Talk:Nibelungenlied
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May be it would be interesting to add something about the treatment of (more or less) the same story in the Edda and a comparism of the two sources. Would that be the right place for such a comparison? I'd enjoy to write it if it's welcome (I'm new here)
BTW in most german sources I know of the hero is called Siegfried, not Sigurd. I'll check out what's in the medieval German original.
- Mostly Sivrit or Sifrit, apparently. Matthew Woodcraft
- A comparison with the Edda sounds promising ;) -- Someone else 10:15, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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[edit] Tolkien?
Gtrmp, I would hardly say that the Nibelungenlied was Tolkien's chief inspiration for LotR, which was originally motivated by linguistic concerns: Tolkien wanted to created a world for his conlangs to exist in. He used the Nibelungenlied mainly as a source of names, mostly for dwarves in The Hobbit, but also for Gandalf.
However, Tolkien did draw a lot on the low, middle, and high Norse/German myths. The ideas of honor, trust, love, power and courtly manner are present in all his writings. At the very least, Tolkien was inspired in some fashion or another...and you're correct, in some cases he took names and some words for his languages as well from the Nibelungenlied.
- The only Germanic word that appears in Tolkien's languages nearly unaltered is "Earendil", from "earendel". ("Eala Earendel engla beorhtast/ofer middangeard monnum sended.") The language of Rohan as it appeared in the book was indeed Germanic (Mercian). However, it was not intended to represent the actual tongue of the Rohirrim, but it stands in the same relation to English as Rohirric is supposed to Westron. So no, he took no words for his language from the Nibelungenlied.
- As far as names go, the names of the dwarves in "The Hobbit" and LotR (plus Gandalf) were found not in the Nibelungenlied, but in the Poetic Edda, in the poem "Völuspá" and not, so far as I know, in the "Niflung" cycle. Although "The Hobbit" was not originally connected to the larger mythology (represented by The Silmarillion, not LotR) it became so, and the dwarf names were rationalized in the same way as using Mercian for Rohirric.
- Incidentally, it was The Silmarillion that was inspired by Tolkien's languages. LotR was inspired by his publisher, who wanted a sequel to "The Hobbit". It connected up with the older mythology almost by accident, but ended up as the closing narrative of his mythological age.
- It's true that there's a connection in a very broad sense between LotR and the Nibelungenlied -- the latter is a myth cycle from northeastern Eurpoe and LotR was written to occupy the same genre -- but there's no direct connection between them whatsoever. In a sneering reply to a comparison between LotR and the "Ring" cycle, Tolkien said, "Both rings are round, there the resemblence ends." TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Links for alt. spellings
Creating Niebelungenlied and Neibelungenlied as redirect pages since you can get reasonable numbers of hits for these alt. (2nd incorrect included) from Google Sjc 05:57, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- That's not an "alternative spelling" that is a misspelling. If someone is going to actually type the name in, there is a good chance that that person already knows German, which mean, "i", "ie" and "ei" do not cause such confusions for that person. --JoergenF 19:20, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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- I don't think one can assume that the person already knows German - lots of English-speaking operagoers won't know much, and "ie"/"ei" have more complicated rules in English, and people are always being confused. It's amazing how many kinds of orthographical errors a half-million articles can have - redirects from common misspellings are a useful technique to catch them. Stan 00:38, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Synonpsis
The synopsis of the story is rather wrong, and too brief. Shall we expand? --JoergenF 19:01, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Aren't some details missing too? First, I suppose it shouldn't say he killed "a dragon", but he killed "THE dragon" Fafnir. I'll add that, correct me if it's wrong, but I don't remember there were other dragons Siegfried killed :) Moreover, shouldn't here also be mentioned the Ring of the Nibelungs? I'm not sure if there is another version without the Ring, so I won't touch that for now. And yes, I think the synopsis should be expanded too. --Arny 11:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Pronunciation
Maybe we should put a pronunciation of the Nibelungenlied? This might help greatly especially to people who do not speak native German or people who are not familiar with it. -jayjay-203.177.177.124 10:49, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Parallel Synonyms
Parallel is especially appropriate when the two things compared are so like each other that their lack of divergence suggests two parallel lines; the term is often used in negative expressions. Sometimes, especially when actual comparison is implied, the word suggests that the two things follow a similar course, order or line of developement.
Counterpart often suggests a complementary and sometimes an obverse relationship. More commonly, however, the word implies a duplication, especially in another sphere, or age, or language.
Analogue usually implies a more remote likeness that the preceding words and suggests comparison with something familiar and tangible for the sake of clarifying an explanation or enforcing an argument. Like counterpart, it often involves reference to something in another sphere, or order, or genus.
Correlate retains its primary implication of correspondence, but does not retain that of complementary relationship. A thing which is a correlate of another is what corresponds to it from anotherpoint of view or in a different order of viewing.
Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms, 1973. --Jbergquist 22:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Flavius Aëtius
Shouldn't it be at least mentioned in the article that Etzel might not be Attila, king of the Huns, but the Roman general Flavius Aëtius (see his article)? Or, more exactly, a melange of both historical persons? Although being a Roman general, Flavius Aëtius had many Huns fighting for him and might have appeared to the Burgundians as a Hunnish king. Due to the names sounding quite similar, later storytellers would easily merged Attila and Aëtius into one person.
- The whole time and place section needs a complete rewrite for that and other reasons. --Pfold 22:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Etzel's fortress is given as Gram (Esztergom), a location also associated with Attila. I also don't believe "later storytellers" would confuse two historical opponents.
