Monday, June 22, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

Germanic Heroic Legend

Germanic heroic legend and its later literary reception: Nibelung story, Rhine legend, dragon-hoard memory, doom, revenge, and Wagnerian afterlife.

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Texts

Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine — Lewis SpenceHero Tales and Legends of the Rhine — Lewis Spence's 1915 survey: the mythology and folklore of the Rhine valley — the Nibelung legend, Charlemagne and Roland, the Lorelei, the Bishop and the Rats, Faust, the Wandering Jew, and the legendary history of the great river from source to sea.The Nibelungenlied — Daniel ShumwayThe Nibelungenlied, the great Middle High German epic of Siegfried, Kriemhild, and the fall of the Burgundians — translated by Daniel B. Shumway (1909).The Ring of the Nibelung — Richard WagnerThe Ring of the Nibelung — Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle rendered as prose narrative by Margaret Armour (1910): Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung — the complete Ring Cycle from the theft of the gold to the fall of Valhalla.