Doom in the Nibelungenlied
Wyrd, Fate, and Changing Notions of Destiny in Northern European Mythology
If you have seen a performance of the Shakespeare play Macbeth, or merely read a description of the same, there is likely one thing that sticks in your mind more than any other: the figures of Macbeth and Banquo, so recently victorious in battle, encountering three women on a heath in the darkened Scottish Highlands. Macbeth inquires after their identity, and they reply in turn:
“All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Glamis!”
“All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!”
“All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!”[1]
Thus, the tragic plot is set in motion by the three witches, or as they are referred to in the play, the weird sisters. The significance of this latter term is obscured from the modern reader, a casualty of the ever-shifting English language. For the weird sisters are not merely strange or abnormal: they are wyrd.
The modern word weird is derived from the Old English word wyrd, which means “fate, chance, fortune, destiny, the Fates,” or more literally, “that which comes.”[2] The Online Etymology Dictionary explains, “The sense [in the modern word weird] of ‘uncanny, supernatural’ developed from Middle English use of weird sisters for the three Fates or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny.” The Norns are linked to the concept of wyrd, and vice versa. “The Norns were the Norse goddesses of fate, represented as three sisters named Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld. They lived underneath the world tree, where they wove the tapestry of fate.”[3]
In the early medieval world of northern Europe, when pre-Christian beliefs were still triumphant, there was nothing higher or more inexorable than fate. But the word fate is derived from Latin, where it means a spoken decree. The Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians would not have used this term. They had another word to describe the irreversible power of the Norns’ judgment. In Old Norse it was domr, in Old English dom, and now we in modern English speak of doom.
For doom is a judgment laid down by a higher power: a thing set in place, a wheel turning in irreversible motion. The Nibelunglied never calls itself by that title. The name of the story is revealed in the final line: “Here this tale is at an end—that is The Nibelungs’ Doom.”[4]
Doom in the Nibelungenlied
Speakers of modern English tend to think of doom as a universally bad thing, as when a teenager carelessly runs their car into the side of the garage and moans, “I’m doomed!” (Don’t ask me how I know.) But the concept was more ambiguous in the time when the Nibelungenlied was written. Siegfried’s doom was to become a great warrior, even as it was also to be murdered. However, given that the Nibelungenlied is a tragedy, the constant drumbeat of doom creates a growing sense of dread in the reader.
Consider, for example, how the narrator introduces the character of Kriemhild (spelled Kriemhilt in this translation): “She was called Kriemhilt—she grew to be a beautiful woman. For her sake many knights were to lose their lives.”[5] Immediately, we know that the story is not going to end well. Siegfried will be killed, and Kriemhild’s wrath will be brutal. “How harshly she avenged him upon her closest kinsmen, who were to slay him! Because of that one man’s death, many a mother’s child died.”[6]
The tension in the Nibelungenlied is therefore not produced by keeping the reader in the dark, but by making the reader more aware than the characters. This literary device, known as dramatic irony, was a staple of tragedies in both ancient Greece and ancient Germany, and it is still used today. Think, for example, of the point in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, when the captains of the West are speaking with the Mouth of Sauron before the Black Gate of Mordor. The evil messenger tells them that Frodo is dead, but the reader knows this is false.
The dramatic irony in the Nibelungenlied is a bit more straightforward. Indeed, it is hammered into the reader from start to finish. On nearly every page, we are reminded that everyone will end up dead. This pre-Christian tendency to focus on doom rather than divine sovereignty is part of what sets the Nibelungenlied apart from other contemporary works in southern Europe. As Cyril Edwards writes in the introduction to his translation,
“The supernatural is far from being absent in the courtly romance, where [xvii] giants, dwarves, fairies, and invisibility are frequently met with, but there is a different feel, a different atmosphere when it occurs in the heroic epic. The prophecy of the water-sprites, for example which leads to Hagen’s brutal attempt on the life of the chaplain, is integral to the sense of wyrd, of inexorable fate, familiar to the reader of Beowulf, of the Hildebrandslied, and of Icelandic sagas such as the great tale of revenge, the Saga of Burnt Njal.”[7]
The incident to which Edwards refers occurs in the second half of the Nibelungenlied, when the Burgundian Court has been invited to visit the Hungarian Court. The great warrior Hagen of Burgundy, who had pressured his king to have Siegfried murdered and tricked Kriemhild into revealing Siegfried’s only weakness, has good reason to fear that a visit to Hungary will end badly for him. Indeed, he senses his doom is tied up with that place, and it will be the death of all the Burgundians. Even so, he is not entirely certain.
