History of Christian names

Section III.—Brynhild.

A thorough Valkyr was Brynhilda, the maiden whom Odin had touched with his sleep-thorn, so that she lay in a deep slumber in the midst of a circle of flame, through which Sigurd made his way, aroused her, and won her for his own; but became utterly and magically oblivious of all that had passed as soon as he had returned to common life. This is the northern version, the evident origin of our fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty, pricked not by the thorn of Odin, but by the distaff, perhaps, of one of the Nornir. The Book of Heroes reduces the circle of flame to a mere strong castle, with seven gates; and the Nibelungenlied only takes up the story at the time of Sigfried’s appearance at the court of Burgundy, and courtship of Brynhild’s rival, Chriemhild.

Brynhild had retained her matchless strength, and, like the Greek Atalanta, was only to be won by a champion who could excel her in games of strength, and her conquered suitors were all put to death. Gunther, the brother of Chriemhild, being willing to obtain her on these conditions, Siegfried, by means of his tarn-cap, invisibly vanquished the Valkyr, while Gunther appeared to be her conqueror; and when she thus had been compelled to give her hand, it was Siegfried who, again unseen, broke down her violent resistance, and compelled her to become a submissive wife, on which she lost all her supernatural strength. Siegfried was rewarded by the hand of Chriemhild, Gunther’s sister.

By-and-by the two sisters-in-law had a desperate quarrel about precedence; in the old northern version, which should wade farthest into the Rhine when bathing; in the half-civilized German song, which should first enter the cathedral of Wurms; and in the course of it Brynhild was roundly informed that she had not given way to her husband, but to Siegfried. Valkyr nature could not stand such an affront, so Brynhild set on Hagen to assassinate Siegfried. The northern story makes her slay herself, and be burnt with his corpse on a funeral pile, in Suttee fashion; the German tames her into being merely brought to repentance too late by the death of her husband.

No doubt Brynhild was commemorated by the name of the Gothic princess, daughter of King Athanagild, who, for her misfortune, was married to the Frank Sigebert, and through the whole of her long life continued a fierce and dauntless resistance to her savage rival Fredegund, until, when both were aged women, Brenhilda fell into her rival’s power, and was implacably sentenced to be dragged to death by wild horses. French historians aver that her name was at first only Bruna, and that hilda was added to make it royal; but this is very unlikely, since Spanish historians call her Brenhilda. The Latinism is Brunechildis, in French Brunehault, but the name has not been followed, except by the northern race, whose existence was hardly developed at the time of the misfortunes of the Austrasian queen, and who therefore take it from her original. Among these it has been contracted to Brunilla and Brynil.

The meaning is the Valkyr of the Breastplate, the byrni of old Scottish, bryne of the North, bruniga of the German, broigne in Old French, bronha in Provençal. A near connection of this name is the northern Bryngerd, placing the gentle Gerda in this cuirass; and the North has likewise Brynjar, properly hari, the Cuirassier, and Brynjolfr, which wolf in a breastplate was a great Icelandic ancestor, and has been cut short into Brynjuv and Brynjo.

The Chriemhild, or Helmet Valkyr of the Nibelung, is the Gudrun of the northern version; and Gudrun, as before said, would be either good wisdom, or, far more probably, war wisdom. In the Nibelungenlied, the action of the story begins with Chriemhild telling her mother her dream of her favourite falcon being torn to pieces by two eagles; and when it is explained to mean her future husband, vowing that she will never marry. However, Siegfried’s arrival, and his successful exertions in winning Brunhild for Gunther, overcame all the lady’s scruples.

She had lived happily ten years in the Netherlands with Siegfried before, on a visit to Wurms, she was so ill-advised as to reproach Brynhild with his victory over her; and afterwards was deluded into sewing a mark upon his garments to show where was his vulnerable spot. After his death, she found out the murderer by the ordeal of touch, and treasured up a deadly and enduring spirit of revenge; perhaps the most terrible of all the many forms in which legend has proclaimed the old rule of blood for blood.

