3 - Unfolding Identities: The Intertextual Roles of Clothing in the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga Saga

Summary

In thirty-nine chapters (Aventiuren), the epic Das Nibelungenlied traces Kriemhilt's (Kriemhild’s) love and marriage to Sîvrit (Siegfried) the dragon-slayer; his betrayal and murder by her brothers and her uncle Hagen; her loss of Siegfried's treasure to Hagen; her subsequent marriage to Etzel, king of the Huns; and her revenge for these wrongs, which results in the annihilation of her family, the Burgundians. Yet among the dramatic action of the tales, the narrative often lingers when, for example, Siegfried the dragon-slayer, Burgundian Prince Gunther, and their company are presented with an exquisite wardrobe:

Die arâbîschen sîden,

wîz alsô der snê unt von Zazamanc der guoten, grüen’ alsam der klê,

dar in si leiten steine; des wurden guotiu kleit.

selbe sneit si Kriemhilt, diu vil hêrlîche meit. (str. 362)

[They threaded precious stones into snow-white silk from Arabia or into silk from Zazamanc as green as clover, making fine robes, while noble Kriemhild cut the cloth herself.] (NL, 37)

The Nibelungenlied is liberally embellished with this sort of stanza, known as schneiderstrophen or tailor's stanzas. The frequent and exaggerated emphasis on fine clothing here and elsewhere throughout the poem at first appear to be a significant difference between the roughly contemporary Middle High German epic poem and the Old Norse prose rendition—Völsunga saga—a tale about this same dragon-slayer and the downfall of the Burgundian dynasty. Cross-analysis of the texts within the shared Niflungen/Nibelungen tradition, however, reveals clothing was a powerful and versatile signifier in both texts. Clothing allows core elements of the interrelated textual and oral traditions to be preserved while adapting the narrative to suit the cultural and social milieu of different audiences.

Unraveling the varied roles played by clothing in the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga saga teases out culturally specific expectations of the audiences from the shared threads of the broader shared narrative. Initially, the Nibelungenlied's attention to articles of clothing and their social value seems to be explained by setting and society; what was valued in the continental courts of the early thirteenth century would understandably be out of place in the rural homesteads or outdoor assemblies of Iceland. Yet, both narratives use clothing to illuminate key elements of the Niflungen/Nibelungen tradition, with which both Icelandic and Germanic audiences would have been familiar.