186 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
This original is supposed to be the work of a certain Von Kueren- 
berg, to whom fifteen stanzas in the Nibelungen metre are ascribed. 
Up to the middle of the thirteenth century, a metre invented by a 
poet was considered his own property, and was never used by 
others. This fact alone makes the common authorship of the 
stanzas by Kuerenberg and the Nibelungen lied highly probable. 
The original materials of the poem are of high antiquity. The first 
part, up to the death of Siegfried, is of mythological origin. The 
second part seems to rest upon slight historical foundation. In the 
years 435-437 the King Gundicarius of Burgundy was defeated 
by Aectius and driven eastward, when he fell into the hands of the 
Huns, and was cut off with twenty thousand of his subjects. The 
names of Gibica, Godomarus, and Gislaharius occur in history as 
princes of Burgundy. Here we find the Gunther, Gernot, and 
Geiselher of the Nibelungen lied, and the King Gibich, father 
of Kriemhild, of the Heldenbuch. The marriage of Clotilda, the 
Christian princess of Burgundy, with the heathen King Clovis, the 
murdcr of her father and other relatives by Gundobald her uncle, 
and her rcvenge on Sigmund his son, with the final downfall of 
the kingdom of Burgundy, may have furnished ground for the con- 
clusion of the Nibelungen Sage in the German version. The Sieg- 
fried Sage is contained in the Nibelungen lied in a very imperfect 
form. It is to be found in the account of the Hoernerner Siegfried, 
in Dornroeschen, and in the northern Sagas. Siegfried, of the race 
of the Voelsungen (valis, Gothic, chosen, distinguished), is the per- 
sonified expression in the myth of the milder side of the force of 
nature. He is the conqueror of the winter storms and restorer of 
peace to the earth. The Nibelungen Hort, or treasure, are the 
blossoms and fruits of the soil. The dwarfs, who keep the treasure, 
the hidden earthy influences. Brunhilde is the beclouded sun 
whom Siegfried re-awakens. Siegfried is united with Kriemhild, 
daughter of the Nibelungen king. But the earthly antagonistic 
forces reconquer, and Siegfried dies; the treasure is sunk in the 
deep, and all again becomes dark and wintry. 
These ancient materials, first fashioned into a poem or poems by 
the minstrels or saenger, and afterwards into a finished work of art 
by an author who, whatever his name, possessed deep poetical 
feeling, are stamped with the ineffaceable and undying features of 
German national character. They may furnish, says a modern 
German poet, employment for centuries yet to come. 
