Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/67

 SIEGFRIED 35 markable frequency. If the lost rhapsodic songs could be recovered, both mythological and historical allusions would, in all likelihood, be found in them. An eminently Prankish tale, the Nibelungen cycle, has arisen in that martial German tribe which once held sway in the greater part of Europe. In its origin, the tale is considered by many careful investigators so also by Richard Wag- ner, who founded his famous music-drama on it to have been a Nature myth, upon which real events became engrafted. From this point of view, the earliest meaning of Siegfried's victory over the Dragon would signify the triumph of the God of Light over the monster of the chaotic aboriginal Night. It would be, on German ground, the overthrow of Python by Apollon. In this connection it is to be pointed out that Sigurd appears in the " Edda " as the hero " with the shining eyes," and that, in one of the German Rose Garden tales, twelve swords are at- tributed to him a description which might be referred to the zodiac and to sun- shine ; so that he would be a solar hero. And even as Day is, in its turn, van- quished by Night ; as Summer must yield to Winter ; so also Siegfried falls in the end. The god which he originally was thus becomes human ; the sad fate of so noble a champion gives rise to feelings of revenge for what is held to be an evil and criminal deed ; and a tragedy is constructed, in which generations appear as actors and victims. A special feature of the Prankish myth is the hoard, the fatal treasure which works never-ending mischief. It is said to represent the metal veins of the sub- terranean Region of Gloom. There, as is stated in an Eddie record, Dark Elves (Nibelungs, or nebulous Sons of the Night) are digging and working, melting and forging the ore in their smithies, producing charmful rings that remind us of the diadems which bind the brows of rulers ; golden ornaments and sharp wea- pons ; all of which confer great power upon their owner. When Siegfried slays the Dragon, when Light overcomes Darkness, this hoard is his booty, and he becomes master of the Nibelungs. But the Dragon's dark heir ever seejcs to regain it from the victor; so Night malignantly murders the Day ; Hagen kills Siegfried. The treasure on which Siegfried's power is founded becomes the cause of his death ; and through Death he himself, albeit originally a refulgent God of Light, is turned into a figure of gloom ; that is, a Nibelung. There is much in the Norse Skalds which seems to support this mythological aspect of the tale. The name of Siegfried's murderer, Hagen who is one-eyed, even as Hodur, the God of Night, who kills Baldur, the God of Light, is blind has also been adduced for this interpretation. Hagen is explained as the Thorn of Death, the hawthorn (German Hagedorn), with which men are stung into eter- nal sleep, or rather into a death-like trance. Odin stings Brynhild into her trance with a sleeping-thorn. Hagen, in the sense of death, still lingers in the German expression, " Friend Hain," as a euphemism for the figure which announces that one's hour has come. The hawthorn was the special wood used for fire-burial in Germany ; hence the figurative poetical expression which would make Hagen a synonym for death. In the German and Norse poems, as we possess them now, myth and ap-