Þiðreks saga
In addition to the Old Norse version, an adaptation into Old Swedish known as the Didriks Krönika was created in the mid 15th century.
[6] After his father's death, Þiðrekr leads several military campaigns: then he is exiled from his kingdom by his uncle Ermenrik, fleeing to Attila's court.
The final time he fights an opponent is to avenge the death of Heime (who had become a monk and then sworn loyalty to Þiðrekr once again).
One day, upon seeing a particularly magnificent deer, he jumped out of the bathtub and mounted a gigantic black horse – which is actually the devil in equine form.
In addition to the life of Þiðrekr, various other heroes' lives are recounted as well in various parts of the story, including Attila, Wayland the Smith (in the section called Velents þáttr smiðs), Sigurd, the Nibelungen, and Walter of Aquitaine.
[3][16] Mb3 has inserted two sections, Sigurd's youth and a long description of the various heroes after Thidrek's feast, into the sequence of chapters written by Mb2.
[23] The prologue of the saga states that it was composed based on the tales of German men, but its language is somewhat obscure and scholars debate what precisely this means.
The prologue also mentions tales told across Scandinavia and Iceland as sources on Sigurd, the Nibelungs, and Wayland the smith.
[33] The composer appears to have been educated, meaning he was probably a cleric, as was the only named author of a chivalric saga, Brother Robert.
[37] The most recent main proponent of the "translation hypothesis" is Theodore Andersson, who regards the text as more German than Norwegian.
[38] Andersson argued that the saga was originally composed in Northern Germany around 1200, arguing that the compositional principals and his proposed sources for various episodes indicated familiarity with early courtly literature such as Spielmannsepik and the Kaiserchronik (c. 1150), as well as conjectured predecessor epics for the Nibelungenlied and Dietrich epics.
[41][42] One of the main arguments in favor of the saga's composition in Norway is that no large scale epic or prose work in Low German has survived that would show that such compilations existed in Northern Germany.
[48] Susanne Kramarz-Bein and Heinrich Beck have both argued that the saga shows pro-Scandinavian leanings, exemplified in the way in which it treats the heroes Viðga, Þétleifr Danskr (Middle High German: Dietleib von Stîre) and Heimir: Heimir, portrayed as Swabian, is a mostly negative figure, whereas the heroes Viðga and Þétleifr, both portrayed as Danes, are given many positive traits that put them above Thidrek's other heroes.
[49][50] The same scholars have also argued that the localization of the Huns in the North-German Duchy of Saxony could be related to these northern political, potentially pro-Welf leanings.
[57][a] Most scholars agree that the Didriks Krönika used the oldest extant manuscript of the Þiðreks saga (Mb) as its main source.
[66] The Didriks Krönika is not a literal translation of the Þiðreks saga but an adaptation for a contemporary Swedish public.
The adapter has also made additions to the text in some places and sought to remove contradictions from his Norwegian source.
[73] The Þiðreks saga was also influential on Swedish literature even before the writing of the Didriks Krönika, with Dietrich being mentioned in Herr Ivan lejonriddare (1303) - one of the translated romances known as the Eufemiavisorna - and the Eric Chronicle (c.
[78] The Swedish Didriks Krönika also influenced other texts produced on Dietrich von Bern and the Nibelungen in Scandinavia.
[80] The historicity of the kings of Vilkinaland was further boosted in 1634 when Johannes Bureus discovered the Norwegian parchment that had arrived in Sweden in the 15th century.
