According to
Jesse Byock (The Prose Edda, Norse Mythology, 2005) the Edda “recounts the
Norse creation epic and the subsequent struggles of the gods’ tragic
realization that the future holds one final cataclysmic battle, Ragnarok, when
the world will be destroyed.”
There is much
more of a Christian influence on the Germanic prose of the Nibelungenlied than
the Norse. While Snorri Sturluson does ground his mythology in the guise of Christianity,
there is actually very little apparent Christian influence outside the prologue:
“In the
beginning, almighty God created heaven and earth and all that pertains to them…[short
discussion on Adam and Eve and Noah and worldly ambition etc.] …they abandoned
their obedience to God, going so far that they no longer desired to name God.
Who was able to tell their sons about God’s wondrous deeds? Thus they lost God’s
name, and nobody could be found anywhere in the world who knew his maker.”
King Gylfi
goes on a quest to understand the origins of the world, and ends up in a hall reminiscent
of Valhalla where he sits down with three figures, High, Just-as-High and Third
(all of which are names for Odin), to discuss cosmology.
The narrative
then progressive with a question and answer session between Gylfi, disguised as
an old man, and Odin disguised as three mortals. Gylif is curious about the
origin of the gods; who for example is the oldest? Or the highest? What was the
beginning or how did things start?
“Early of
ages, when nothing was. There was neither sand nor sea nor cold waves. The
earth was not found not the sky above. Ginnungagp [the great void before
creation] was there, but grass, was nowhere.” (The Sibyl’s Prophecy. 3)
While there
are Christian themes ameliorated into the narrative, for example the concept of
a Trinitarian God, the Christian elements are subtle and the Edda reads more
like a “Just So” story or Ovid’s Metamorphoses than a treatise on faith.
The
Nibelungenlied by comparison chooses to keep a Germanic and barbaric epic narrative (lots
of blood and gore and descriptive decapitations) with a sprinkling of the
catholic rite and ritual. In fact, I
think the most suspenseful scene in the Nibelungenlied is when Hagen and his
warriors, suspicious of Kriemhild’s very evident plan to murder them, choose to
wear their armor and carry their swords into mass. It’s all very edge of your
seat.
The world of
the Edda is comprised of dwarfs and elves and Middle Earth etc., It is not hard
to see the influence the Edda had on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. In fact, I think you could probably insert a
paragraph from either book into the other without much discontinuity. Besides the fact that Tolkein uses many of the
same names and concepts of the Edda, probably the most emblematic comparison is
that of the ‘ring’. While we are all probably familiar with the role the ‘ring’
played in Tolkein’s trilogy, Snorri’s version is not too dissimilar: the ring
will ultimately harm its owner and bring death and destruction wherever it
goes.
King Gylfi
asks: ‘Why is gold called Otter’s ransom?’ And in response Odin tell the
following story:
Loki, Odin
and Hoenir are traveling throughout the world, Loki as usual is contemplating
some sort of mischief to enact on the gods, when the trio stumble upon an otter
taking a bath in a river. Loki kills the otter and a salmon and as they make
their way through the forest they are pleased with their catch and anticipated
lunch. Unbeknownst to them, they have actually killed the son of the magical
woodsman Hreidmar. When Hreidmar realizes this is what has happened, he calls
his sons, Fafnir and Regin and they bind the three gods preparing to kill them.
The gods beg for their lives and promise a ransom. After a bit of contemplation,
the woodsmen agree: the gods must fill the sack, made with the skin flayed from
the otter, with red gold. The gods agree and Odin sends Loki to go find the
dwarf Andvari, who has a predilection for turning himself into a fish, and
lives in a rock cave filled with a hoard of gold. As Andvari hands over the
gold, he hides a little ring in his hand, not wishing to part with it, but Loki
having seen the subtle gesture demands that the ring be turned over. The words ‘my
precious’ may not have been used, but it’s the same general gist. As Loki grabs
the ring and heads back to the woodsmen, the dwarf screams out a warning and a
curse that the ring will be the death of whoever possesses it.
