GERMANY AND THE LOW COUNTRIES 255

Dietrich von Bern which was translated into Old Norse in the early
thirteenth century. The theme is the battle of two heroes, father
and son. The epic ending is tragic; that of the saga and ballad
paints a family reunion.The particulars are fuller in the ballad than
in the saga, so that the former would seem to be a later production.
The fame of the Hildebrand tune in the early sixteenth century is
proof that the ballad is medieval, dating perhaps from the thir-
teenth or early fourteenth century. A Low German King
Ermanaric's Death (Erk-Bohme 23) has been preserved by a flying-
leaf of the year 1560. It is a free composition based, no doubt,
on the lost saga or some derivative. The poet, caring little for
tradition, describes Dietrich's journey to Breisachj his fight in the
palace against a vast retinue, and his killing of Ermanaric—a
narrative which will not fit into any of the Gothic legends, but
distantly resembles the episode of Osantrix in the saga.

The name and fame of Dietrich pervade the vulgar Heldenbuch.
There is there a certain Wolfdietrich, so called from having been
protected as a baby by a wolf. His adventures include intervention
on behalf of a lion against a dragon, imprisonment in a dragon's
lair and escape, fights with giants and dragons, and the capture of
a supernatural wife. There is a German and Dutch ballad, The
Huntsman from Greece (Erk-Bohme 24), which deals with the
last matter. Wolfdietrich's father was Hugdietrich, emperor of
Constantinople. His achievement was that he disguised himself as
a woman to win the princess of Salonica without her father's
knowledge. The motif probably survives from the Danish epos.
In Hagbard and Signe it is used, both in the epic and the ballad, to
lead up to an impressive 'denouement'. In Htigdietrich and the
German and Dutch ballads (Erk-Bohme 140) the motif has become
a commonplace, and is part of no momentous action. By way of
preface the Heldenbuch recounts the adventures of Otnit or Ortnit,
the Lombard king of Garda. By the help of his father, the dwarf
Alberich, he won for himself a heathen king's daughter; he ex-
tended his power at the expense of the Greeks, but perished In
battle with a dragon. His adventures have no ballad consequences
in Germany.1

1 I have used A. von Keller's edition of Das Deutsche Heldenbuch, Stuttgart,
Litterarischer Verein, 1867, which contains Otnit, Wolfdieterich (with Hug-
dieterich), Der Rosengarten zu Worms, Der kletne Rosengartefi oder der kleine Konig
Laurin,