburgish preserved

4559-460: The Siegfried only has eight years to live. Realizing he will not be able to use the treasure, Siegfried dumps the treasure into the Rhine on his way to Worms. He marries Kriemhild and rules there together with her brothers Gunther, Hagen, and Giselher, but they resent him and have him killed after eight years. The Icelandic Abbot Nicholaus of Thvera records that while travelling through Westphalia , he

4656-463: The advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c.  1550 , there was no overarching standard language , but all dialects were mutually intelligible. During that period, a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed, which had not yet existed during Old Dutch . The various literary works of the time are often very readable for speakers of Modern Dutch since Dutch is a rather conservative language. Several phonological changes occurred leading up to

4753-514: The area around Worms but describes it as a separate kingdom from King Gibich's land (i.e. the Burgundian kingdom). The Nibelungenlied gives two contradictory descriptions of Siegfried's youth. On the level of the main story, Siegfried is given a courtly upbringing in Xanten by his father king Siegmund and mother Sieglind. When he is seen coming to Worms , capital of the Burgundian kingdom to woo

4850-449: The city of Worms record that when Emperor Frederick III visited the city in 1488, he learned that the townspeople said that the "giant Siegfried" ( gigas [...] Sifridus des Hörnen ) was buried in the cemetery of St. Meinhard and St. Cecilia. Frederick ordered the graveyard dug up—according to one Latin source, he found nothing, but a German chronicle reports that he found a skull and some bones that were larger than normal. In contrast to

4947-413: The dative singular, a remnant of the late Old Dutch inflection. In some rare occasions, the genitive singular was also endingless. Some nouns ended in -e in the singular also; these were primarily former ja-stems, which were masculine or neuter. A few were former i-stems with short stems. Nouns of this type tended to be drawn into the weak inflection by analogy. The following table shows the inflection of

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5044-522: The details of Sigurd's life and death in the various poems contradict each other, so that "the story of Sigurd does not emerge clearly from the Eddic verse". Generally, none of the poems are thought to have been composed before 900 and some appear to have been written in the 13th century. It is also possible that apparently old poems have been written in an archaicizing style and that apparently recent poems are reworkings of older material, so that reliable dating

5141-493: The diphthong wherever it was preserved in High German. The closing diphthong /ɔu̯/ has two different origins. In the vast majority of the Middle Dutch area, it developed through l-vocalization from older /ol/ and /al/ followed by a dental consonant. In the eastern area, Limburg in particular, it was a remnant of the older diphthong as in High German, which had developed into /oɔ̯/ elsewhere. L-vocalization occurred only in

5238-458: The disaster at Etzel's court in order to avenge Siegfried being killed by Dietrich von Bern. According to the Heldenbuch-Prosa, Dietrich killed Siegfried fighting in the rose garden at Worms (see the Rosengarten zu Worms section above). This may have been another version of Siegfried's death that was in oral circulation. Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid (the song of horn-skinned Siegfried)

5335-430: The distinction was mostly lost. Class 3, which retained a clear distinction that did not rely on vowel length, was levelled in favour of the o of the plural. In classes with a lengthened vowel in the present, the singular imperative often appears with a short vowel instead, e.g. les , drach . An alternative form, with final -e by analogy with the weak verbs, also occurs. The eastern dialects occasionally show i in

5432-436: The exact phonetics are uncertain, and seemed to have differed by dialect. The overall system is clear, however, as almost all the vowels remain distinct in modern Limburgish: /iː/ , /iə̯/ , /eɛ̯/ , /eː/ and /aː/ appear in modern Limburgish as /iː/ , /eː/ , /iə̯/ , /æː/ and /aː/ respectively. The vowels /ie̯/ , /yø̯/ and /uo̯/ developed from Old Dutch opening diphthongs, but their exact character in Middle Dutch

5529-468: The form of the root -vǫrðr instead of -varðr is only found in the name Sigurd , with other personal names instead using the form -varðr ; he suggests that the form -vǫrðr may have had religious significance, whereas -varðr was purely non-religious in meaning. There are competing theories as to which name is original. Names equivalent to Siegfried are first attested in Anglo-Saxon Kent in

5626-454: The former ja-stems, had an -e even in the strong and copular form, e.g. die vrouwe is clein e "the lady is small". Middle Dutch pronouns differed little from their modern counterparts. The main differences were in the second person with the development of a T-V distinction . The second-person plural pronoun ghi slowly gained use as a respectful second-person singular form. The original singular pronoun du gradually fell out of use during

5723-489: The hero Dietrich von Bern , and so she invites him and twelve of his warriors to fight her twelve champions. When the fight is finally meant to begin, Dietrich initially refuses to fight Siegfried on the grounds that the dragon's blood has made Siegfried's skin invulnerable. Dietrich is convinced to fight Siegfried by the false news that his mentor Hildebrand is dead and becomes so enraged that he begins to breathe fire, melting Siegfried's protective layer of horn on his skin. He