The curse of
the ring begins its malevolent work immediately. As Loki unburdens himself of
the gold, Hreidmar casts his eyes over the compensation for his son’s death, again
the words “my precious” might not actually be spoken in so many words, but you
can sense the sentiment. Fafnir and Regin ask for their part of the gold and
when their father refuses to part with even a single gold coin, Fafnir kills
him. Then Regin turns to Fafnir; now that their father is dead, the most
rational decision would be to split the gold evenly down the middle, but Fafnir
laughs, after he killed his own father for the gold does Regin actually think
he is about to share it? As Regin decides maybe he will leave and take that
vacation he’s always promised himself. Fafnir, now wearing the Aegis-Helm (the
Helm of Dread) makes himself a lair in the Gnita-Heath, and turning himself
into a dragon lays down on his hoard of gold.
Enter our
hero from the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried, who in the Norse version has become Sigurd.
Rigen is
annoyed at his brother just because he killed his father first and then turned
himself into a dragon etc. doesn’t mean he gets to keep the gold. Not fair! He
makes his way to Thjod and finds Sigurd, the strongest warrior in the land renowned
for his strength and courage, and bates him with treasure (the hoard of the
Nibelungelied). We are forced to read between the lines, but the discussion
must have gone something like this: A dragon is lying on my pile of gold, want
to kill it? My translation says: “Regin told him where Fafnir lay on the gold
and urged him to seek the treasure.” I’m emphasizing this because what happens
next can only be described as foul play.
Sigurd, the
brilliant and cunning warrior that he is, digs a pit in the path that Fafnir
always takes and then hides himself in it waiting for the dragon to pass by. As
Fafnir crawls along the path inattentive to his surroundings, probably thinking
something along the lines of “my precious”, he passes over the pit and Sigurd
thrusts his sword into his belly killing him instantaneously. At this point,
Regin rushes forward crying “you just killed my brother!”
“As settlement
between him and Sigurd, he asked Sigurd to take Fafnir’s heart and roast it on
the fire. Then Regin lay down, drank Fafnir’s blood and went to sleep.”
There are
some deeply disturbing familial issues at play here, but Sigurd seems unfazed. He
busies himself with cooking up some dragon heart and as it is roasting nicely
on the stick he touches it to find out if it is still raw, when the boiling
blood from the heart drips onto his finger scalding him. He quickly puts his
finger in his mouth and immediately can understand the language of birds. (Not
quite as cool as the immortality Siegfried got for killing his dragon…but still
pretty cool.) Lucky for Sigurd, the birds are poets and apparently mind readers
for they warn Sigurd of the nefarious plans of Regin in iambic pentameter.
Sigurd kills
Regin, hops on his horse Grani, and makes his way to Fafnir’s lair where he
loads up the gold and heads home for praise and adoration.
On the way he
finds Brynhild, (or Brunhild of the Nibelungenlied), unlike her Germanic
counterpart she is not a giantess obsessed with track and field events but a Valkyrie,
trapped in a sleep inducing helmet and mail coat. Sigurd cuts the mail coat away and removes the
helmet and frees Brynhild from her stupor and then makes his way to the
Gjukungs, where he marries the princess Gudrun (or Kriemhild of the
Nibelungenlied.)
In the Norse
version Brynhild is the sister of Attila the Hun, and Gudrun’s brother Gunnar
has his eye on her. Brynhild after being rescued by Sigurd has established
herself on the top of a mountain surrounded by a “wavering flame.” She has
taken an oath that she will only marry a man capable of riding through flames
for her. Gunnar, with the best of intentions, tries to ride his horse Goti
through the flames, but Goti won’t have it. Sigurd changes form with Gunnar and
rides through the flame and marries Brynhild on Gunnar’s behalf. That evening
as they get into bed, Sigurd draws his sword, Gram, and lays it between them, as
a sign of protecting her virginity, which is a much more chivalrous version of
the marriage night than the Nibelungenlied.
