Brynhild loses a great
deal, and is a poor creature when compared with herself in the
saga; Grimhild and her fateful drink have gone; Gudrun
(Chriemhild)is much more complex, but not more tragic; one new
character, Rudiger, appears as the type of chivalry; but Sigurd
(Siegfred) the central figure, though he has lost by the omission
of so much of his life, is, as before, the embodiment of all the
virtues that were dear to northern hearts. Brave, strong,
generous, dignified, and utterly truthful, he moves amid a tangle
of tragic events, overmastered by a mighty fate, and in life or
death is still a hero without stain or flaw. It is no wonder
that he survives to this day in the national songs of the Faroe
Islands and in the folk-ballads of Denmark; that his legend
should have been mingled with northern history through Ragnar
Lodbrog, or southern through Attila and Theodoric; that it should
have inspired William Morris in producing the one great English
epic of the century; (13) and Richard Wagner in the mightiest
among his music-dramas.
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