Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/69

Rh seems, in the meantime, that Dietrich, which signifies Rich in People, is the same name which in Greek becomes Theodoricus; for at first (as in Procopius) this very Theodoricus is always written Θευδεριχ, which almost exactly corresponds with the German sound. But such are the inconsistencies involved in both hypotheses, that we are forced to conclude one of two things: either that the Singers of those old Lays were little versed in the niceties of History, and unambitious of passing for authorities therein; which seems a remarkably easy conclusion: or else, with Lessing, that they meant some quite other series of persons and transactions, some Kaiser Otto, and his two Anti-Kaisers (in the twelfth century); which, from what has come to light since Lessing’s day, seems now an untenable position.

However, as concerns the “Nibelungen,” the most remarkable coincidence, if genuine, remains yet to be mentioned, “Thwortz,” a Hungarian Chronicler (or perhaps Chronicle), of we know not what authority, relates, “that Attila left his kingdom to his two sons Chaba and Aladar, the former by a Grecian mother, the latter by Kremheilch (Chriemhild) a German; that Theodoric, one of his followers, sowed dissension between them; and, along with the Teutonic hosts, took part with his half-countryman the younger son; whereupon rose a great slaughter, which lasted for fifteen days, and terminated in the defeat of Chaba (the Greek), and his flight into Asia.” Could we but put faith in this Thwortz, we might fancy that some vague rumour of that Kremheilch Tragedy, swoln by the way, had reached the German ear and imagination; where, gathering round older Ideas and Mythuses, as Matter round its Spirit, the first rude form of “Chriemhilde’s Revenge and the Wreck of the Nibelungen” bodied itself forth in Song.

Thus any historical light emitted by these old Fictions is little better than darkness visible; sufficient at most to indicate that