Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer

 The story of Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer is a very old Germanic story that, in the Middle Ages, got attached to several other old stories, and in the nineteenth century was picked up by Richard Wagner for his massive "Ring" opera cycle (that's Wagner down below, click here for more on nineteenth-century efforts to reimagine medieval culture).  Literary scholars have a field day figuring out how all the parts of the Siegfried story might fit together.

 

The core of the story is that the hero Siegfried killed a dragon (also called a worm or a serpent), tasted the dragon's blood, and now was able to understand the language of birds.  A bird warned him that the dragon's friends and/or relatives were seeking revenge.  The dragon's horde of gold entered into it too.  There are many medieval images of someone with a sword in one hand licking the fingers of the other hand, with a bird perched in the tree above him.  These are Siegfried images.

But what happened to the story then?  One has to do some sort of mental archaeology to follow all its twists and turns.   The fullest medieval account is in the thirteenth-century Icelandic "Saga of the Volsungs."  Here Siegfried (Sigurd in Norse) enters the story well along, as a descendant of the (pagan) Norse god Odin.  It turns out that the dragon is the brother of Siegfried's foster father, who first encourages Siegfried to kill his brother, then wants to kill Siegfried to get revenge for the brother he himself wanted dead, but Siegfried kills him first.  Nice family interaction.  You will note that this saga was written long after Iceland had become Christian, and a constant theme is the horror of family feuds (conveniently set in long-ago pagan times).

Then we have historical events getting drawn into the Siegfried story, including Attila the Hun, the Merovingian-era kings of Burgundy, the Merovingian queen Brunhild (originally from Visigothic Spain), and the Carolingian-era Burgundian lords named Nibelung (Volsung in Icelandic).  There were also some ninth- and tenth-century epic tales that survive now only in fragments, whose heroes got attached to the Siegfried story,  These varied historical and fictional accounts seem to have circulated all during the early Middle Ages, different authors playing mix-and-match with pieces of them, until they emerged in the two great thirteenth-century epic tales, the "Saga of the Volsungs" in Norse and the "Nibelungenlied" in German.  Although Wagner tried to combine them (working in some material from the Norse Eddas while he was at it), the two versions were very deliberately written to reject parts of the story found in the other.

In the "Saga," as already noted, Siegfried enters the story rather late.  He kills the dragon and has a hot affair with Odin's daughter Brunhilda (who is actually his aunt, but we won't go into that), well before he marries.  In the "Nibelungenlied," however, the story starts with Siegfried, a rather reckless but Christian prince, who had killed a dragon and gotten its gold sometime in the past and had never met Brunhilda in his life.  In this version everyone is wealthy, courteous, and courtly--though soon it will all change.

Both versions have Siegfried marry a princess, then be killed by his brothers-in-law, because they have been stirred up against him by his oldest brother-in-law's wife, Brunhilda.  Having left the story, he plays no further role except as a reason for long-term revenge plots, which lead to just about everyone being dead.  Both the Norse and the German versions have this central plot, but it's handled very differently.

In the Norse version, Brunhilda wanted Siegfried dead because he had forgotten her, and she was wildly jealous.  She laughs to learn he's dead, but then commits suicide.  In the German version, she's very irritated with Siegfried's princess, who mocks Brunhilda by saying she (Brundhilda) had had sex with Siegfried thinking he was her own husband (she hadn't), and Brunhilda decides to get revenge by having Siegfried killed.  (She herself stays alive.)

In both versions, Siegfried's widow (Gudrun in the Norse version, Kriemhild in the German) is married off to Attila the Hun to get her out of the way.  When her brothers come to visit, there is a great battle with great slaughter, and Gudrun sides with her brothers in the Norse version.  In the German version, Kriemhild instead helps kill them.  The courtliness of the early parts of this story is long gone.

The brave young warrior who kills a dragon and gets the gold has shown up in various stories for 1500 years, and he seems to have started with Siegfried.  In the hands of two great thirteenth-century poets, he became the starting point about the horrors of betrayal and revenge.

