Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid
The poem concerns the adventures of young Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied and an important figure in Germanic heroic legend.
Afterwards it tells how he rescued Kriemhild, daughter of the Burgundian king Gybich, with the help of the dwarf Eugel from a cursed man who has transformed into a dragon.
External evidence indicates that Seyfrid likely dates to around 1400, but the exact period of composition is unknown as the poem only survives in printings and a single manuscript fragment from after 1500.
The smith therefore sends Seyfrid to a lone linden tree under the pretense that the boy will meet a charcoal burner there.
Seyfrid sticks his finger into it and realizes that it causes his own skin to harden, so he smears the molten horned-skin over himself, covering everywhere except between his shoulder blades.
He will never grant permission for her to see her family again, and he will keep her by his side in dragon-form for another five years, after which the curse on him will break and he will regain the form of a handsome youth.
Trachenstein",[10][c] or the "Drachenstein"[3][d]), and learns of Kriemhild being held hostage, and seeks to rescue her with the aid of the dwarf Eugel and the unwilling and traitorous giant Kuperan.
But by a stroke of luck, the treacherous giant Kuperan tells him that nearby there is stored a mighty sword, the only one which is capable of defeating the dragon.
Seyfrid had to flee from the "blue and red" flames spit by the elder dragon, and hide until the heat cooled off.
[39][40] It is possible that the poem already existed around 1400, however, as version m of the Nibelungenlied appears to incorporate details from Hürnen Seyfrid.
[40] A single manuscript fragment of Hürnen Seyfrid is known: discovered in 1996 in the National Archives of Sweden, it likely dates to around 1550.
[45] The poem was rewritten as the prose Gehörnte Siegfried (exact full title uncertain) with a lost edition of 1657 known to have been printed in Hamburg.
[53][54] In a major departure from the lay, the printed version concludes with the widow Florigunda (=Kriemhild) and Seyfrid's surviving son taking refuge with Sieghardus (=Sigmund).
[40] The end of the prose text alludes to the story of Seyfrid's son Löwhardus (or Löwhard[58]) by Florigunda,[59][60] and a single copy of Ritter Louhardus from the printer Martha Hertz in Erfurt survives,[61] tentatively dated to 1665,[62][63] though others give a range around the early 1660s or earlier[64][65] while the range 1661–1667 is given by others.
[49] Hürnen Seyfrid features numerous details that are known from the Nordic traditions about Sigurd but are absent in the Nibelungenlied.
[69][70][40] The poet of the Nibelungenlied, on the other hand, seems to have deliberately suppressed many elements that appear in Hürnen Seyfrid, with reports on Siegfried's killing of the dragon and his invincibility mentioned only very briefly and in retrospect.
Hürnen Seyfrid is written in the so-called "Hildebrandston", named after its use in the Jüngeres Hildebrandslied that had an accompanying melody.
Thus it is similar to the Nibelungenstrophe [de] only simplified, since the scheme used by the Nibelungenlied adds an extra stress on the final (8th) hemistich.
[40] An example is the first stanza of the 1642 edition: Scholars frequently decry Hürnen Seyfrid's artistic deficiencies: the plot has many inconsistencies and the verse is of low quality.
[77] Werner Hoffmann [de] suggests that Hürnen Seyfrid's popularity in the Early Modern Period may owe some to its quality as exciting escapist fiction at a time when the Holy Roman Empire was rocked by repeated political instability and religious conflict.
[78] The poem's success led to it being translated into other genres: Hans Sachs wrote a tragedy in seven acts in 1557 called Der hürnen Seufrid, which also featured elements from the Rosengarten zu Worms and the printed Heldenbuch.
