Women of Wurms: Myth and Memory in Germany's Camelot

I grew up in the middle of a large forest in southeastern Ohio on a low, flat hill called "Tick Ridge."

Perhaps it's all the lonely days I spent alone, populating the woods with creatures of my imagination, that explains my fascination with timeless tales. Grimm's fairy tales were an early interest, but so were the tales of King Arthur.

Written in medieval Britain, based loosely on characters 500-800 years older still, the stories populate the forests of England with knights errant, strange, magical ponds, dragons, and other amazing characters. At the center of all the action (until the final battle) stands Camelot: a fantastic castle at whose heart lies the Round Table. While many locations around Britain lay claim to being the place on which the stories are based, Camelot is a castle of the readers' mind, and it will always be that way.

At the same time that Chretien de Troyes and, later, Thomas Malory, were fleshing out the tales of Lancelot, Guinevire, and Arthur, Germans and Danes were fleshing out their own heroic tales: a cycle of twelve tales known as The Niebelungen Saga. When I was growing up, I somehow remained ignorant of these tales, even as I filled the forest with characters from my reading.

The Niebelungen legends, unlike those of Arthur, are set in places that are still with us today. 

• The hero, Sigfried, grows up in the town of Xanten, which exists today near the Dutch border in North Rhine-Westphalia.
• The powerful queen, Brunnhilde, rules over the kingdome of Iceland, where Sigfried uses a magic cloak of invisibility to win her for his comrade, Gunther.
• Etzel, king of the Huns (based on Attila the Hun) has a castle in Hungary where the final scenes of the story take place.
• And the royal siblings, Gunther and Kriemhild, have their court at Wurms. Of course they do!

I finished a recent blog, following the gaze of Germania, the 38-meter statue at the Niederwald Memorial in Rudesheim. I felt she could be looking toward Mainz. She could also be looking towards Wurms, 40 miles due south of Mainz on the same, western side of the Rhine that the statue watches.

There is another connection with Germania that I'd like to explore, one which I learned at the Niebelungen Museum, and which I've been pondering ever since. It concerns the way the Niebelungen myth wormed its way into the German psyche and some of the devastating consequences for German history.

A big theme of the Niebelung Museum's Tower of Vision was the interaction of Germany's history and its founding myth, particularly in the character of Kriemhild, the icon of German beauty who steals Sigfried's heart with one, alluring glance and inspires him to help her brother, Gunther, court the formidable Brunnhilde, Queen of Iceland.

The Romance at the Heart of the Niebelung Saga

The romance of Sigfried and Kriemhild is one for the ages. When Sigfried first appears in Wurms to verify reports of the princess's beauty, he is already a hero. He has defeated a dragon in single combat, he possesses a huge treasure, obtained from the king of the dwarves or Niebelungs, from whom he as also obtained a cloak of invisibility. Moreover, he ventures out to defeat a band of Saxons bound to make war on Wurms. 

Give him the princess, already!

Kriemhild's brother has another match on his mind. In order to win her hand, Sigfried accompanies Gunther to Iceland, where Brunnhilde demands that suitors compete with her in three events: throwing a massive, tree-sized javelin, tossing a huge rock, and a long jump. The suitor who defeats her in these three contests will win Brunnhilde's hand. Should he lose in any of them, his life is forfeit.

Passing as Gunther's servant, Sigfried takes the king to Iceland where he passes himself off as a member of Gunther's retinue. Sigfried hides within the invisibility cloak to help Gunther in each of the three contests. Remember, Sigfried is already a super-hero. Brunnhilde accepts Gunther's proposal.

(In another chapter, which wouldn't make it into a Disney version of the Niebelungen Saga, Brunnhilde uses the first two nights of, ahem, wedded bliss to wrestle and subjugate poor Gunther, leaving him to spend the night hog-tied and suspended from the ceiling. Once again, Sigfried intervenes, sneaking in with his cloak of invisibility to wrestle Brunnhilde and, uh, subdue her, holding her down so Gunther can consumate the union. When Sigfried leaves early the next morning, he takes her girdle and her ring.)

Sigfried marries Kriemhild and returns with her to the lower Rhine to enjoy the Niebelungs' treasure and rejoice in their love (Photo courtesy of Library of Congress).

In time, the royal couples reunite in Wurms. Sigfried and Kriemhild have a son whome they have named Gunther. And Gunther and Brunnhilde also have a son. Guess what his name is? Sigfried! But Brunnhilde is also sceptical. Why did Kriemhild marry someone below her station? Why would she wed a mere underling? Gunther could tell Brunnhilde the truth--but that would make him look like less of a man in his wife's eyes.

So Brunnhilde treats Kriemhild as her inferior--just as she believes Sigfried to be an inferior to King Gunther. I won't go into the details of the insult because my audience doesn't have medieval standards of courtliness. Needless to say, Brunnhilde disses Kriemhild in front of the entire court of Wurms. 

Vengeance is Kriemhild's

For the first time, we learn that Kriemhild isn't just a beguiling beauty. Her eye lashes may flutter like hummingbird wings, but her heart rings with the anvil strikes of vengeance. 

Kriemhild rushes back and brings Brunnhilde the girdle and the ring that Sigfried had stolen from her the night her marriage was consummated. "Let's talk about your wedding night," she tells her sister-in-law.

"I kicked your brother's ass!" Brunnhilde retorts.

"I mean the other one."

"I kicked his ass again!" (Illusration from Twitter, Wunderkammer)

"The third one, the one where you, uh." Kriemhild holds out the purloined items: proof that Sigfried had subdued Brunnhilde, proving that she was lower in power (in both senses of the word) than the man she had insulted.

Burned, Brunnhilde won't accept Kriemhild's "gotcha" nor will her equally insulted husband, Gunther. But this blog has gone long already, so I will wait to finish the saga for later.

In later years, as Germania grew as a feminie icon for the German people. Many of the qualities they instilled in her came from Kriemhild--foremost among them was backbone. That's what I learned in the Niebelungen Museum in Wurms. Kriemhild had beauty, yes, and long, braided, blonde hair. But she took offense. She wouldn't stand for disrespect, and oh what disrespect Germany faced in the face of history.

I saw a funny cartoon when I visited St. Paul's Kirche in Frankfurt, the site of the first republican Germany assembly in 1848. A doctor gives a father a newborn baby (the German republic of the day) and says, "Congratulations, it's a boy!"

The father snorts and waves off the doctor. "Had it been a girl, I wold have named it Germania," he says. "I already have enough naghty boys around the house."

German pride. Kriemhild embodies it. 

(It's funny, the prototype for a German man in the 1840s was "Michel," a hard-working rube who doesn't have the stomach for politics--or the intelligence to know that a better world is possible)

There are still stories to tell in this blog. I will return to the Niebelungen soon. 

My stories are based on this overview of the Niebelungen Saga.