The next
morning, as payment for the ‘linen fee’ Sigurd gives Brynhild the gold ring that
Loki had taken from Andvari and she gives him one of her rings in
exchange. He then jumps on his horse,
rides back to his companions, presumably with Brynhild in tow, quickly changes
form with Gunnar and the now happy party makes their way back to Gjuki to live
happily ever after.
Except this
is an epic. And there’s that dastardly ring involved, so no one actually lives
for long and whether their short lives are happy is questionable.
We now come
to the infamous quarrel between the two brides. Once again, a version of ‘my
husband’s stronger than your husband’ is played out, but this time as the women
are washing their hair in a nearby stream. Brynhild refuses to have her hair
washed with water that has already run through Gudrun’s hair because hers is
the more courageous husband. Makes sense. Predictably, as these things go, Gudrun
then has to wade farther out from shore saying her husband is more valiant and
courageous and as proof she offers the anecdotal evidence: her husband
(obviously much stronger than any mortal living including Gunner etc.) has
killed Fafnir the dragon and Regin the nefarious woodsman and taken both their
inheritances.
That’s pretty
impressive, but didn’t Gunnar ride gloriously through hell flame and fire to
marry Brynhild, while Sigurd was hardly man enough to stand guard? Obviously
Brynhild wins. Fire beats dragon.
Gudrun
laughingly says “Do you think it was Gunnar who rode through the wavering fire?
This I know: the one who came into your bed was the one who gave me this gold
ring. Further, the gold ring you have on your hand, which you received as the
morning gift, is called Andvaranaut, and I do not believe that Gunnar was the
one to get it at Gnita- Heath.”
Brynhild says
nothing. Or at least Snorri doesn’t allow her a retort. Instead she makes her
way home and urges her husband to kill Sigurd, which he does with little
prompting. (Actually, to be more accurate, since he took an oath not to harm
Sigurd, he tells his brother Gothram to kill Sigurd, which he immediately does
by thrusting a sword threw the sleeping Sigurd).
(I like the
immortal Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied a bit better. With only a small pervious section of his
back grounding him in mortality there’s much more intrigue and planning
involved than: sword in the back while sleeping.)
Brynhild then grabbing the sword from Gothram
thrusts it into herself. Sigurd and Brynhild are then burnt together on a pyre.
We are given nothing about Gunnar’s emotional state, having just lost his wife
and brother-in-law, he seems less distraught than one would imagine. He quickly
takes the gold from Sigurd and the ring from Brynhild and heads back home to
rule over the lands.
Gudrun then
decides to marry Brynhild’s brother, King Attila. One sentence later it’s time
for a visit from Gunnar, for good measure he decides to hide his hoard of gold
in the Rhine, where it remains to be found (the same place it was hidden in the
Nibelungenlied). King Attila is waiting for Gunnar and his men and within 2
sentences has cut out the heart of Gunnar’s side kick and thrown Gunnar into a
pit of snakes. Luckily, Gunnar was secretly given a harp which he was forced to
play with his toes, since his hands were bound. As he plays his melody the
snakes begin to fall asleep, all except one:
“This one
glided towards him and struck just below the breastbone so that she buried her
head into his flesh, grabbing hold of his liver until he died.”
It is now
Gudrun’s turn to wreak havoc on the life of her husband, King Attila. She
murders her two sons and makes goblets from their skulls. At the funeral procession
for her brother she presents her husband with these macabre goblets filled with
the blood of their sons. And then just in case he doesn’t get the memo that she
is truly psychotic, she has her sons hearts roasted and given to the king to
eat. Um what?! She shouts and yells and with “foul” language tells her one
dimensional husband what she has done. This is the next sentence:
“There was no
lack of strong mead at the feast and most people feel asleep where they were
sitting.”
Gudrun does
not fall asleep. Instead she murders her husband as he slept (what?!) and then
burns the hall so that all the guests burn to death.
As a whole,
if one can compare these two entirely different pieces of literature I think
the Nibelungendlied is more…readable?
