Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas / A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work

by W. J. Henderson

When the dominion of Rome in the west of Europe was overthrown in 476 A.D., the Teutonic race occupied the country from the banks of the Rhine and the Danube to the coasts of Norway. The invaders who settled in the southern provinces of Europe soon lost their distinctive speech. But in Germany and Scandinavia the old tongues remained, and consequently poetic recitation, the custom of long centuries, continued. Tacitus tells us that the people of these northern lands were accustomed to store their history in rhyming chronicles repeated by the bards. It was not till the reign of the wise and heroic Charlemagne (742-814) that these chronicles were collected. Nothing remains of the collection which he made, but it can hardly be doubted that some of the materials found in the Siegfried legend formed part of the old stories of the bards, for it has been traced back as far as the sixth century, when its germs were recognisable. In the first preserved form of the story of this hero's exploits we find recorded the fabulous history of times not widely separated from those of the conquest of Rome's western empire, for in the sixth century appeared in tradition the names not only of Siegfried and Dietrich von Bern, but Theodoric the Great and Attila.

This first preserved form of the legend is called the "Heldenbuch" ("Book of Heroes"). In its present shape it dates from the latter part of the twelfth century, but there is evidence that it was in existence long before that period. It is a collection of poems dealing with the events of the time of Attila and the incursions of the German nations into Rome. The principal personages who appear in this book are: Etzel, or Attila; Dietrich, or Theodoric the Great; Siegfried, Gudrune, Hagen, and others who reappear in the "Nibelungen Lied." The period of the events which occur in the Wagnerian dramas may be estimated by the formation of a succession of incidents leading back to Attila, an historical personage with an established date. In "The Horny Siegfried," one of the poems of the "Heldenbuch," we find matter which serves as a prelude to the "Nibelungen Lied." In this poem Siegfried appears as the embodiment of manly heroism, beauty, and virtue, as he was known to Teutonic song and story for centuries. From having bathed in the blood of dragons he was invulnerable except in one spot, between the shoulders, on which a leaf had happened to fall. Having rescued the beautiful Chriemhild from dragons (or a giant) and obtained possession of the treasures of the dwarfs, he returns her to her father, King of Wurms, and then marries her.

The "Nibelungen Lied" identifies Chriemhild as the sister of Gunther, the Gutrune of Wagner's version. Chriemhild, in order to obtain revenge for the treachery of Siegfried and Brünnhilde, which I shall recount in the outline of the "Nibelungen Lied," after the death of the former marries Attila. It was twenty-six years after the death of Siegfried when she carried out her plan of revenge. How long this was before the death of Attila is not related, but we know that he died in 453 A.D. He is supposed to have been born about 406, which would have made him forty-seven years old at the time of his death. It was thirteen years after her marriage to Attila when Chriemhild accomplished her revenge. Supposing that Attila's death took place not less than a year later, that would fix the date of the marriage at 439, or when this busy warrior was thirty-three and perhaps ready to rest, and that of the revenge at 452. Therefore, as the "Nibelungen Lied" tells us that the death of Siegfried took place twenty-six years before the accomplishment of the revenge, we may suppose that the hero expired in 426. At any rate, the date of his death must have been in the early part of the fifth century. And equally, therefore, much of the supernatural paraphernalia of "Götterdämmerung" belongs to the store of fable which has come down from that period. If one is curious to establish dates for the earlier dramas he must first discover how long Siegfried and Brünnhilde remained together on the Valkyrs' Hill after the sleeping beauty was awakened by the young hero. The date of "Die Walküre" would be some twenty or twenty-two years earlier, for in the last scene of that work we learn that Sieglinde is to become his mother. As for "Das Rheingold," that must be left to conjecture entirely.

From the Heldenbuch the next step in the German versions of the legend carries us to the "Nibelungen Lied." Here, as I have noted, we find Chriemhild as the sister of Gunther. Siegfried has heard of her beauty and determines to win her as his bride. But all his efforts are in vain. Meanwhile, to the Court news comes of the beautiful Brunhild, Queen of Isenland, a woman of matchless courage and strength. Every suitor for her hand must abide three combats with her, and if vanquished is put to death. Gunther decides to try to win her, and Siegfried accompanies him on his expedition, with the understanding that if they succeed he is to have Chriemhild to wife. Arriving at the Court of Brunhild, Siegfried, in order to increase respect for the standing of Gunther, poses as his friend's vassal. The combats take place, and Siegfried, making himself invisible by the aid of the magic cap which he obtained from the dwarfs, assists Gunther to conquer the Queen.