She was left the heiress of all Siegfried’s treasure, as well as of his Nibelungen or Netherlandian troops, but it was taken from her by her husband’s murderer, and sunk beneath the Rhine. After thirteen years of widowhood, she was induced to marry Etzel, or Atli, king of the Huns, by the promise that he would avenge all her injuries; but still she bided her time for thirteen more years, at the end of which space she invited her brothers and all their champions to visit her in Hungary at Etzelenburg. They had not long been there before she stirred up a most tremendous battle, in which mutual destruction took place, as is minutely related in the ancient lays. Finally her brother Gunther was captured and slain at her savage command, and she herself slew the murderer Hagen with Siegfried’s own sword. Immediately after, however, she was put to death as an act of justice by old Sir Hildebrand; at least so says the Nibelungenlied; but in the Kœmpe Viser there is a still further revenge, for the secret of the deposit of the treasure is left with the son of Hagen, who beguiles Grimhild into the cave with the hope of its restoration, and there locks her in and starves her to death.

The historical Attila is really said to have had a German wife named Kremheilch. The Gudrun of the North is a far more amiable personage. She forgives her brother, and is with difficulty persuaded to marry Atli, who is, in this version, Brynhild’s brother, and lays the plot against Gunther, in order to avenge his sister’s death. She does all in her power to warn them, but in vain; and when all had been slain, her senses failed her, and in her frenzy she slew her two children by Atli, and made him drink their blood; he died of horror, and she cast herself into the sea, but was carried alive to the land of King Jonakr, whom she married, and then underwent other misfortunes which extinguished the last remains of her family. Her name of Gudrun has already been treated of.^[131]

Gunth (Goth.), guth (A.G.S.), gunnr (North), gond or gonz (High German), all meant war or battle, and have an immense number of derivative names, inextricably mixed up with those from God and Gut; and it is even thought that there may be a close connection between them, so much did the Teutons believe their deities to be gods of battle, and goodness to be courage. The word gunth has lived on even in Lombardy in the Gonfalon, the war banner, solemnly carried out to battle in a car as the images of the gods had formerly been, in charge of the official known as the gonfaloniere in the republics of northern Italy. Gundahari, warrior, was really an old name among the kings of Burgundy, who were, no doubt, called in honour of Gunther or Gunnar, the eldest brother of Kriemhild, and husband of Brynhild. He seems to have been brave but weak, led first by Sigurd, then by Hagen, but at last fighting with great spirit.

Gunthar, or Gunnar, at full length Gundahari, continued in favour with the Burgundians; and an abbot in Brittany being canonized, left Gonthier to France, and Gontiere to Italy.

This masculine Gunnar was very common in the North, and so was likewise the feminine Gunnr, war, or Gundvar, war prudence, both confounded in Gunnar, which historians generally render as Gunnora.

Gunnhildur was in high favour in the North. One most celebrated owner was the wicked queen of Eric Blodaxe. She was said to be a native of the Orkneys, and to have filled Scandinavia with her crimes, upon the details of which, however, Norse and Danish histories are not quite agreed.

Gunhild again was the Danish princess whose murder on St. Brice’s night brought her brother Sweyn down in fury upon England; and her nephew Knud likewise had a daughter so called, but who was Anglicized into Æthelthryth; and each generation of the Godwine family records a lady Gunhild. After the Conquest, however, Gunhild died away in England; but it has never been discarded in the North, where it is now called Gunnilda, or Gunula.

That daughter of William the Conqueror, or sister of Gherbod the Fleming, whichever she was, who was the ancestress of the Warrennes, and is buried at Lewes, has a name so much disguised as to be as doubtful as her birth. It maybe Gunatrud, a Valkyr title, or Gundridur, war haste, or Gundrada, war council, the same as the Spanish Gontrado; at any rate it has had few followers.

