The beginnings of Heroic Song in Germany

Tacitus mentions the ancient songs in which the Germans celebrated Tuisco, the earth-sprung god, and his son Mannus, the authors and founders of their race. Whether these poems were narrative or choric we do not know. That not gods alone but also historical and semi-historical heroes were commemorated, is proved however by the further remark of Tacitus concerning the old poems “quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus est.” One other precious scrap of information Tacitus has preserved. When making his last mention of Arminius, and telling how Tiberius refused to compass by poison the death of the enemy of the Roman people, he sums up thus the further history of the liberator of Germany: “dolo propinquorum cecidit…septem et triginta annos vitæ, duodecim potentiæ explevit, caniturque adhuc barbaras apud gentes.”

It is not strange that this notice of a chief, cut off in the flower of his age by the treachery of those closest to him, has reminded modern critics of the story of Sigurd the Volsung, and that some have seen in the story of Sigurd's death by the wiles of his sworn brethren the last traditional echo of this treacherous onslaught upon Arminius, and of the songs in which his deeds and his death were celebrated. No evidence however is forthcoming to support such a theory, and there is much which tells directly against it.