Nibelungenlied: introduction Kriemhild

[eller]

I’m re-reading the Nibelungenlied! Again! It’s not as if I’d know large parts of it by heart by now, noooooo…. :D I decided to post this because I can’t help it, I always laugh out loud at Kriemhild’s character introduction. (Very free translation by me – the grammar with its passive structures doesn’t have a direct equivalent in English that doesn't sound horribly clunky, so please don’t take this as a lecture in Middle High German! I'm trying for "makes sense" rather than "correct".)

Ez wuohs in Burgonden ein vil edel magedîn - There grew up, in Burgundy, a very noble maid
daz in allen landen niht schoeners mohte sîn, - so there could have been none more beautiful anywhere*,  
Kriemhild geheizen, si wart ein schoene wîp, - called Kriemhild, she became a beautiful woman
darumbe mousen degene vil verliesen den lîp. - because of whom many heroes** had to lose their life***.   

*in all countries|places - basically, she's the world's most beautiful woman.
**degen: boy, man, fighter, warrior, hero. In the Nibelungenlied, it's typically used to refer to the male heroic characters, so I chose to translate it as "hero" rather than just "man" although both would be technically correct. It's the context.
***or: lose the body; lîp can refer to both. I chose the one that makes more sense in English. Either way: they die.

LOLOLOL

This is, of course, heavy sarcasm - and an intentional play with genre tropes. (Throughout the whole text, Unknown Author shows a deep knowledge of what the audience is expecting… While subverting it in creative ways. It’s one of the things that make the poem so much fun!)

Here, the audience expects the introduction of the main female character of a classic adventure story of the time. Unknown Author clearly was having some fun with introducing our (anti-)heroine Kriemhild! She’s beautiful beyond compare (Of course! Somehow, ladies in epic poetry always are!) and, by emphasizing that, the author intentionally sets her up as a conventional medieval heroine while nevertheless foreshadowing the bloody events to follow. Basically, the medieval audience is led to believe that the knights will have to go on some kind of lethally dangerous quest for her sake, to save her or to win her love or whatever. Maybe fight each other over her, too. That’s what usually happens in these stories when a legendarily beautiful woman is mentioned! So, the listeners won’t expect that beautiful young noblewoman herself going on a murder spree (and, indeed, cause the death of many heroes that way)… Ah, I love it when poets possess a healthy sense of humor.

[Also, I strongly suspect the extreme (and, unfortunately, hard-to-translate) use of passive voice in this stanza is chosen intentionally for the same reason: to obfuscate the fact Kriemhild is extremely active when it comes to murder driving the plot. Maximal contrast! Is snarky grammar a thing? Because these are some of the most ironic verb forms I've ever seen, and I don't think they're a lucky accident.]

It’s notable that female characters rarely had their own agenda in fiction of that time, so having a female lead character – who does her own killing, too – is highly unusual. Ladies usually appear as the one to be saved, the one to be married, the one sending the hero off to have the actual adventure… You know it. And yet, Kriemhild is an independent character with not only opinions on what the male characters are doing, but with her own plotline. (Oh, and she's the first of the main cast to be introduced, too! By medieval epic poetry conventions, that makes her the main main character, the one who the whole poem is about.)

And she’s a worthy opponent for Hagen, who is seriously badass himself. (By the way, having a deadly conflict between a female and a male character who are equally matched and also equally amoral, and not judged by different standards for that is another genre transgression. Unknown Author is good at those.) While I don’t actually like Kriemhild as a person, I… appreciate her existence in medieval literature.

I maintain this is the coolest character intro, ever.

Comments

[mekare]

Huh, I did NOT know that. I feel educated thank you! I‘ve never read Nibelungen only listened to parts of Wagner‘s Ring.

[eller]

Heh, I'm decidedly fannish about the Nibelungenlied, so... Glad to entertain. XD (I'm not aiming for education here, haha.)

Ah, Wagner. Of course, I have Opinions about Wagner. ;) Not going into detail, but - while his music is awesome, the plot a) mainly draws on sources older than the Nibelungenlied, which is already fanfiction of older myths, and b) is political, which sours my enjoyment of it... XDD Let's just say Wagner's version has not much to do with the Nibelungenlied beyond character names and one or two major plot points.

[carmenta]

Ah, Kriemhild. I've never managed to warm up to her, because she's just so... young and naive in the first half of the tale. I like both her and Hagen a lot better in the second half of the narrative, where their motives are terrible but they are at least aware of the insanity they're sparking.

And I always felt that Kriemhild's death in the end is just a terrible resolution, especially with the implication that it had to be because she acted dishonorably. She had to die to end the story, but it should have happened differently.

[eller]

I'm ambivalent about Kriemhild's death. I mean, she did act dishonorably by killing an unarmed, bound man! So it kind of had to be an ignominous death for her... Of course, it also had to be an ignominous death for Hagen, whose murder of Siegfried was equally dishonorable. Oh, and Siegfried had to die like that (like an animal) because, hey, he dishonored himself during that whole Brunhild rape issue. It's poetic justice all around... Medieval German poetic justice, I mean. ;)

Of course, Kriemhild's death is woefully undramatic. That could have been done better. XDDD

[carmenta]

I've always felt that death by throwing herself into fire would have been a good parallel to Brunhild's end for her, but inconveniently the feasting hall had already been burned down before the slaughter really got going. She really should have considered that before committing to the arson idea!