Gunnr and Göndol were both Valkyr titles, and the Valkyr Göndol’s most noted namesake was a maiden of the Karling race, who was bred up by St. Gertrude, at Nivelle; and on her return to her father’s castle at Morzelle, used to go to her early devotions at a church half a league distant from home. On winter mornings she was lighted by a lantern, which the legend avers to have been blown out by the wind, but rekindled by her prayers. Thence comes the name of St. Gundula’s lamp, applied to the Tremella, an orange-coloured jelly-like fungus that grows on dead branches of trees in the winter. She is the patroness of Brussels, where the church of St. Gudule is the place used for coronations; but her common title in Flanders is Ste. Goëlan, while the convent built in her honour at Morzelle, in Brabant, is Ste. Goule.

War could not fail to have her wolf, the Gundulf of Norman England, the Gunnolfr of Iceland, the Gundolf of Germany, and, far more notable than either, the Gonsalvo or Gonzalo of Spain, always frequent among the Visigothic families, and becoming especially glorious in the person of the great captain, the brave and honourable conqueror of Naples, and the trainer of the infantry that gave the predominance to Spain for a hundred years, until they fell as one man at Rocroy.

The war raven, Gunthram, figures in French history as Gontran, and the war serpent is the German Gundlin, or Gondoline, when a lady; when a man, the terrible Guthorm, whom, as King Alfred’s foe, godson, and tributary, our histories call Guthrum. In Denmark, the name was very early contracted into Gorm; but it has been so often spelt Gudthorm, that a doubt has arisen whether the latter half of the word may not be thorm or thyrma.

It is very difficult to distinguish between the derivatives of God and Gund, both being very apt to eliminate the distinctive letters. On the whole, however, it seems as if these warlike names had been some of the most universal throughout the continent, though in England they were very scarce, and do not occur in royal pedigree, nor in hagiology, except in the case of St. Guthlac, the first founder of the original Croyland Abbey, whose name in the North would be Gudleik or Gulleik, war sport.

Hosts of northern Frankish and Visigothic names thus commence, and many feminines end with this word. The other varieties thus beginning are:—

Gunthe was the old German feminine contraction for any of these warlike damsels, and being further endeared into Jutte, or Jutta, was probably the source, under the hands of chroniclers, of the Judiths, who made their appearance among the Franks so long before the days of Scripture or saintly names.^[132]

Section V.—Hagen.

Haghen, Hagano, or Hogni, may be considered as the villain of the Nibelungen. In the Danish version he is the half-brother of Grimhild and Gunther, with an elf-father; in the German, he is their wise and far-travelled uncle, who first related the adventures of the newly-arrived stranger, Siegfried, but always seems to have disliked him, and readily undertook to revenge Brynhild’s injuries upon him. As Loki deceived Frigga, he persuaded his niece to mark where was the mortal spot on her husband’s skin, and contrived that no wine should be taken into the forest, so that Siegfried might be reduced to lie down to drink at the stream, and thus expose the fatal place.

The body bled at his touch, and he was the chief object of Chriemhilt’s vengeance, more especially after he had taken the treasure away from her, placed it in a cave beneath the Rhine, and jealously guarded the secret of the spot. When she invited the brothers to Hungary he was much averse to the journey, till he found that his disclination was imputed to fear, when he became vehemently set upon going, in spite of the omens against it. Taunts and injuries passed between him and Chriemhilt, and the next day the fierce and furious battle began, which raged till Gunther and Haghen alone were left. After Gunther had been killed, Chriemhilt offered Haghen his life, on condition that he would disclose the place where the treasure was, but he refused, and died by her hand.

There is a curious poem, called the Duke of Aquitaine, which is evidently another version of the same notion of Haghen. Hagano, a descendant of the Trojans, is there sent to deprecate the invasion of Attila, and afterwards assists the Burgundian king Gunther of Wurms in an attack on Duke Walther of Aquitaine, and Hildegunna, sister to Gunther, in order to recover a treasure that they had carried off from Attila’s court, where they had been hostages. This version of the great central story of Europe named Hagen, Count of Aquitaine, the uncle of Charles the Bald; but the North has used it more, in the form of Hogen.

