3 - Dress, Disguise, and Shape-Shifting in Nibelungenlied and Volsunga Saga

Summary

The narratives in the Nibelungenlied and the Volsunga Saga are adventure stories on a level with the classical Iliad and Aeneid and might be partly based on Greco-Roman storytelling. They are stories of hunters and prey – and very well-dressed hunters and prey. It is due, in part, to their sartorial appointments that they are recognized as such – and they die because of it. The chief players – Sigurd and Siegfried – are, in fact, defined by their garments. In this paper, I will explore the costumes worn by key individuals in the Norse Volsunga-Niflung stories and the closely related Middle High German Nibelungenlied, in order to show how the actors are defined as well as disguised by their clothing. Of the numerous medieval epics written down during the Christian period, but undoubtedly reflecting pre-Christian oral traditions, the Volsunga Saga and Nibelungenlied both tell stories of great heroes and tragic deaths, many of them related to dress. Each epic looks at clothing in a different way and the clothing lends richness and texture to the story as a whole, permitting a modern audience to see apparel as status markers, or disguise, or camouflage. The paper also looks at, as a case study, the pivotal role of the disguised otter as a direct cause of mayhem in the Volsunga Saga and alluded to indirectly in the Nibelungenlied in the form of a hunting suit.

The cycle of stories of the Volsungs is found in various manuscripts beginning in the thirteenth century, but is assumed to date from the period before the Conversion of the Nordic area of influence – the 600s, or even earlier – and relates the history of the family that was the progenitor of Scandinavian royalty. The story of the Nibelungs, the Middle High German for Niflung, and usually assumed to be twelfth century, is known from over 35 manuscript fragments, dating as early as the thirteenth century. It covers a brief period, unlike the Volsunga Saga, and gathers players from all over north and central Europe. While the dates of the composition of both stories are hard to determine, the Volsung/Niflung cycle is primarily pre-Christian ,while the Nibelungenlied is more in the style of European courtly tales and is without doubt influenced by Christianity, differentiating between pagans and Christians.