Rabenschlacht
At one time, both poems were thought to have the same author, possibly a certain Heinrich der Vogler, but stylistic differences have led more recent scholarship to abandon this idea.
[1] Die Rabenschlacht concerns a failed attempt by the exiled Dietrich to reclaim his kingdom in Northern Italy from his treacherous uncle Ermenrich, with the help of an army provided by Etzel, king of the Huns.
The poem may be a dim reflection of the death of Attila's son Ellac at the Battle of Nedao in 454, combined with Theodoric the Great's siege of Ravenna in 491–493.
Dietrich, however, promises to take good care of the young princes, so that Helche agrees and Orte and Scharpfe join the army.
Dietrich decides to leave Etzel's children with Diether in the care of the older warrior Elsan, and marches to Ravenna.
Rüdiger rides back to Hunland to bring Etzel the news of his sons deaths; however, Orte and Scharpfe's horses arrive at Etzelburg with bloody saddles.
[13] Early scholarship believed that both Dietrichs Fluch and Die Rabenschlacht had a single author, Heinrich der Vogler; however, the formal and stylistic differences between the two epics have caused this theory to be abandoned.
[14] The manuscript transmission nevertheless makes clear that Die Rabenschlacht and Dietrichs Flucht were viewed as a single work by contemporaries.
[16] Consequently, the same stanza as above is printed in the edition by Elisabeth Lienert and Dorit Wolter as: Die Rabenschlacht has been described as "elegiac" and "sentimental," particularly in relation to Dietrichs Flucht.
[21] Stylistically, the poem is notable for its hyperbole in its depictions of violence—the battle at Ravenna takes twelve days and the warriors literally wade in blood among mountains of corpses—and emotions, particularly of grief.
[28] Michael Curschmann holds the encounters between Dietrich and Siegfried here and in the Rosengarten zu Worms to have their origins in an oral tradition.
[29] However, Elisabeth Lienert sees the battles in Die Rabenschlacht as part of a literary rivalry between the two traditions, an intertextual relationship.
[31] The general outline of the story told in Die Rabenschlacht, about the death of Etzel and Herche's sons, is often considered to be one of the oldest components of the legend of Theodoric.
[34] Theodoric the Great's father Theodemar is thought to have fought on the side of the Huns in this battle, with his actions transferred to his more famous son in the oral tradition.
[34][35] Elisabeth Lienert suggests the poem's location at Ravenna may have been influenced by the historical Theodoric the Great besieging his enemy Odoacer there from 491 to 493.
[2] Witige's character is sometimes thought to have been influenced by Witigis, a Gothic king and usurper who surrendered Ravenna to the Byzantine army.
[37] Werner Hoffmann suggests that Ermenrich's rather small role in Die Rabenschlacht is because the original tale of Witige killing Etzel's sons and Diether has been only roughly inserted into the larger framework of Dietrich's exile.
[42] The scholar Norbert Voorwinden has suggested that the author of Die Rabenschlacht was largely unaware of the oral tradition, creating an entirely new work on the basis of an allusion to the death of Etzel's sons in the Nibelungenklage.