5820-518: The hoard of the Nibelungen. The second half of the heroic poem Biterolf und Dietleib (between 1250 and 1300) features a war between the Burgundian heroes of the Nibelungenlied and the heroes of the cycle around Dietrich von Bern, something likely inspired by the Rosengarten zu Worms . In this context, it also features a fight between Siegfried and Dietrich in which Dietrich defeats Siegfried after initially appearing cowardly. The text also features

5917-512: The horse Grane, and goes to King Isung of Bertangenland. One day Thidrek ( Dietrich von Bern ) comes to Bertangenland; he fights against Sigurd for three days. Thidrek is unable to wound Sigurd because of his invulnerable skin, but on the third day, Thidrek receives the sword Mimung, which can cut through Sigurd's skin, and defeats him. Thidrek and Sigurd then ride to King Gunnar (Gunther), where Sigurd marries Gunnar's sister Grimhild (Kriemhild). Sigurd recommends to Gunnar that he marry Brynhild, and

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6014-524: The land of the Carolingians ) and queen Sisibe of Spain. When Sigmund returns from a campaign one day, he discovers his wife is pregnant, and believing her to be unfaithful to him, he exiles her to the "Swabian Forest" (the Black Forest ?), where she gives birth to Sigurd. She dies after some time, and Sigurd is suckled by a hind before being found by the smith Mimir. Mimir tries to raise the boy, but Sigurd

6111-449: The language of the birds, who warn him of Regin's plan to kill him. He kills the smith and is told by the birds to go to a palace surrounded by flames where the valkyrie Sigdrifa is asleep. Sigurd heads there, loading the hoard on his horse. Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch . It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until

6208-524: The language. The general practice was to write long vowels with a single letter in an open syllable and with two letters in a closed syllable. Which two letters were used varied among texts. Some texts, especially those in the east, do not do so and write long vowels with a single letter in all cases (as is the predominant rule in modern German). Middle Dutch nouns inflected for number as well as case . The weakening of unstressed syllables merged many different Old Dutch classes of nominal declension. The result

6305-515: The latter being his name in the Nibelungenlied , shows that the Rosengarten does include some old traditions absent in that poem, although it is still highly dependent on the Nibelungenlied . Some of the details agree with the Thidrekssaga . Rosengarten A mentions that Siegfried was raised by a smith named Eckerich. Although the Þiðrekssaga (c. 1250) is written in Old Norse, the majority of

6402-481: The masculine noun dach "day", feminine dâet "deed" and neuter brôot "bread". Weak nouns were characterised by the ending -en throughout the plural. The singular ended in -e . The following table shows the inflection of the masculine noun bōge "bow, arc". Middle Dutch adjectives inflected according to the gender, case and number of the noun they modified. The Germanic distinction between strong and weak, or indefinite and definite inflection,

6499-423: The material is translated from German (particularly Low German ) oral tales, as well as possibly some from German written sources such as the Nibelungenlied . Therefore, it is included here. The Thidrekssaga refers to Siegfried both as Sigurd ( Sigurðr ) and an Old Norse approximation of the name Siegfried , Sigfrœð . He is the son of king Sigmund of Tarlungaland (probably a corruption of Karlungaland , i.e.

6596-470: The melted dragon skin everywhere except for one spot. Later, he stumbles upon the trail of another dragon that has kidnapped princess Kriemhild of Worms. With the help of the dwarf Eugel, Siegfried fights the giant Kuperan, who has the key to the mountain Kriemhild has been taken to. He rescues the princess and slays the dragon, finding the treasure of the Nibelungen inside the mountain. Eugel prophesies, however,

6693-469: The modern period in Limburgish, and the distinction between /ol/ and /al/ was preserved, being reflected as ów and aa respectively. Phonological changes that occurred during Middle Dutch: Middle Dutch was not a single homogeneous language. The language differed by area, with different areas having a different pronunciation and often using different vocabulary. The dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of

6790-528: The murder of the Merovingian Sigebert I. Continental Germanic traditions about Siegfried enter writing with the Nibelungenlied around 1200. The German tradition strongly associates Siegfried with a kingdom called "Niederland" (Middle High German Niderlant ), which, despite its name, is not the same as the modern Netherlands , but describes Siegfried's kingdom around the city of Xanten . The late medieval Heldenbuch-Prosa identifies "Niederland" with

6887-468: The neighbouring areas. Middle Dutch has four major dialects groups: Flemish, Brabantic and Hollandic are known as West Franconian, while Limburgic is known as East Franconian (not to be confused with the High German dialect East Franconian ). In a finer classification there are: Brabantian was spoken primarily in the Duchy of Brabant . It was an influential dialect during most of the Middle Ages, during

