In Nordic tradition, Sigurd or Sigvard, in German tradition, Siegfried, is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon — known in Nordic tradition as Fafnir () — and who was later murdered. He has several epithets, such as "Fáfnir's bane" () in the Icelandic sagas, "the horn-skinned" () in medieval German texts, "Swift lad" (Snaresven, Snarensven, Snarensvend, Snaresvend) in Scandinavian medieval ballads, and especially in modern times "the Dragon Slayer" (, , ).
In both the Norse and continental Germanic traditions, Sigurd is portrayed as dying as the result of a quarrel between his wife (Gudrun/Kriemhild) and another woman, Brunhild, whom he had unknowingly tricked into marrying the Burgundian king Gunnar/Gunther. His slaying of a dragon and possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen is also common to both traditions. In other respects, however, the two traditions appear to diverge. The most important works to feature Sigurd are the , the Völsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda. He also appears in numerous other works from both Germany and Scandinavia, including a series of medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads.
Sigurd's story is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles, dating from the 11th century. It is possible that he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin.
Richard Wagner used the legends about Sigurd/Siegfried in his operas and . Wagner relied heavily on the Norse tradition in creating his version of Siegfried. His depiction of the hero has influenced many subsequent depictions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Siegfried became heavily associated with German nationalism.
The Thidrekssaga finishes its tale of Sigurd by saying:
Etymology
The names Sigurd and Sigvard are ultimately variants of the same name, while Siegfried is a related construction.
Various forms are recorded as given names across the old Germanic languages.
West Germanic North Germanic Sigurd / Sigvard: , , , , , , Middle Scots:
Middle Frisian: Frisian and , ,
, ,
Early Old Swedish: , , Late Old Swedish: (1505), , , , (1434), , ,
Old Danish: , , , , , Old Swedish: , , , , Siegfried: , ,
(8th c.), (9th c.), (11th c.) , , (13th c.) Early Modern German: ,
, , Old Danish:
Old Swedish: , ,
Both follow dithematic Germanic naming conventions in which two elements, a fore element and an aft element, are combined into a single name. Their first elements share an etymological root, Proto-Germanic *sigi-, meaning victory (see Sig (given name)). The second elements of the names are different however: in Siegfried, it is Proto-Germanic *-frið, meaning peace; in Sigurd/Sigvard, it is Proto-Germanic *-ward, meaning protection. Although they do not share the same second element, it is clear that surviving Scandinavian written sources held Siegfried to be the continental version of the name they called Sigurd.
The normal form of Siegfried in Middle High German is Sîvrit or Sîfrit, with the *sigi- element contracted. This form of the name had been common even outside of heroic poetry since the 9th century, though the form Sigevrit is also attested, along with the Middle Dutch Zegevrijt. In Early Modern German, the name develops to Seyfrid or Seufrid (spelled Sewfrid). The modern form Siegfried is not attested frequently until the 17th century, after which it becomes more common. In modern scholarship, the form Sigfrid is sometimes used.
The Old Norse name Sigurðr is contracted from an original *Sigvǫrðr, which in turn derives from an older *Sigi-warðuʀ; alternatively to an unrecorded Proto-Norse *wor-/*wur- form of the latter element, where /wo/ or /wu/ collapsed into /u/ around the 7th c. ( Proto-Norse: wolᵃfʀ → ("wolf"), *wordą → ("word"), *wondrą → ("wonder")). The form Sigvarðr instead derives from the form varðr, akin to English "ward", and thus has kept its v-. Hermann Reichert notes that the form of the root -vǫrðr instead of -varðr is only found in the name Sigurd, with other personal names instead using the form -varðr; he suggests that the form -vǫrðr may have had religious significance, whereas -varðr was purely non-religious in meaning. Contrary, the suffix also appears in the name Viurðr.
There are competing theories as to which name is original. Names equivalent to Siegfried are first attested in Anglo-Saxon Kent in the 7th century and become frequent in Anglo-Saxon England in the 9th century. Jan-Dirk Müller argues that this late date of attestation means that it is possible that Sigurd more accurately represents the original name. Wolfgang Haubrichs suggests that the form Siegfried arose in the bilingual Frankish kingdom as a result of romance-language influence on an original name *Sigi-ward. According to the normal phonetic principles, the Germanic name would have become Romance-language *Sigevert, a form which could also represent a Romance-language form of Germanic Sigefred. He further notes that *Sigevert would be a plausible Romance-language form of the name Sigebert (see ) from which both names could have arisen. As a second possibility, Haubrichs considers the option that metathesis of the r in *Sigi-ward could have taken place in Anglo-Saxon England, where variation between -frith and -ferth is well documented.