The name is either from hagr, deft or handy, or else from hagi, a hook; most probably the latter, perhaps in connection with the other meaning, a thorn or prickle, so that here we may find a personification of the thorn destroying the victor. The word hag is seldom found in names, and is probably imitated from Hagen, without much regard to the meaning. It occurs only in the Danish, as Hagbrand, Hagbart, contracted as Habaar, or Habor; Hagthor, which is incorrectly modernized as Hector; and Hagny. The more usual form in Denmark is Hogne, probably from the German Hagano.

But there has been a confusion between this Hagan, or Hogni, and Haagan, properly Haakvin, from haa, high, and kyn, meaning of high kin, the well-known Norwegian and Danish name of many a fierce viking; sometimes Latinized as Haquinus, Frenchified as Haquin, and called in the North Haaken, or Hakon. Domesday has it as Kaco, Hacon, Hacun, and Hakena; and Hacon still lingers among the fishermen of the Orkneys. Other northern names, with the same opening, haa (pronounced ho), are Haamund, no doubt the parent of our Hammond, and Haavard, whence our Hayward, both alike meaning high protection.^[133]

Section VI.—Ghiseler.

Ghiseler is one of the brothers of Gunther, an inoffensive personage, and the only one of the party of whom Chriemhild took any civil notice, when she had decoyed them to her court to their destruction. Nevertheless he did not escape, but died in combat with Wolfhart, of Bern, when the champions of Dietrich could not be withheld from the fray.

His name is tolerably clear—Giselhar, the pledged warrior. The first syllable is from gildan, geldan, keltan, to owe, or to pay what was due. The terms ran through all the Gothic tongues, and caused the Anglo-Saxons to call all the offerings due to the gods gield and ghëlstar.

A pledge of mutual obligation was, in Anglo-Saxon, gisel, and is still gidsel in the North; in the German, geissel. Thence, far more probably than from the older word geisli, a beam, or nimbus, was derived the Frank Gisel, as a maiden’s name. A daughter of Pepin, so called, was offered to Leo X. of Constantinople; and afterwards the daughter of Charles the Simple, who became the pledge of amity between the Karlingen and Northmen, by her marriage with Rollo. She was called by the French Gisèle, by the Normans Gisla, in which same form it has lived on in Friesland and in Norway. The commencement is not, however, a very common one in the North, though Giselher is repeated in Gissur Isleifson, Bishop of Iceland, in the eleventh century. Gislaug, the pledge drink, is likewise northern, but though gils is an extremely common termination, almost all the names where it is a commencement are Frankish, or German, and thus probably Giselfrid came to the North as Gisrod.

Giselhilda, and Giselberge, were German, also Gisalhart, and Giselof; and Gisalrico is found among the Spanish Goths. Geltfried and Giltimir are also German forms, and the latter explains Gelimer, the Vandal king in Africa, conquered by Belisarius.

Gils is a common Norwegian name, and no doubt contributed to the English Giles, French Gilles, and Spanish Gil, though all these look to the Greek hermit in France, Aigidios, as their patron. In the North, Ægidius is rendered by Ilian, Yljan, Yrjan, Orjan, but not by Giles: and it would seem as if Julius had been confounded with the name, as well as, perhaps, Giolla, a servant.

Giolla Brigde, or Bridget’s disciple, is thought to have contributed the Scottish examples of Gilbert, which is incorrectly explained by some as Gelb-bert, or yellow bright; but is clearly traceable to the old Frank Giselbert. There were four saints so called, namely, an abbot of Fontenelle, a great friend of William the Conqueror, an Auvergnat knight in the second Crusade, the English founder of the order of Gilbertine monks, and a bishop of Caithness; and it has been a prevalent name in England, Scotland, and the Low Countries, with many contractions, especially in the latter.^[134]

Ghernot was Gunther’s second brother, who was free from the guilt of the murder of Siegfried, and greatly displeased with Haghen for depriving Chriemhilt of the treasure; but he shared the fate of his brothers, being killed early in the encounter by the Markgraf Rudiger.Rudiger.

