CHAP.
godlike countenances, in their flashing swords and unerring spears,
there is no difference between them ; and every additional point of
likeness adds to the weight of proof that these epic poems represent
neither the history nor the national character of Northmen, Greeks,
or Germans. In each case the spirit of the tradition has been care-
fully preserved, but there is no servile adherence. In' the Volsung
story, Gudrun becomes the wife of Siegfried; in the Nibelung song,
her mother Kriemhild takes her place. The Hogni of the former
tale becomes in the latter the Hagen of Tronege, against whom
Siegfried is warned when he desires to marry Kriemhild, the sister of
Gunther, Gemot, and Giselher, and who recognises Siegfried as the
slayer of the Niblungs, the conqueror of their magic sword, Balmung,
and of all their treasures, and the possessor of the tarnkappe, or cape
of darkness — all of them features with which the earlier legend has
made us familiar. The story of Thetis or Demeter plunging Achilleus
and Triptolemos into the bath of fire is here represented by the myth
that Siegfried cannot be wounded, because he had bathed himself in
the blood of a dragon whom he had slain — the Fafnir or Python of
the Norse and Delphic legends. At the first glance Kriemhild is
filled with love for Siegfried, but the latter cannot see her until he
has sojourned for a year in the country of King Gunther — a condi-
tion which answers to that under which Hades suffered Orpheus
to lead away Eurydike. Here, like Sigurd in the Volsung myth,
Siegfried wins Brynhild for Gunther or Gunnar; but though there is
here not the same complication, the narrative scarcely becomes on
this account the more human. Like Perseus with the helmet of
Hades, Siegfried can make himself invisible at will, and like Apollon
Delphinios, he pushes a ship through the sea — a myth in which we
recognise also the Wish breeze.^ Here also, as in the Norse story,
the ring and girdle of Brynhild come through Siegfried into the
nysos, Herakles, Perseus, Sigurd, Indra, put into the ground. The necessary Oidipous, Theseus ; and it is unneces- consequence is that the woman has two sary to say that in the end he becomes golden children who, mounting on the the husband of the Dame of the Fine two golden foals of the mare, represent Green Kirtle, who is none other than the Asvins and the Dioskouroi, the Medeia with the magic robe of Helios. pieces put into the ground producing (Campbell, ii. 435.) two golden lilies on which the lives of
' The power of the Fish Sun is the children depend. In the tale of strikingly shown in the German stories the Fisherman and his Wife, the fish of the Gold Children and of the Fisher- accomplishes the wishes of the woman, man and his Wife. In the former a who chooses to become first a lady, then poor man catches the Golden Fish which queen, then pope ; but when she wishes makes him the possessor of the palace of to become the ruler of the universe, the Helios, and bids the man divide him flounder sends her back to her old hovel, into six pieces ; two to be given to his — an incident reflecting the fall of Tan- wife, two to his mare, and two to be talos, Sisyphos, and IxiGn.
