Sigenot

It is one of the so-called fantastical (aventiurehaft) Dietrich poems, so called because it more closely resembles a courtly romance than a heroic epic.

Sigenot now heads to Bern (Verona) to defeat Hildebrand, and, encountering him in the forest, takes him prisoner as well.

Hildebrand, now worried by Dietrich's long absence, sets out to find him: on the way he encounters Sigenot and is taken prisoner.

[14][15] Although the Sigenot was one of the most popular poems about Dietrich von Bern, it has not been treated kindly by scholars, with both Joachim Heinzle and Victor Millet dismissing it as uninteresting.

[20] The poem is composed in a stranzaic form known as the "Berner Ton," which consists of 13 lines in the following rhyme scheme: aabccbdedefxf.

[22] However, the poem may connect to Dietrich's captivity among giants, as referenced in the Waldere and found in Virginal: Joachim Heinzle suggests that it was created in the 13th century under the influence of this traditional story.

[16] The text also makes reference to Dietrich's battle with Hilde and Grim, which is told in the Thidrekssaga and referenced in the Eckenlied, but about which no poem survives.

[23] The story of Hilde and Grim functions as a sort of prequel to Sigenot, showing an attempt to connect the poems together in a cycle.

[24] Victor Millet suggests that there may never have been a written poem about Hilde and Grim; the tale may have been a purely oral one and well known to the Sigenot's audience[25] In the Thidrekssaga, Hilde and Grim are said to give their name to Dietrich's helmet, the Hildegrim; George Gillespie argues that they are likely a late addition to the oral tradition in order to explain the meaning of name Hildegrim (meaning battle specter) once this was no longer obvious.

[26] Count Gottfried Werner von Zimmern commissioned a cycle of frescoes in Wildenstein Castle, probably in the 1520s.

[28] The illuminations are very similar to each other on each page, showing every stage of the poem's narrative, so that one gets the impression of a series of film stills.