Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/386

328 fey. This Scotch and older English word has been chosen to translate the M. H.G. veige, ‘fated,’ ‘doomed,’ as it is etymologically the same word. The ancient Germans were fatalists and believed only those would die in battle whom fate had so predestined.

thirty thousand. The M.H.G. epics are fond of round numbers and especially of thirty and its multiples. They will be found to occur very frequently in our poem. See Lachmann, Anmerkungen zu den Nibelungen, 474 1.

their. The original is obscure here; the meaning is, ‘when he heard with what message they were come, he rued the haughtiness of the Burgundians.’

marks of gold. A mark (Lat. marca) was half a pound of gold or silver.

Isenland  translates here M. H. G. Îslant, which has, however, no connection with Iceland in spite of the agreement of the names in German, Îsen lant, the reading of the MSS. BJh, has been chosen, partly to avoid confusion, and partly to indicate its probable derivation from Îsenstein, the name of Brunhild’s eastle. Boer’s interpretation of Îsen as ‘ice’ finds corroboration in Otfrid’s form îsine steina (‘ice stones,’ i.e. crystals) I, 1. 70. Îsenstein would then mean Ice Castle. In the Thidreksaga Brunhild’s castle is called Saegarðr (‘Sea Garden’), and in a fairy tale (No. 93 of Grimm) Stromberg, referring to the fact that it was surrounded by the sea. Here, too, in our poem it stands directly on the shore.

Zazamanc, a fictitious kingdom mentioned only here and a few times in Parzival, Wolfram probably having obtained the name from this passage. (See Bartsch, Germanistische Studien, II, 129.)

wont to wear. In the Middle Ages costly furs and fish-skins were used as linings and covered, as here described, with silk or cloth. By fish such amphibious animals as otter and beaver were often meant.

well fit. In this passage wert, the reading of A and D, has been followed, instead of unwert of B and C, as it seems more appropriate to the sense.

dight, ‘arrayed’; used by Milton.

Brunhild. The following words are evidently a late interpolation, and weaken the ending, but have been