([St. XIX.]) These German strangers or guests (Tiuschen gesten) are the Burgundians according to von der Hagen, but Thüringians according to Lachmann. The latter says, the expression does not occur elsewhere in the Lays of the Nibelungers. This restricted use of a term, which was afterward extended to a whole nation, resembles the restricted use of the word Hellen in Homer.
([St. XXIII.]) The good margrave seems here to discharge the duties of a male duenna.
([St. XL.]) Von der Hagen here notices the custom of tilting by the way in festal processions. Similar descriptions occur elsewhere in this poem, as for instance at the landing of Gunther and Brunhild (St. VII, Tenth Adventure). In this respect the Nibelungenlied differs from the "Orlando Innamorato" and "Furioso," as well as from the "Faerie Queene," in all of which poems tournaments are exhibited with far more pomp and ceremony, and as matters of long previous preparation.
([St. XLI.]) Haimburg, a town of Hungary on the borders of Austria, was fortified, according to von der Hagen, by Duke Leopold, of Austria, out of the ransom of Richard Cœur de Lion.
([St. XLIV.]) Etzel's castle, now Buda, so called from Attila's brother, Buda or Bleda.
TWENTY-THIRD ADVENTURE
([St. III.]) Lachmann's Thirteenth Lay begins here and ends with St. LXXXIV, Twenty-fourth Adventure.
TWENTY-FOURTH ADVENTURE
([St. I.]) [See the note] to St. XLV, Eighth Adventure.
([St. LXIII.]) This stanza seems out of its place here. It should come somewhere before the council of the Burgundian chiefs, for it is necessary to know when an entertainment is to take place in order to determine whether one can attend it, and when one ought with propriety to set out. Hagan, besides, must be considered to have had a knowledge of this, before he arranged the plan of setting out only a week after the departure of the ambassadors.