Gunther weds Brunhild and Siegfried marries Gutrune, but the proud Queen of Isenland does not relish the idea of having for a sister-in-law the wife of a vassal. Gunther tells her that Siegfried is a Prince in his own country, but she disbelieves her spouse, and to punish him for his falsehood denies him her embraces, binds him with her magic girdle, and hangs him on a nail. Siegfried, having pity on Gunther, promises to deprive Brunhild of the girdle and make her a wife in fact as well as in name. So on the following night, disguised by the Tarnkappe, he takes Gunther's place, embraces the unwilling Brunhild, and carries off her magic girdle and her ring. Gutrune misses Siegfried from the chamber, and in the end he is compelled to explain to her. He foolishly gives her the girdle and the ring. The two women subsequently come to hot words on a question of precedence in entering a church (like Elsa and Ortrud), and Chriemhild in her anger charges Brunhild with her relations with Siegfried, producing the ring as evidence. Then Brunhild, discovering the deception of the Tarnkappe, vows vengeance, in the attainment of which Hagen aids her. Having induced Chriemhild to disclose to him the mortal spot on Siegfried's body, he drives a spear into it and slays him. It is to secure revenge for this murder that Chriemhild marries Attila.

This is a very brief and imperfect outline of the mighty epic of mediæval Germany. It breathes the spirit of mediævalism, and it contains none of the mythological features which appear in the beautiful Scandinavian version of the story of Siegfried. Yet it has certain incidents employed by Wagner in the dramas, especially in "Götterdämmerung." The use of the Tarnhelm, the substitution of Siegfried for Gunther in the wedding chamber, the discovery of the deception through the recognition of the ring by Brünnhilde, and the slaying of Siegfried by Hagen's spear-thrust in the back—all appear in the drama in most significant forms.

It is to the Norse forms of the legend, however, that we must turn for the earlier parts of Wagner's story and for the most significant features of the undercurrent of ethical thought. This version in its oldest form is found in the Eddas, some of which are undoubtedly of great antiquity. Yet in these poems we meet with the historic name of Attila. No doubt many deeds performed by earlier and forgotten heroes were attributed to this wonder-worker of the early Middle Ages, and in this way he became a sort of composite figure, and thus was thrust into the later versions of the Eddaic tales. All the other personages in the story are mythical. As Mr. Sparling notes in his introduction to the translation of the Volsunga Saga made by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson,[39] only fragments of the Eddaic poems still exist, but "ere they perished there arose from them a saga," that of the race of Volsungs.

How old the original Eddaic stories are can only be conjectured. When the Scando-Gothic races overran Europe they carried at least the germs of these stories with them, but no man knows where they got them. But it is certain that the northern versions of the Nibelung tales, as known to us now, must have originated in the same legends as the "Nibelungen Lied." It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the collection of the rhymed Eddas made by Saemund the Wise was discovered, and the prose Eddas of Snorre Sturleson (born 1178, died 1224) were written a century later than these. For Saemund the Wise was born in 1056 and died in 1131, and therefore the date of his collection of the rhymed Eddas is not much earlier than that of the "Nibelungen Lied." Both the Eddas and the Lied were widely diverging branches of an old trunk, and that accounts in a measure for both their resemblances and their differences. The southern version is more adulterated with inexact history, while the northern embodies more of the fundamental religious mythology of the people.

Far away in the snowy fastnesses of Iceland were preserved the ancient stories of the hero Sigurd and the heroine Brünnhilde. Even to this day these stories are sung or told by the secluded people of the Faroe Islands. Whence did they procure them? From the scattering of races, which, begun according to religious history at the end of the flood, continued through the Dark Ages. So impressed upon the imaginations of the wanderers were these old tales that they connected historical personages with the actors in them, not only, as we have seen, by attributing fabulous deeds to real beings, but by tracing the descent of actual persons from those of mythical nature. For example, the first King of Dublin was Olaf the White, and, according to tradition, he was the son of Ingiald, son of Thora, daughter of "Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye," son of Ragnar Lodbrok by Aslaug, daughter of Sigurd by Brünnhilde. And the widow of Olaf was one of the settlers of Iceland. It was in the ninth century that Harold Fairhair determined to conquer all Norway. He fought also in the British Isles, and after a long and bloody struggle made himself master of Ireland as well as of the northern coasts. Many of the vanquished, including Olaf's widow, took refuge in the western islands, and with them went the legends, which had come up from the Rhine valley, and which, safely buried in the fastnesses of Iceland and the Faroes, grew into the sagas known to us as the Elder Eddas. "There also shall we escape the troubling of kings and scoundrels," says the Vatsdoelsaga. In their security they made their wondrous songs.

It was in 1643 that Brynjolf Sveinsson, Bishop of Skalholt, discovered the manuscripts of Saemund the Wise, and he christened them the "Edda Saemundar hinns froda," or "Edda of Saemund the Wise." The term "Edda," which is Icelandic for "grandmother," had been applied already to the prose tales of Sturleson, though the latter are of later origin than the former. The two works are frequently distinguished as the Elder and the Younger Edda. The Elder is often called the Poetic Edda, because it consists chiefly of songs, while the Younger is often named the Prose Edda. The first part of the Elder Edda gives the mythology of the North, while the lays of the heroes are found in its second part. One of the translators of the Prose Edda has described it as a sort of commentary on the Poetic Edda.[40]