There are various translations of both versions.  I like Jesse L. Byock's translation of the "Saga" and A. T. Hatto's translation of the "Nibelungenlied," both available from Penguin Books.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022

For more on medieval epics, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.

The Knight of the Short Nose

"Count Guillaume is the biggest, boldest knight in southern France. So why does he keep needing a woman to get him out of trouble? A rollicking (semi) epic tale. Adventure, humor, a touch of romance, and occasional sword fights."

I've got a new book!  It's called The Knight of the Short Nose.  As I mentioned earlier, I originally posted the story on Kindle-Vella, where people can read it one episode at a time on their phones (first three episodes are free, plus you can get "free tokens" to "unlock" later episodes).  Now I've also made the book available on Amazon (you can "borrow" it if you're a Kindle Unlimited member), either as an ebook or a paperback.

Here's the Amazon link.  Also available on Kobo, B&N/Nook, and Apple Books.  It also remains on Vella for those who enjoy serials (19 episodes await you).

 

The cover artist is RL Sather.  I've used a lot of her covers.  She specializes in medieval-style fantasy, which works for me!  This one may be my favorite of hers.

This book isn't, strictly speaking, fantasy, because there are no wizards or magic.  It's a loose retelling of a twelfth-century epic, that was written both to glorify and to mock chivalrous deeds.  That aspect I've most definitely kept.

The epic (actually a series of epics) was based on a real eighth-ninth-century Count William of Gellone, who was a rough contemporary of Charlemagne.  In the twelfth century, the epics made him more or less a contemporary of Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's son and heir.  They also filled their story with a variety of real eleventh- and twelfth-century people, none of whom were contemporary of course with the original (real) Count William.

So I've taken this twelfth-century William of Orange epic cycle, which sort of tells about the ninth century while actually commenting on its own contemporary society, and retold it for a twenty-first century audience.  Take some humor and stir.  "Alternate history" at its finest.

© C. Dale Brittain 2021

Kindle Vella

 Amazon has just announced a new way to read books on line:  as serials.  Their platform is called "Kindle Vella."  Here's the link to the main page.

The idea is that a lot of people enjoy reading serials, one short episode at a time, on their phones, perhaps while on the bus to work, perhaps in a brief break while at work or while contemplating whether that laundry really needs to be done now.

So far there are about 5,000 stories on the site, some complete if you read all the episodes, some with just a few episodes up so far and the authors promising to publish regularly.  They are pretty much all genre fiction, that is romance, or mystery, or thriller, or fantasy, or science fiction.  You can read them on your phone or computer, although the assumption seems to be that phones will rule.

For all of the stories, people can read the first three episodes for free, to see if they find it intriguing.  After that, you have to pay (although there's a place on the site to get some free "tokens").  Amazon, which when it gets the bit between its teeth really likes to try something new, has the reader pay with "tokens."  You buy tokens in bundles.  They are about a penny each, less if you buy a lot of tokens.

A typical episode of about 2000 words (the equivalent of about half a dozen pages in a book) will require about 20 tokens to "unlock" the episode.  The authors, understandably, love to end their episodes with cliff-hangers, to make the readers cough up some more tokens.  Amazon will also nudge you to keep reading.  If you missed something, you can always go back to the beginning by clicking "see all episodes" below the list of the various episodes/chapters.

Also while trying to do something new, Amazon encourages readers to click that a story is their "Fave" (which I hope means favorite, it apparently is something good) or to give episodes "thumbs up."  (Wait.  Under the original Roman empire, didn't a thumbs-up in the Colosseum mean that the emperor wanted the gladiator to die miserably?  Let's move on.)

Now you probably guessed that I have my very own story up on Vella.  And you guessed correctly!  It's called "The Knight of the Short Nose" and is a complete story in 19 episodes, all there for your reading pleasure.  Here's the cover.

It's a rollicking tale of chivalry, betrayal, sword fights, and the biggest, baddest knight who somehow always needs a woman to save him.  It's loosely based on the epic cycle "William of Orange," about which I blogged recently.

If you enjoy reading serials, here's the direct link.  Or if you prefer a regular ebook or paperback version, those are now available on Amazon.  Enjoy!

© C. Dale Brittain 2021