Rosengarten zu Worms
The poem talks about a fight between the heroes of the cycle around Dietrich von Bern with those from the Nibelungen saga, which takes place in a rose garden at the city of Worms.
The fight is motivated by Kriemhild's desire to test the mettle of her fiancé Siegfried against Dietrich von Bern.
The Rosengarten was a very popular poem and was included in the printed Heldenbuch, bringing its transmission into the sixteenth century.
Ilsan promises to bring wreaths of roses for his fellow monks after they angrily demand them and joins the heroes.
The heroes then march to the Rhine, where the ferryman Norprecht demands a hand and a foot as payment to ferry them across.
[4] The Rosengarten is conventionally dated to the first half of the thirteenth century,[5] partially due to its close relationship to the poem Biterolf und Dietleib.
[6] The first manuscript of the text only come from the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, and the earliest mention of the work is in Ottokar's aus der Gaal's Steirische Reimchronik, comparing King Ottokar II of Bohemia's prowess in battle to that shown by Dietrich fighting Siegfried in the rose garden.
[22] The poem contains numerous citations and allusions to various heroic traditions via objects such as swords and horses, as well as the names of various heroes.
[26] The use of the rose garden as the place of combat, whatever its original significance, also seems a clear citation of courtly adventure.
[31] Millet suggests that the rivalry between heroes from western part (the Burgundians) and the southeastern part (Dietrich's men) of the German-speaking area may reflect real political struggles between these two areas, as well as a cultural rivalry between Rhinelandish courtliness and a less idealistic Austrian and Bavarian ideal of heroism.
[32] The figure of Ilsan and the other monks may be intended to criticize the state of monastic life at the time of the poem's composition.
[34] The following example from Alpharts Tod can illustrate:[35] Several versions use a variant of this stanza called the "Heunenweise" or "Hunnenweise" (the Hunnish melody), in which there are always rhymes at the mid-line caesura.
In the Thidrekssaga, Thidrek fights against Sigurd during his campaign in "Bertangenland", an event possibly also referenced in the Virginal.
Thidrek fights Sigurd, breaking his horned-skin by borrowing Wiðga (Witege)'s sword Mimming.
[39] The Heldenbuch-Prosa reports that Dietrich killed Siegfried in the rose garden, suggesting that this was another variant of the story in circulation.
This suggests that the poet knew an oral tradition independent of the written Nibelungenlied, although the author clearly alludes to various aspects of that poem and even cites various lines.
[27] Heinzle also notes that there are various reports of tournaments in medieval Worms taking place in rose gardens, which either inspired the location in the poem or else were imitating it.
[43] A newer suggestion is that the rose garden is a corruption of the name Rusigard, meaning "Russian City", and could be connected to the numerous allusions to Dietrich's battles against Russians or Slavs (see Dietrich und Wenezlan) found in German heroic tradition, and which are narrated in the Thidrekssaga.
[44] The Rosengarten likely inspired the similar Biterolf und Dietleib, another heroic poem that may date from the thirteenth century.
The Rosengarten, likely as known from the Heldenbuch, was also reworked into an episode of Hans Sachs's tragedy about the life of Siegfried, Der hürnen Seufrid in 1557.