6984-468: The normal phonetic principles, the Germanic name would have become Romance-language *Sigevert , a form which could also represent a Romance-language form of Germanic Sigefred . He further notes that *Sigevert would be a plausible Romance-language form of the name Sigebert (see Origins ) from which both names could have arisen. As a second possibility, Haubrichs considers the option that metathesis of

7081-471: The other hand, do not appear in pre-11th-century non-Scandinavian sources, and older Scandinavian sources sometimes call persons Sigfroðr Sigfreðr or Sigfrǫðr who are later called Sigurðr . He argues from this evidence that a form equivalent to Siegfried is the older form of Sigurd's name in Scandinavia as well. Unlike many figures of Germanic heroic tradition, Sigurd cannot be easily identified with

7178-428: The past participle. In classes 6 and 7, there was no distinction between the two different vowels of the past tense. In classes 4 and 5, the difference was primarily one of length, since ā and â were not distinguished in most dialects. The difference between ê and ē , and between ô and ō , found in classes 1 and 2, was a bit more robust, but also eventually waned in the development to modern Dutch. Consequently,

7275-428: The princess Kriemhild, however, the Burgundian vassal Hagen von Tronje narrates a different story of Siegfried's youth: according to Hagen, Siegfried was a wandering warrior (Middle High German recke ) who won the hoard of the Nibelungen as well as the sword Balmung and a cloak of invisibility ( Tarnkappe ) that increases the wearer's strength twelve times. He also tells an unrelated tale about how Siegfried killed

7372-488: The same second element, it is clear that surviving Scandinavian written sources held Siegfried to be the continental version of the name they called Sigurd . The normal form of Siegfried in Middle High German is Sîvrit or Sîfrit , with the *sigi- element contracted. This form of the name had been common even outside of heroic poetry since the 9th century, though the form Sigevrit is also attested, along with

7469-411: The second- and third-person singular present indicative forms, instead of e . This is a remnant of older i-mutation in these forms. Umlaut is also sometimes found in the past subjunctive in the east. Middle Dutch retained weak verbs as the only productive class of verbs. While Old Dutch still had two different classes of weak verbs (and remnants of a third), this distinction was lost in Middle Dutch with

7566-409: The smith, his stupidity, and his success through supernatural aid rather than his own cunning is the more original of these conceptions. In Reginsmál , the smith Regin, who is staying at the court of Hjálprek, tells Sigurd of a hoard that the gods had had to assemble in order to compensate the family of Ótr , whom they had killed. Fafnir , Ótr's brother, guards the treasure now and has turned into

7663-478: The so-called "Brabantian expansion" in which the influence of Brabant was extended outwards into other areas. Compared to the other dialects, Brabantian was a kind of "middle ground" between the coastal areas on one hand, and the Rhineland and Limburg on the other. Brabantian Middle Dutch has the following characteristics compared to other dialects: Flemish, consisting today of West and East Flemish and Zeelandic ,

7760-477: The subjunctive became distinguished from the indicative only in the singular but was identical to it in the plural, and also in the past tense of weak verbs. That led to a gradual decline in the use of the subjunctive, and it has been all but lost entirely in modern Dutch. The seven classes of strong verb common to the Germanic languages were retained. The four principal parts were the present tense, first- and third-person singular past tense, remaining past tense, and

7857-430: The surviving continental traditions, Scandinavian stories about Sigurd have a strong connection to Germanic mythology . While older scholarship took this to represent the original form of the Sigurd story, newer scholarship is more inclined to see it as a development of the tradition that is unique to Scandinavia. While some elements of the Scandinavian tradition may indeed be older than the surviving continental witnesses,

7954-406: The three main inflectional classes. Verbs were inflected in present and past tense, and in three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. The weakening of unstressed vowels affected the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive moods, which had largely been determined by the vowel of the inflectional suffix in Old Dutch. In Middle Dutch, with all unstressed vowels merging into one,

8051-465: The title Sigurðarkviða . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sigurðarkviða&oldid=877859512 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Sigurd Sigurd's story

8148-464: The two ride to woo for her. Brynhild now claims that Sigurd had earlier said he would marry her (unmentioned before in the text), but eventually she agrees to marry Gunnar. She will not, however, allow Gunnar to consummate the marriage, and so with Gunnar's agreement, Sigurd takes Gunnar's shape and deflowers Brynhild, taking away her strength. The heroes then return with Brynhild to Gunnar's court. Sometime later, Grimhild and Brynhild fight over who has

8245-435: The underlying phonemic value. However, by and large, spelling was phonetic, which is logical as people usually read texts out loud. Modern dictionaries tend to represent words in a normalised spelling to form a compromise between the variable spellings on one hand and to represent the sounds of the language consistently. Thus, normalised spellings attempt to be a general or "average" spelling but still being accurate and true to

