eller | Entries tagged with nibelungenlied

Questions from

yhlee. :)

If anyone wants five questions from me, just say so in the comments.

1. You can magically make any THREE watercolor pigments lightfast that aren't currently, but you have to GIVE UP a pigment forever that you currently use in your main palette(s). What are your choices?!

Oh, that's easy. I want alizarin crimson, real indigo blue, and aureolin yellow in lightfast versions, please. For that, I'd be willing to give up even my beloved indanthrene blue (PB60), because I'd replace that with the indigo and feel okay about it. Though it would probably even easier to give up my current standard cool yellow (PY184, which is very similar to aureolin in hue and wonderfully intense but unfortunately more opaque than I like) for magically lightfast aureolin.

2. What food/drink local to you confuses foreigners/tourists the most?

Mett. (Wikipedia says: "The name is derived from Low German mett for "chopped pork meat without fat", or Old Saxon meti for "food".") That's raw pork, usually eaten on bread rolls. It's very typical, and very confusing to tourists who can't believe anyone would eat this. Or should I say, it grosses out virtually all tourists?!? Tastes great, though. (Geographical food rule of thumb: the further up north you go, the more likely you are to find cultures willing to eat raw meat. It's possibly related to vitamin D intake?!?) Americans are typically entirely unwilling to even try the stuff, which is unwarranted: it's typically served with onions, which are not only a spice but also pretty good disinfectants... (Also, unsurprisingly, the local food safety rules around meat are really strict when compared to the USA.)

3. You gain the ability to magically talk to one animal species (they can talk to you too) - which one is it?

With my luck, it's probably squirrels. Dumb, noisy, aggressive towards anyone and anything, love to throw stuff... Yep. Squirrels. I'm sure those are going to be some great conversations. (If I get to choose, I'd love to talk to an octopus, please. But if it's the universe that assigns superpowers, um, yeah, I'm afraid it's really squirrels.)

4. You're trapped on a desert island with a chess grandmaster, past or present. Which one and why?

Oh hell no, that would mean something has gone very wrong in my life. I mean, of the present ones, I would have to choose one of the guys I'm personally acquainted with, simply because that's less awkward and would assure at least a minimum of cooperativeness towards mutual survival. Otherwise - I'd really want to play chess against Mikhail Tal, but that's the predictable answer, isn't it? For non-chess issues and general attitude... Probably David Bronstein. He was interesting.

5. What is the most cracktastic/bizarre Nibelungenlied-inspired work of art (opera, novel, poem, artwork, whatever) you've experienced?

I think some Nibelungenlied-inspired Third Reich propaganda fits the bill of bizarre for sure, though the 'work of art' aspect is usually questionable... (Humor is if you laugh anyway.) Otherwise... The Wagner opera stuff is also pretty bizarre on the narrative/fanfic level though at least parts of the music are pretty good. Um. And obviously there's a lot of pretty kinky fanart that's cracktastic but also true to the spirit of the original.

I just noticed it's been two years since my last Nibelungenlied post, which provided a translation of Kriemhild's introduction to the poem's audience. Whoopsie! Of course, the poem goes on... And you can happily ignore this if you're not into snarky Middle High German poetry. However, you know I'm a fan. XD

Anyway: we've just met Kriemhild, who's been introduced in a heavily sarcastic way using a clusterf*ck of passive verb forms that are not typical for the language, and which serve to veil the fact that Kriemhild is - of course - very very active. No one in the 1200s expected that of a heroine, but we'll need to remember that this poem was not a new story but rather a retelling (with some changes) of Norse mythology. Some people in the audience knew what to expect and would have gotten a good laugh at the way her introduction was phrased.

Now that Kriemhild has been established as the main protagonist, the poem introduces her brothers in a similarly nasty (or even nastier?) way.

Ir pflagen dri kunige edel unde rich, - Three kings, noble and mighty, took care of her:
Gunther unde Gernot, die recken lobelich, - Gunther and Gernot, the laudable warriors,
und Giselher der junge, ein ûz erwelter degen. - and Giselher the young, a distinguished knight.
diu frouwe was ir swester. die fürsten hetens in ir pflegen. - The lady was their sister. The lords had her in their care.

Oooooookay. On the surface, it all sounds normal enough: in the absence of a father (which is not discussed here, but implied), an unmarried young noblewoman may well have been the ward of her brothers. However, the details here are quite explosive.