Reichert, on the other hand, notes that Scandinavian figures who are attested in pre-12th-century German, English, and Irish sources as having names equivalent to Siegfried are systematically changed to forms equivalent to Sigurd in later Scandinavian sources. Forms equivalent to Sigurd, on the other hand, do not appear in pre-11th-century non-Scandinavian sources, and older Scandinavian sources sometimes call persons Sigfroðr Sigfreðr or Sigfrǫðr who are later called Sigurðr. He argues from this evidence that a form equivalent to Siegfried is the older form of Sigurd's name in Scandinavia as well.
Epithets Sigurd has several epithets.
In the Icelandic sagas, he is called "Fáfnir's bane" () after he has killed the dragon.
In the German Nibelungenlied, he is called "the horn-skinned" () after killing the dragon, which refers to him bathing in the magic blood of the dragon to receive its power to resist piercing weapons; the epithet essentially meaning "the dragon-scaled".
In Scandinavian medieval ballads, the epithet is Snaresven, Snarensven, Snarensvend, Snaresvend, among more variations. From a surface level, this translates to "Swift-lad", referencing his youth and abilities, with the noun -sven having further connotations as young warrior and servant ( , "servant, warrior"; to Swain (surname), Coxswain). A more imaginative reading would be to see the prefix Snare- as the word 'snare' ("rope, vine / to ensare"), then being an analog kenning to Old Norse Fáfnir ("the fathomner, embracer, coiler").
In modern times, he has received the new epithet "the Dragon Slayer"; , , .
Origins
Unlike many figures of Germanic heroic tradition, Sigurd cannot be easily identified with a historical figure. The most popular theory is that Sigurd has his origins in one or several figures of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks: the Merovingians had several kings whose name began with the element *sigi-. In particular, the murder of Sigebert I (d. 575), who was married to Brunhilda of Austrasia, is often cited as a likely inspiration for the figure, a theory that was first proposed in 1613. Sigebert was murdered by his brother Chilperic I at the instigation of Chilperic's wife queen Fredegunda. If this theory is correct, then in the legend, Fredegunda and Brunhilda appear to have switched roles, while Chilperic has been replaced with Gunther.
(2005) argues that, while the story of Sigurd appears to have Merovingian resonances, no connection to any concrete historical figure or event is convincing. As the Merovingian parallels are not exact, other scholars also fail to accept the proposed model. But the Sigurd/Siegfried figure, rather than being based on the Merovingian alone, may be a composite of additional historical personages, e.g., the "Caroliginian Sigifridus" alias Godfrid, Duke of Frisia (d. 855) according to Edward Fichtner (2015).
(1830) had also believed Siegfried to be an amalgamation of several historical figures, and was the first to suggest a possible connection with the Germanic hero Arminius from the Roman period, famed for defeating Publius Quinctilius Varus's three legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. Later, (1837) asserted outright that Sigurd/Siegfried was a mythologized version of Arminius. Although this position was taken more recently by Otto Höfler (beginning in 1959), who also suggested that , the name of the place where Sigurd kills the dragon in the Scandinavian tradition, represents the battlefield for the Teutoburg Forest, modern scholarship generally dismisses a connection between Sigurd and Arminius as tenuous speculation. The idea that Sigurd derives from Arminius nevertheless continues to be promoted outside of the academic sphere, including in popular magazines such as Der Spiegel.
It has also been suggested by others that Sigurd may be a purely mythological figure without a historical origin. Nineteenth-century scholars frequently derived the Sigurd story from myths about Germanic deities including Odin, Baldr, and Freyr; such derivations are no longer generally accepted. Catalin Taranu argues that Sigurd's slaying of the dragon ultimately has Indo-European origins, and that this story later became attached to the story of the murder of the Merovingian Sigebert I.
Continental Germanic traditions and attestations
Continental Germanic traditions about Siegfried enter writing with the Nibelungenlied around 1200. The German tradition strongly associates Siegfried with a kingdom called "Niederland" (Middle High German Niderlant), which, despite its name, is not the same as the modern Netherlands, but describes Siegfried's kingdom around the city of Xanten. The late medieval Heldenbuch-Prosa identifies "Niederland" with the area around Worms but describes it as a separate kingdom from King Gibich's land (i.e. the Burgundian kingdom).
Nibelungenlied
The gives two contradictory descriptions of Siegfried's youth. On the level of the main story, Siegfried is given a courtly upbringing in Xanten by his father king Siegmund and mother Sieglind. When he is seen coming to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom to woo the princess Kriemhild, however, the Burgundian vassal Hagen von Tronje narrates a different story of Siegfried's youth: according to Hagen, Siegfried was a wandering warrior (Middle High German recke) who won the hoard of the Nibelungen as well as the sword Balmung and a cloak of invisibility (Tarnkappe) that increases the wearer's strength twelve times. He also tells an unrelated tale about how Siegfried killed a dragon, bathed in its blood, and thereby received skin as hard as horn that makes him invulnerable. Of the features of young Siegfried's adventures, only those that are directly relevant to the rest of the story are mentioned.