Perhaps, necessity of war, or spear compulsion, would be the best sounding translations of this remarkable name.

Ghere, the same as the northern Gejr and German Kero, is the messenger sent to invite Siegfried and Chriemhild to Wurms, when they paid the visit that had such fatal consequences; and gher or gjer is one of the most frequent of the component parts of names. Its right and original meaning is a spear, the same as that of the Latin quiris and Keltic coir. Thence the Anglo-Saxons called all other weapons waren, and the battle war, a word we still use, just as the French do guerre, and the Spaniards guerra.

Gar is quite in modern German, and gher has dropped out of the language, and thus most of the German names commencing with it have been misinterpreted to mean all, but it is impossible to compare them with their northern cousins without tracing the same spear in both.

The chief favourite amongst these spear titles seems to have been once a Valkyr name Gêrdrûd, or Geirthrud, the spear maid; for, alas! the pretty interpretation that has caused so many damsels of late to bear it, as meaning all truth, is utterly untenable, unless they will regard themselves as allegorically constant battle-maids, armed with the spear of Ithuriel.

The ancient popularity of this name was owing to a daughter of one of the great Pepins, in their maire du palais days. She founded the abbey of Nivelle, and was intensely revered by the Franks and Germans, chiefly on account of the miracles imputed to her. At old heathen feasts, the cups quaffed in honour of gods or demi-gods were prefaced by the words “Wuotansminne, Thorsminne,” meaning in Woden’s or Thor’s memory; but the Christian teachers changed these toasts to be in the memory of the saints, such as Michelsminne for the guardian angel. Johannisminne was the special favourite, and was supposed to be a charm against poison, because the Evangelist was thought to have experienced the fulfilment of the promise, “If ye drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,” as typified by the dragon in his cup. The royal nun, Gertrude, was almost as great a favourite as the Apostle with the Germans, and the regular toasts at their banquets came to be Johannisminne and Gerdrutsminne, till drinking to St. John and St. Gertrude were almost a proverb for revelry.

Let us observe, en passant, that minne, lately in honour of Minna Troil erected into a lady’s name, is from the Gothic munan, to remember, from the Saxon form of which we take our mind. Minnie has lately become a favourite name, and must be referred to this source.

A second St. Gertrude, of noble blood in Saxony, was abbess of Heldelfs, had an exceedingly high reputation for sanctity, and died in 1334, leaving her name doubly popular.

There is great confusion between Gerwald and Gerhard; the one meaning spear power, the other firm spear.

Though gar was not a common English prefix, the first Saint Gerhold was Anglo-Saxon. He migrated to Ireland, received the cowl in the monastery of Mayo, founded that of Tempul Gerald, died in 732, and became the subject of one of the Irish legends of saints. It declared that the wife of Caomhan, king of Connaught, turned him out of the fort of Cathair Mhor, with his 300 saints, who thereupon joined him in one of the peculiar prayers of Irish saints, that there never should be another king of the same race for ever. However, he afterwards relented, and only cut off from the throne the offspring of the lady herself, while to those of the king’s former wife he granted the right of sitting first in the drinking house and of arraying the battle. The Irish call him Garalt, and have confused his name with the Keltic Gareth, one of the knights of the Round Table, so that Garrett and Gerald are regarded as identical.

The great prevalence of the name in Ireland is, however, chiefly owing to the Normans. There had been two Frank saints thus called in the twelfth century, Gerard of Toul, and Girroald of Fontenelle; but it was also a Lombardic name, and the old Florentine family of the Gherardi claims the parentage of one of the many Gerolds who accompanied William the Conqueror, the same whose descendantdescendant, Maurice Fitzgerald, was one of the companions of Earl Strongbow, the parent of the Fitzgeralds, or Geraldins, of Kildare, the turbulent race, who disputed with the Butlers of Ormond the supremacy of the island. Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a daughter of this house, was the lady who, in imitation of Beatrice and of Laura, was erected by Surrey into the heroine of his poetry, under the title of the Fair Geraldine, thus leading to the adoption of this latter as one of the class of romantic Christian names. Gerald Barry, the Welsh chronicler who Latinizes himself as Giraldus Cambrensis, may have been rightly Gareth, and the provincial form Jarrett, still common in the North, is probably rather a remnant of the Gareth of Strathclyde, than a version of the Norman Gerald.

