Nibelungenlied

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1200

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-14

Chapters 15-19

Chapters 20-22

Chapters 23-27

Chapters 28-32

Chapters 33-36

Chapters 37-39

Character Analysis

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Themes

Ruination Through Deception and Vengeance

The Nibelungenlied serves as a cautionary tale of what befalls a person when they give into deception and vengeance. Siegfried, Hagen, and Kriemhild’s acts of deception as well as Kriemhild’s avenging wrath drive the story. The poet establishes acts of deception and the desire for vengeance as the two evils “from which ladies were to reap the greatest sorrow” (119), and he shows how they engender death, the weakening of nations, and the warping of an individual’s moral character.

Deception at its core involves lying, and lying is considered morally wrong in most moral systems, especially chivalry. Siegfried, Hagen, and Kriemhild all deceive other characters within the epic—and these deceptions engender serious consequences. Siegfried deceives Brunhild multiple times. When they first meet, Brunhild welcomes Siegfried as a ruler until he proclaims, “You accord me too much favor, my lady Brunhild, magnanimous Queen when you deign to salute me before this noble knight, who, as befits my lord, stands nearer to you than I” (62). In saying this, Siegfried tricks Brunhild into believing that he is a mere vassal so that she will take more interest in Gunther, the one who plans to woo her and win her as his bride. Siegfried deceives Brunhild again when he wears his cloak of invisibility and helps Gunther cheat at her games. Siegfried’s deception seals his tragic fate as Brunhild and Kriemhild fight over Brunhild’s insistence that he is of lower status than Gunther. The fight leads to Brunhild’s embarrassment and prompts Hagen to kill Siegfried.

Hagen also acts deceptively in Book I, meeting a grisly end as a result. He implores Kriemhild to “sew a little mark on [Siegfried’s] clothing so that [Hagen] shall know where [he] must shield [Siegfried] in battle” (121). He does not truly seek to protect Siegfried; he lies to get the information needed to kill him. Hagen’s lie leads to Siegfried’s death and the start of Kriemhild’s vengeful wrath and scorn for him, both of which lead to Hagen’s own demise at the end of Book II.

Book II is primarily driven by Kriemhild’s deception of her Burgundian kinsmen. She welcomes them to Hungary “with perfidy in heart” (216); she plans on killing them rather than entertaining them. Her lie leads to a massacre of both Huns and Burgundians. Thousands of warriors die, and Hungary’s vitality and power as a sovereign nation dissipate as the country becomes “a land of orphans” (258).

Kriemhild’s deception is motivated by her lust for vengeance, and this lust creates a radical change in her moral character. Driven out of her senses by a desire to avenge Siegfried’s death and see those responsible for it dead, Kriemhild transforms from a loyal, pious, idealized woman into a wrathful, incensed “she-devil” (216). Through this transformation, the poet shows the reader that want of vengeance is a destructive, evil force that can corrupt those who are pure of heart.

The Nibelungenlied is an epic poem, and like many epic poems, it concerns itself with the moral values accepted and upheld within the writer’s culture. Deceptiveness is widely agreed to be a character flaw; it was frowned upon by medieval Germanic people. The poet has no trouble convincing readers that deception is wrong and leads to negative outcomes. Seeking vengeance can be read as justice at times, but The Nibelungenlied’s poet asserts that it is just as damaging as deceptiveness. In writing The Nibelungenlied, the poet crafts a guide for proper behavior, one that eschews deception and vengeful wrath.

The Death of Chivalry

The Nibelungenlied is also a story about chivalry and how nobility conducts itself when chivalry falls to the wayside. Chivalry is a medieval moral and social system which decrees that nobles and knights must commit themselves to their liege and the Christian God, practice largesse, pursue women in a chaste manner, act courageously in battle, refrain from lying, and show hospitality among other things. Those who exemplified chivalric virtue during the medieval period were marked as men of honor and held to be genuinely righteous people. Prominent in the 1100s, chivalry is the primary model for goodness within the world of Nibelungenlied. Book I begins with the Burgundians acting in accordance with chivalry; there is little immorality and unhappiness. However, as the narrative progresses, the Burgundians begin to act cruelly and fall victim to Kriemhild and the Huns’ dishonorable, unchivalrous actions. The breakdown of chivalry is coupled with chaotic scenes and tragic death. The poet leaves the reader with a moral: One must practice chivalry to keep from falling into brutal, senseless nihilism.