8342-608: The vowels merged with the "soft-long" vowels during the early modern Dutch period. The vowels /eː/ , /œː/ and /oː/ , termed "soft-long" and denoted with a macron ē ō , developed through the lengthening of Old Dutch short vowels in open syllables, but also frequently before /r/ . They were simple monophthongs in all Middle Dutch dialects, with the exception of western Flanders where /eː/ later developed into /ei̯/ . They might have been close-mid but also perhaps open-mid [ɛː] , [œː] and [ɔː] , as in modern Limburgish. There were two open vowels, with "sharp-long" â developed from

8439-465: The weakening of unstressed syllables. The past tense was formed with a suffix -ed- , which generally lost its e through syncope and thus came to be directly attached to the preceding stem. This triggered voicing assimilation, so that t appeared whenever the preceding stem ended in a voiceless consonant. This phenomenon remains in modern Dutch. Unsyncopated forms, which retain the fuller suffix -ed- , are sometimes found, especially with stems ending in

8536-585: Was a general distinction between strong and weak nouns. Eventually even these started to become confused, with the strong and weak endings slowly beginning to merge into a single declension class by the beginning of the modern Dutch period. The strong nouns generally originated from the Old Dutch a-stem, i-stem and u-stem inflections. They mostly had a nominative singular with no ending, and a nominative plural in -e or, for some neuter nouns, with no ending. Most strong nouns were masculine or neuter. Feminines in this class were former i-stems, and could lack an ending in

8633-399: Was fairly minimal in Middle Dutch, appearing only in the masculine and neuter nominative singular. These forms received an -e ending when a definite word (demonstrative, article) preceded, and had no ending otherwise. Adjectives were uninflected when connected through a copula. Thus, even for feminine nouns, no ending appeared: die vrouwe is goet "the lady is good". Some adjectives, namely

8730-436: Was murdered by his brother Chilperic I at the instigation of Chilperic's wife queen Fredegunda . If this theory is correct, then in the legend, Fredegunda and Brunhilda appear to have switched roles, while Chilperic has been replaced with Gunther. Jens Haustein  [ de ] (2005) argues that, while the story of Sigurd appears to have Merovingian resonances, no connection to any concrete historical figure or event

8827-465: Was not clearly tied to one political area, instead being divided among various areas, including the Duchy of Limburg (which was south of modern Limburg). It was also the most divergent of the dialects. Kleverlandish ("Kleverlands") was spoken around the area of the Duchy of Cleves , around the Lower Rhine . It represented a transitional dialect between Limburgish and Middle Low German . Middle Dutch

8924-428: Was raised by a smith in the forest. He was so unruly, however, that the smith arranged for him to be killed by a dragon. Siegfried was able to kill the dragon, however, and eventually kills many more by trapping them under logs and setting them on fire. The dragon's skin, described as hard as horn, melts, and Siegfried sticks his finger into it, discovering that his finger is now hard as horn as well. He smears himself with

9021-527: Was reflected in the spelling, and clitic pronouns and articles were frequently joined to the preceding or following word. Scribes wrote in their own dialect, and their spelling reflected the pronunciation of that particular scribe or of some prestige dialect by which the scribe was influenced. The modern Dutch word maagd (" maiden ") for example was sometimes written as maghet or maegt , but also meget , magt , maget , magd , and mecht . Some spellings, such as magd , reflect an early tendency to write

9118-470: Was shown the place where Sigurd slew the dragon (called Gnita-Heath in the Norse tradition) between two villages south of Paderborn . In a song of the mid-13th-century wandering lyric poet Der Marner, "the death of Siegfried" ( Sigfrides [...] tôt ) is mentioned as a popular story that the German courtly public enjoys hearing, along with "the hoard of the Nibelungs" ( der Nibelunge hort ). The chronicles of

9215-484: Was spoken in the County of Flanders , northern parts of the County of Artois and areas around the towns of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer . Though due to their intermediary position between West Flemish and Brabantian , the East Flemish dialects have also been grouped with the latter. Flemish had been influential during the earlier Middle Ages (the "Flemish expansion") but lost prestige to the neighbouring Brabantian in

9312-535: Was the first to suggest possible connection with the Germanic hero Arminius from the Roman period, famed for defeating Publius Quinctilius Varus 's three legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. Later Adolf Giesebrecht  [ de ] (1837) asserted outright that Sigurd/Siegfried was a mythologized version of Arminius. Although this position was taken more recently by Otto Höfler (beginning in 1959), who also suggested that Gnita-Heath  [

9409-511: Was written in the Latin alphabet , which was not designed for writing Middle Dutch so different scribes used different methods of representing the sounds of their language in writing. The traditions of neighbouring scribes and their languages led to a multitude of ways to write Middle Dutch. Consequently, spelling was not standardised but was highly variable and could differ by both time and place as various "trends" in spelling waxed and waned. Furthermore,

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