cap. The time consumed in rising to his feet would give his opponent quite a start.
Page 141. Note 1. bleed. This was not only a popular superstition, but also a legal practice in case of a murder when the criminal had not been discovered, or if any one was suspected. The suspected person was requested to approach the bier and touch the body, in the belief that the blood would flow afresh if the one touching the body were guilty. Our passage is the first instance of its mention in German literature. A similar one occurs in Iwein, 1355-1364. The usage was also known in France and England. See the instances quoted by Jacob Grimm in his Rechtsaltertümer, 930.
Page 151. Note 1. Marriage morning gift was the gift which it was customary for the bridegroom to give the bride on the morning after the bridal night. On this custom see Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen im Mittelalter2, i, p, 402.
Note 2. Alberich, see note 3 to page 14. It is characteristic of the poem that even this dwarf is turned into a knight.
Page 152. Note 1. wishing-rod, a magic divining rod for discovering buried treasure. Cf. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie4, ii, 813.
Page 152. Note 1. Loche, according to Piper, is the modern Locheim in the Rhine province.
Page 155. Note 1. Etzel, see note 7 to page 1.
Note 2. Helca (M. H. G. Helche) or Herka, Etzel’s wife, is the daughter of king Oserich or Osantrix, as the Thidreksaga calls him. In the latter work (chap. 73-80) we read how Rüdeger (Rodingeir) took her by force from her father and brought her to Etzel to be the latter’s bride. On her identity with the historical Kerka of Priseus, see Bleyer, PB. Beit. xxxi, 542.
Note 3. Rüdeger of Bechelaren, or, as the name reads in the Thidreksaga, Rodingeir af Bakalar, is probably not an historical personage, but the hero of a separate legend. Evidence of this is seen in the fact that he calls himself an exile, though he is Etzel’s mightiest vassal, with castles and lands in fief. He may have been introduced, as Wilmanus (Anz. xviii, 101) thinks, to play a rôle originally assigned to Dietrich, who is also an exile. Müllenhoff considered him to have been a mythical person, Bechelaren, or Pechlarn, lies at the junction of the Erlach with the Danube.