'dri kunige': NO NO NOOOO you don't have three kings. Technically, only one guy (here: Gunther) is king and would have outranked his brothers! Introducing these three as done here already implies (which is, of course, confirmed later) Gunther is a weak king who doesn't control his subordinates the way he's supposed to. In short: this is a constellation that can ~~and will~~ blow up a whole court. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

'edel unde rich': Oh, LOL!!!! This is one of my favorite puns in the whole poem! The most obvious translation (which, I think, most professional translators went for) is 'noble and mighty'. Neither is unexpected for a king and his brothers. It's, basically, a trope - and also appears in other medieval poems. However, if we pronounce 'rich' slighty differently - only the tiniest bit - it can also be a form of the verb 'taking revenge' (though it would be an unusual choice of word form indeed, but, hey). Oh. WAIT. Was there something?!? This needs to be translated very carefully... Actually, each of the words in this little, brilliant construct, has (at least) two possible meanings! 'edel' usually means 'noble' (which is the expected meaning when talking about, well, noblemen), but is also (rarely... VERY rarely) used as an amplifier - something like 'especially' or 'the greatest'. (There's a similar use in Low Saxon.) 'unde' means 'and', but also the preposition 'under' (including in the figurative sense, like in 'under siege'). and 'rich'... Well, I already explained that. So, the phrase COULD be translated as 'under the greatest (kind of) revenge'. Is this a bit of a spoiler? Yes. Yes, it is. Also, I firmly believe every listener who knew the Norse stories would have cracked up right here... And the rest of the audience would have had no idea why these people were laughing. (It's a weird construct, grammatically very unlikely, and basically, you only find this meaning if you already know what to look for. However, given the nature of the text, I'm sure Unknown Author was aware of it. Unknown Author was good with nasty puns, generally speaking. This isn't an accident.)

'pflagen' and 'in ir pflegen': Sarcastic overemphasis by using the same word twice, once as a verb and once and a noun... Of course, the ~~three kings~~ one king and two disrespectful brothers are doing a shitty job taking care of Kriemhild. (They conspire to murder her husband and steal her gold. I mean, how could it get any worse? Oh, yeah, Gunther slept with her husband in a super weird kinky threesome before deciding to have him killed. THAT'S how it can get even worse. What a family!) Anyway, I'm quite sure the repetition is intentional. Unknown Author was trying to make a point.

Yeah... FUN!

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

This is Snowflake Challenge #5, "In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so."

Promote a canon? Sure. Not enough people read medieval poetry! So I simply have to promote the Nibelungenlied. I mean, what's not to love?

- Very nice Middle High German poetry
- Mythology / folk tale themed
- Interesting characters
- Even: interesting female characters
- Snark! Medieval snark!
- Hagen. I love the guy. (Also, I totally ship Volker/Hagen. LOL)

If you want a look, here is my translation of Kriemhild's character introduction, with a bit of analysis on the side. :) Maybe that will give you an impression regarding the style and tone.

What I love about this canon... Eh. It's difficult to explain. This has been my favorite poem since I was a child*, though! Probably because, unlike the children's books I was forced to read at school, there's no clear morality, no good and evil. Everyone is just being themselves, and dealing with things as good as they can... (Which, usually, isn't all that good. Also, not-too-much-of-a-spoiler: no happy end. For anyone.) I like the characters. ~~I like the unapologetic violence. I like the occasional dark humor with which the tragedy is treated.~~ And the plot is just a good story of sex and crime. ;)

Also: Hagen. I mean, if I were asked to name the ultimate anti-hero? That would be Hagen. ~~And I happen to like anti-hero characters.~~ I've read the poem hundreds of times by now, and I still can't decide whether Hagen is the most loyal man imaginable or the ultimate traitor... His loyalty is a special brand, that's for sure.

Also: the famous vigil scene towards the end, right before the slaughter starts. Music. The mood! It's amazing: there are so many dramatic events going on, but the most striking scene is a quiet one...

*no, my parents did not care about child-appropriate reading.

[Note: I think some people have been scared off by the ways this canon has been used for... unsavory political purposes. I can assure you the original isn't a propaganda piece.]

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.

So, I’ve been amusing myself with reading the TVTropes discussion of the Nibelungenlied. It was fun. XD It’s very obvious the commentary is written by Americans, which makes it a meta-meta-meta thing of How Americans React To Old German Poetry. (It says more about contemporary US culture than about the Nibelungenlied itself!) It’s fascinating, surprising, and occasionally quite funny.

My sources are the pages
YMMV / Nibelungenlied and
Literature / Nibelungenlied
accessed today, Jan. 4, 2021

These interpretations are fascinating. I’ll put the TVtropes quotes in quotation marks. I’m putting my fandom ramblings behind cuts so you can happily ignore them if you’re not into medieval poetry. :D Also: contains spoilers.

( YMMV Nibelungenlied )

( Literature Nibelungenlied )