That entire ending is anticlimatic. Fitting for Gunther, but Hagen and Kriemhild got totally cheated.

[eller]

Mh, but suicide doesn't really sound in character for Kriemhild... I don't think she's the type?!? Maybe she just should have fought it out with her brothers properly. XD

Hagen's death... I was, somehow, satisfied with that. Hagen is my favorite character, but I think his death is very much in style. He gets murdered instead of dying in battle like a proper warrior - but, at the same time, he's made sure Kriemhild will never get the treasure back. So, he won. He got exactly the end he was working towards, anyway.

[carmenta]

Maybe if she'd had the choice between execution or suicide? I don't see her as someone willing to relinquish her agency at that point. There's always the oldie but goodie of throwing herself on a sword. She had Balmung in her hand anyway after beheading Hagen, she could have gone for that!

I find the very fine line they're treading in the end interesting as far as Hagen's status as a heroic, honorable warrior goes. He's been dishonorable more than once, and recently, too. So he gets an execution, but it's plain that this isn't seen as appropriate. It's such a conscious move to have Hildebrand be the one to judge and kill Kriemhild, given that he's supposedly wise and beyond reproach where honour is concerned. With him doing it, the entire thing becomes an appropriate reaction.

[eller]

Ah. Yes. With a choice between execution or suicide... I can see that. Though, of course, she'd still try to take as many enemies with her as she can. XD

Hagen and honor... That's a fine line, indeed! XDDD The interesting part - for me, anyway - is that he's a honorable man while following a different set of morals than the other characters. The ongoing values dissonance makes judging his actions extremely difficult.

Oh, Hildebrand's reaction was appropriate by medieval standards. It's clear Hildebrand - despite being Hagen's enemy - respects Hagen too much to just accept the way Kriemhild killed him... So, that was going to happen. XDD Also, I mean, executing defenseless prisoners outside of active combat is seen as a war crime even now. There's no way Kriemhild's killing of Hagen was appropriate. I think that's what the author wanted to show, too: Kriemhild has all the good reasons to hate Hagen - but that doesn't justify everything.

[margaret_r]

I know nothing about Nibelungenlied, but it sounds fascinating!

[eller]

Oh, this is just me being eccentric, in that one of my main fandoms just happens to be medieval German poetry. XDD

[ermingarden]

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this analysis so much! This makes me really, really wish I knew Middle High German so I could appreciate the original.

[eller]

I'm glad to entertain! :D Oh, and don't worry: I'm sure there are good English-language translations around. Probably even done by professionals. XD

[wayfaringwordhack]

I enjoyed the comments just as much as your analysis. Thank you. :D

[eller]

Fandom is awesome: even medieval poetry nerdery will generate good conversations! :D

[wayfaringwordhack]

Indeed :D

[minoanmiss]

I am going to come back and read your awesome recent posts.

[carmenta]

Hagen strikes me as someone who's concerned with honor, but not always his own. He clearly puts Gunther's above his own and is willing to get his own hands dirty in order to keep his king and liege away from the muck. So in a way, he's dishonorable, but for honorable reasons. He really must have wished for a stronger king more than once.

I wonder whether there could have been an exit strategy for Kriemhild in the end that would have been permissible and let her live. Slaughtering the Burgundians in itself appears to have been borderline acceptable for Etzel and Dietrich, she only overstepped right at the end. Even beheading her brother seems to have been fine.

[eller]

Ahahaha, yes, poor Hagen, stuck honor-bound to a king who's, let's face it, a weak, spineless coward... XDD There's a good reason he had to destroy that boat before telling his comrades about a certain prophecy: he can't save anyone's life, but at least he can keep them from dishonoring themselves. (He must have suspected Gunther would try and flee.) Really, poor Hagen. (That being said - he betrays Gunther, too. More than once. I think their relationship is more than just a bit ambivalent...) At least he got Gunther killed quickly, which, nice of him?!?

By the standards of the time... I think slaughtering the Burgundians was acceptable as an act of (more or less lawful; the only thing that calls it into doubt is that technically women weren't supposed to declare war, but the men were apparently willing to let that slide) war. Beheading her brother... technically already wasn't all that legal, except Gunther wasn't respected, so it's possible a warrior of the time wouldn't have counted it as murder: cowards, after all, are fair game. Killing Hagen? No way. Hagen is not known as a coward... Yeah, morality has changed a bit since then. :D :D :D

A way out for Kriemhild... Mh, good question. I don't really see it? She lost her child, her marriage would have been pretty much over, her gold is gone forever (thanks, Hagen XD), and she doesn't have a family to go back to anymore, so a surviving Kriemhild wouldn't have lived long anyway.

[silveradept]

That is certainly an introduction for someone! It sounds like the Unknown Author is deeply sarcastic about what kinds of qualities and actions are important for a woman in an epic poem and is ready to smash some fools who are Wrong Genre Savvy.