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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
To the researches of Lachmann and Müllenhoff we owe the knowledge that the Nibelungensaga which appears in the Nibelungenlied as an organic and an artistic unity is in reality a composition of two elements: of the Sigfridsaga and the legend of the Burgundians. While it is a well established fact that the latter saga preserved certain reminiscences of the historical annihilation of the Burgundians by Attila in 437, no account can be found in history which might, in a like manner, explain the origin of the Sigfridsaga. It was Lachmann who, for this reason, first advanced the opinion that the legend of Sigfrid was of mythological origin, and this mythological explanation of our legend is, in some form or other, now held by most scholars.
page 469 note 1 I call attention here to the Bragimyth which seems to furnish another instance of the transformation by the skalds of a human hero into a divine being.
page 470 note 1 The change, which the original legend of Sigfrid underwent in the Norse versions, may well be compared to the change through the influence of chivalrous poetry of which the Nibelungenlied is the classic example.
page 474 note 1 A full and detailed account of the results of my researches, of which I could give only a rough sketch in the present paper, I hope, soon, to submit in a larger work on the history of the legend of Sigfrid.