Another St. Gerald, bishop of Namur, left his name to be very common in the Low Countries, where we have already shown how curiously the transformation was effected of Gerhard Gerhardson into Desiderius Erasmus. Lastly, a St. Gerhard went on a mission to convert the Hungarians, and the name, or rather the two names, for there is no distinguishing between them, have become universal.

Gerhardine in German, and Giralda in Italian, are the feminines, besides our own Geraldine. Possibly Giralda may once have been the Valkyr name Geirhilda, which has survived in the North in the form of Jerilla, jer being the northern corruption of geir. Jerlau is thus Geirlaug, and Jeruf, or Jerul, Geirolf.

In like manner, though with different pronunciation, we make Jervis out of the old Norman Gervais, which was probably Geirfuss, or warlike eagerness. It used to be explained as gerfast, all firm, but this is, of course, wrong; though, as I have not found Geirfuss in the roll of northern names, and it would have been Gerfuns in Germany, where Gerwas is common, as is Gervais in France, and Gervaso in Italy, this must be doubtful.

The Gerberge of French history, the queen of Louis l'Outremer, was the same as the Geirbjorg of the North: Gerwin, or spear friend, made the Guarin of France, whence the Waryn of a few English families, and Guarino of Italy.

The old Spanish-Gothic feminine Garsendis was certainly Garswinth, or spear strength, and the equally ancient Garsias, or Garcia, so common in Galicia and Navarre, must have its commencement from the same source, though the last syllable has lost its individuality on the soft Spanish tongues. It was long a royal name, but was dropped about the thirteenth century, and makes its last public appearance in the person of the Peruvian prince and author Garcilasso de la Vega.

The spear raven, Gerramn, is the old English Jerram, that has become lost in Jerome; and the spear prince, Gerbold, has furnished the family name of Garibaldi. Gar is very rare in native Anglo-Saxon names, whether as a beginning or end, but most frequent in all the other branches of the Teuton stock; and its other form, gais, is the most reasonable explanation of the beginning of the name of Geisserich, the king of the Vandals, who has been made into Genserich, and then translated into the Gander king! The remaining forms are:—

Section VIII.—Folker.

Of all the champions of Burgundy, none is more full of gallantry and bonhommie than Folker, the mighty fiddler of Alsace, a true knight, always equally ready for music or for fighting. If the Nibelungenlied be really another form of the Eddaic myth, Folker may answer to Bragi, the god of poetry, but he has his own individual character of blithe undaunted courage. Even when the terrible battle has begun, and the heroes find themselves hemmed in by Chriemhild’s warriors, Folker fiddles on, until he dies by the hand of Hildebram.

Folker’s name is from our own word folk, the near relation of the Latin vulgus, whose progeny are found all over Europe in vulgar, vulgo, foule, &c. Most likely Folkvard is really the right version, and would mean people’s guard, and Folker is rather its corruption than independently the people’s warrior, and the same with Folko; they are, therefore, all thrown together in the following table.

In the Foulques stage, this name was home, alternately with Geoffroi, by the counts of Anjou, and with the strange soubriquets of Nerra and Réchin. One of these counts, the grandfather of our Henry II., became king of Jerusalem; but our English Angevins did not perpetuate the name; and though six Fulcos are recorded in Domesday, Fulk never took root in England, and is chiefly remembered because it belonged to Fulk Greville, the friend of Sydney. It was, in fact, with all its varieties, chiefly Burgundian.

Germany shows a few other forms: Folkwin, or Volquin, which exactly answers to Demophilos, or Publicola; Folkrad, Folkrich, and Folkmar; also Folkbert, which some prefer to Wilibert, as the origin of the Savoyard Filiberto, and our Fulbert.^[135]

Section IX.—Dankwart.

