circulated at South German courts about 1170, and then received
its present courtly form about 1190, this last version being the
immediate source of our manuscripts.

The story of Siegfried, his tragic death, and the dire vengeance
visited upon his slayers, which lies at the basis of our poem,
antedates the latter by many centuries, and was known to all
nations whose languages prove by their resemblance to the German
tongue their original identity with the German people. Not only
along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube and upon the upland
plains of Southern Germany, but also along the rocky fjords of
Norway, among the Angles and Saxons in their new home across the
channel, even in the distant Shetland Islands and on the snow-
covered wastes of Iceland, this story was told around the fires
at night and sung to the harp in the banqueting halls of kings
and nobles, each people and each generation telling it in its own
fashion and adding new elements of its own invention. This great
geographical distribution of the legend, and the variety of forms
in which it appears, make it difficult to know where we must seek
its origin. The northern version is in many respects older and
simpler in form than the German, but still it is probable that
Norway was not the home of the saga, but that it took its rise in
Germany along the banks of the Rhine among the ancient tribe of
the Franks, as is shown by the many geographical names that are
reminiscent of the characters of the story, such as a Siegfried
"spring" in the Odenwald, a Hagen "well" at Lorsch, a Brunhild
"bed" near Frankfort, and the well-known "Drachenfels", or
Dragon's Rock, on the Rhine. It is to Norway, however, that we
must go for our knowledge of the story, for, singularly enough,
with the exception of the "Nibelungenlied" and the popular