Chased you thro' the thicket, then were the flowers red.
That I must weep so sorely, in sooth! I have full need."
The magic arts and the cutting of runes by women are no longer mentioned in the greatest epic of the Middle High German period, while they are yet in full sway in the Norse version of Sigurd and Brunhild, or, as she is there called, Sigrdrifa. The gift of healing, however, is attributed to women in both versions.
As we have seen in ancient Germanic law, woman is under the guardianship, or Mundium (hand), of her nearest male relatives. So she is at the period of the Nibelungenlied. Of Kriemhilde it is said:
"Her guardians were three kings, rich and of noble race...
The maiden was their sister; the princes had her in ward."
Noble women resided usually in the inner secluded rooms, called hemenate. Siegfried did not see Kriemhilde at the Burgundian court for a whole year. Her favorite occupation in her seclusion was to embroider gold and jewels on silk, fashioning splendid garments for the bridal expeditions and courtly travels of the heroes. Rarely, and only on festal occasions, women appeared to receive distinguished guests. Then they are surrounded by their attendant warriors, who as a symbol of ready protection carry swords in their hands. Any offence to a noblewoman is taken up by her entire following and is expiated in bloody fashion. Marriage by capture no longer occurs, yet traces of it can be found everywhere in the later bridal expeditions of Gunther and the Hegelings. On the battlefield, Siegfried pays no gold for his bride, it is true, but he has to earn her in a hard struggle against the enemies of her three brothers.
The lot of woman is suffering and sorrow and care, as evidenced from such verses as:
"Whatever sufferings fall to the lot of the men,
All those are wept over by the women."