In the Nibelungenlied the father of Chriemhilt, who dwelt at Wurms, was ‘hight Dankrat,’ and the marshal at the court was Dankwart the swift, Hagen’s brother. Innocent as he was of a share in his brother’s crime, he was the first to be assailed while he was dining with Etzel’s knights, and he had to fight his way through Chriemhild’s warriors before he could return to his comrades in the hall, when he kept the door until, like all the rest, he perished in the massacre.

The first syllable of the name is the same as our word thank, and the name means thankful or grateful. The father of Chriemhild was thus Thank-rede, or grateful speech, and from him the Northmen seem to have taken their Thakraad, which in Normandy became Tancred, the knight of Hauteville, whose twelve gallant sons chased the Saracens from Apulia, and were the founders of the only brave dynasty that ever ruled in the enervating realms of the Two Sicilies. The son of one of these gallant knights, Tancredi di Puglia, was the foremost in the first crusade, and the favourite hero of Tasso, in whose epic he is a Christian Achilles; and Tancredi again was the last Sicilian king of the true Norman line, the same whose bickerings with Cœur de Lion make so unpleasant an episode in the third Crusade.

Dankwart, thankful guardian, lingered in Germany; and in 1668, a Yorkshire register records the baptism of Tankard, the son of a ‘Turkey merchant,’ who had probably learnt the name from some of his foreign connections. Dankheri, thankful warrior, was in Normandy Tancar. Dankker is the German surname, and has even come to Tanzen; so that our surname Dance may have the same origin. Thangbrand was the German priest whom King Olaf Tryggvesen of Norway sent to convert Iceland, but whose severity led to his expulsion; and Germany also mentions Dankmar; but the prefix is almost exclusively German.^[136]

Section X.—Theodoric.

Theodoric of Bern is hardly a genuine hero of the Nibelung, being really the main figure in a cycle of Germanic romances of his own; but as he, under the abbreviation Dietrich, is brought in to play a considerable part in the final action of the tale, this seems the fittest place for treating of him and the names in connection with him.

He seems to have been brought into the Nibelungenlied because the Germanic mind could conceive of nothing considerable passing without him. He is represented as one of the four-and-twenty princes in King Etzel’s train, and as anxious to prevent mischief to the visitors from Burgundy, warning them of Chriemhilt’s enmity, and refusing to attack them at her request. When the great slaughter began, it was Dietrich who conveyed the king and queen safely out of the mêlée, and withheld his men from engaging in it, until almost at the end, when they could no longer be restrained, and rushing into the fray were all slain except old Sir Hildebrand, though on the other hand, Gunther and Haghen alone remained alive of the Burgundians. Dietrich then armed himself, and after a fierce combat, made them both prisoners, and delivered them up to Chriemhilt, fully intending that she should spare their lives; but when her relentless fury had fallen on them, he assisted King Etzel to bury the dead, and to return the horses and armour of their fallen champions to their respective countries.

Other German romances, however, elevate this prince to a much higher rank. The Book of Heroes, written by Wolfram of Eschenbach and Heinrich of Ofterdingen, makes Dietrich of Bern, in Lombardy, son of King Dietmar. Hearing of Chriemhilt’s rose garden, which measured seven miles round, and was guarded by twelve champions, he was seized with a desire to do battle with them, for love of battle, not of ladies, though the victor was to receive a chaplet of roses and a kiss from the young lady. The wise old Sir Hildebrand, of the Wolfing line, conducted him and his eleven companion champions to Wurms, where the single combats took place. Dietrich’s knights were successful, and for the most part took the Chaplets, but refused the kisses, because they disdained Chriemhild as a faithless maiden.

A Danish ballad describes ‘Kong Tidrich’s’ tremendous battle with a Lindwurm, the progeny of one that had escaped his great-grandfather Wolfdietrich. He was led to enter on the battle by entreaties for help from a lion whom the dragon had seized; but at first he came by the worst, for his sword broke, and