Siegfried, Gunther, and Hagen prove themselves chivalric in the first chapters of the epic. Siegfried expresses courtly love towards Kriemhild, Gunther “[entertains] his guests with unheard-of magnanimity” (43), and Hagen serves his king as a loyal advisor. When they engage in chivalry, the narrative takes on a positive and orderly tone. Issues arise when Hagen determines that he “shall always be [Siegfried’s] enemy” after Kriemhild humiliates Hagen’s second liege, Brunhild. Hagen views killing Siegfried as a chivalrous act since the motive behind it is defending his liege’s honor— but deceiving and murdering a fellow knight is far from chivalrous. In this moment, chivalry becomes perverted. Once Hagen abandons chivalry, the story takes a grim turn and barbarism becomes more common than civility.

Though Kriemhild’s invitation to Hungary rouses suspicion in Hagen, her brothers are eager to see her, expecting the sort of magnanimity paramount to chivalry. Instead, “the comfort of the noble guests” is “shockingly rejected” (258) as Kriemhild orders her knights to kill the Burgundians. Chivalry cannot be found in Etzel’s court once Bloedelin and his men attempt to murder Dancwart in the comfort of his own chamber (a breach in hospitality). The Hunnish knights reap what they sow as the Burgundians become bloodthirsty and unprincipled, with Hagen going so far as to kill “the young lord of the Huns” (242) in front of his parents. The narrative falls to chaos, and it becomes difficult to determine the morality of characters who previously appeared heroic through now abandoned ideals.

The Nibelungenlied ends tragically with no Burgundian warriors surviving the bloodbath. The poet’s concern for the death of chivalry is clear throughout the text (including foreshadowing), and he stresses its importance by depicting how medieval life becomes unstable without the system that grants it order and certainty.

Deviations from Idealized Medieval Germanic Womanhood

The Nibelungenlied may draw from Migration Period events and myths, but it is steeped in medieval sensibilities. The poet seeks to exemplify medieval Germanic standards, one of these standards being that of Germanic womanhood: The ideal woman is fair, pious, chaste, loyal, and “as if made for love’s caresses” (17). She exudes femininity and serves as an object for men. Kriemhild embodies this ideal in Book I. However, the poet also creates a form of womanhood that deviates from this standard, one marked by aggression, autonomy, and—in the case of Brunhild—allusions to pre-Christian paganism. The poet prescribes this subversion to Brunhild in Book I and Kriemhild in Book II, and presents it as a threat to patriarchal medieval German society.

The poet introduces Brunhild as an abnormally strong woman who takes pleasure in challenging her suitors to tests of physicality and decapitating them after they lose. Her physicality and love of sentencing men to death speak to aggression that gentle, graceful Kriemhild has yet to possess. Despite being a woman, she rules Iceland as its one and only sovereign until Gunther arrives. Brunhild is an autonomous being “whose like was never known” (53) in a society where women’s happiness and well-being are thought to “come only from a man’s love” (17). She never expresses any religious beliefs throughout the text, but her characterization aligns with that of the shieldmaidens in Norse paganism. This points to her being a holdover from pre-Christian times, making her very existence a threat to a medieval Germanic patriarchy largely informed by Christianity. Brunhild is very much a threat to the patriarchy in general. When Siegfried fights her, he thinks, “If I now lose my life to a girl, the whole sex will grow uppish with their husbands for ever after” (92). In short, Siegfried thinks that Brunhild’s brand of womanhood will become the norm if he cannot force her into submission and mold her to fit the standard.

Siegfried manages to correct Brunhild’s deviation and preserve the established order—only for his wife to display similar deviation after his death. Kriemhild allows her hatred towards Hagen to fester for years and eventually turns into a woman just as barbaric as Brunhild. She, too, takes part in aggressive decapitations, cutting off the heads of her brother Gunther and Hagen. Though married to Etzel, she shows a sense of autonomy through her dominance. She is not submissive to Etzel; she is the one ordering the Hunnish knights to attack, not him. According to medieval society, “the best knight who ever bore shield to battle” (290) must be vanquished by a man not a woman. Kriemhild crosses this line when she kills Hagen, prompting Hildebrand to punish her with death, lest she continue to kill other great men or inspire other women to kill great men.

Throughout the text, male warriors fear the possibility of being bested or outranked by women who deviate from the norm. They are certain that a single unusual woman can start a trend that disrupts medieval Germanic society, so they must respond to all deviations with violence in order to maintain order and power. The Nibelungenlied is an artifact from a long history of patriarchal oppression—but it carries a sentiment that continues to this day.