At one point on the journey, he encounters three water-sprites, much like Macbeth encountering the weird sisters. The water-sprites initially behave falsely toward Hagen, prophesying good fortune and tricking him into surrendering his clothes. Then, under pressure, one of the water-sprites confesses, “If you arrive among the Huns, you’ll be badly betrayed. Indeed, you ought to turn back—it is high time, for you bold heroes are invited to meet with certain death in Etzel’s land. All that ride there are doomed to die.”[8] Then another of the water-sprites prophesies after Hagen asks for clarification. “It is so fated that none of you can survive there except for the king’s chaplain—we have full knowledge of this. He will return hale and healthy to Gunther’s land.”[9]
Hagen wants to disbelieve them. He has it in mind to overcome his doom. So, when the entire Burgundian Court makes to cross the river, Hagen throws the chaplain overboard, hoping to drown him. Instead, the chaplain swims back to the opposite bank. As the only one who does not complete the journey to Hungary, the chaplain therefore becomes the only survivor. Hagen realizes that he cannot escape his doom, and for the rest of the tale he surrenders to it, seeking merely to go out in the best manner possible: by leaving a legacy of heroism.
Tied in with this overweening sense of doom is an equal degree of sorrow. For in her efforts to seek vengeance, Kreimhild herself falls into the net that doom has woven for her. Having triumphed over all the strong warriors, she is brought down by Hildebrant, a previously unimportant character who is offended by her womanly presumption. (Yes, the tale is incredibly misogynistic on numerous levels.)
“Hildebrant leapt angrily at Kriemhilt. He dealt the queen a blow with a swing of his heavy sword. Hildebrant caused her woe indeed. How could it help her that she screamed out so grievously? Then all doomed to die there had fallen. The noble queen was hewn to pieces…Amid sorrow the king’s festivity had ended, just as joy always, at the very end, yields to sorrow…Here this tale is at an end—that is The Nibelungs’ Doom.”[10]
That is the tragedy, beginning with doom and ending with all joy turned to sorrow.
Doom in the Volsunga Saga and Poetic Edda
Let us turn now to the predecessors of the Nibelungenlied, where we will see the pre-Christian origins of this theme on full display.
In the Volsunga Saga, Siegfried/Sigurd’s background is somewhat different. He has no link to the Netherlands, but is the son of a Scandinavian hero, King Sigmund, and his lady love, Hjordis. Here we find one of the primary differences between the Nibelungenlied and the Volsunga Saga: in the latter, the pagan gods play a role. Odin interferes in the affairs of humans, ensuring that that which is fated occurs. Thanks to Odin, Sigmund is mortally wounded in battle and found by a distraught Hjordis. Sigmund prophesies,
“You are carrying a son. Raise him well and carefully, for he will be an excellent boy, the foremost of our line. Guard well the broken pieces of the sword. From them can be made a good sword, which will be called Gram. Our son will bear it and with it accomplish many great deeds, which will never be forgotten. And his name will endure while the world remains.”[11]
Here the doom of Sigurd is declared, but not in its totality. When Siegfried has grown to adulthood, he has an encounter that adds to the prophesy of Sigmund.
“Soon after the sword [Gram] had been made Sigurd went to meet with Gripir because this uncle could see into the future and knew the fate of men. Sigurd asked Gripir how his life would go. For a long time Gripir was unwilling to answer, but finally, yielding to Sigurd’s fervent pleas, he told him his whole fate, exactly as it later came to pass.”[12]
In the Poetic Edda, Gripir’s conversation with Sigurd is related in extended form. After initially hesitating to reveal the whole of Sigurd’s fate, Gripir relents and says, “Now shall I speak clearly to Sigurd, / the prince has forced me to this point; / you must be certain, no word of a lie, / that one day death is intended for you.”[13] Sigurd takes the news rather well, submitting to his own doom. “Let’s part and say farewell, one can’t overcome fate; / now, Gripir, you’ve done just as I asked you; / swiftly you’d have told me of a life / more pleasant, if you’d been able!”[14]
The treasure of the Nibelungs plays more of a key role in these Scandinavian sagas. We are told that it was won by Odin and Loki from a group of dwarves. The dwarf Andvari attempts to keep one particular item for himself but is unsuccessful: “Loki saw Andvari’s gold. And when Andvari had handed over the gold he kept one ring back. But Loki took it from him. The dwarf went into the rock and said that the gold ring would be the death of whoever owned it, and the same applied to all the gold.”[15] Later, it is Odin who comes into possession of the ring Andvaranaut, and Loki declares, “With gold you are now paid / And as payment you have / Much for my head. / No ease / Is assigned to your son; / Death it is to you both.”[16]
Nevertheless, Odin continues to meddle in the affairs of those beneath him. He appears in disguise to help Sigurd kill the dragon Fafnir. When Sigurd meets with success and Fafnir lies mortally wounded, the dragon prophesies that the gold will be the death of Sigurd, to which the hero replies, “Everyone wants to have wealth until that one day, but everyone must die sometime.”[17] Once again, we see Sigurd making no effort to fight against his doom as Hagen does in the Nibelungenlied by throwing the chaplain in the river. Later, when Brynhild becomes the latest person to warn Sigurd that his story will end tragically, he tells her, “I will not flee, though / Death-fated you know I am, / I was not conceived as a coward.”[18]
In this version of the tale, Sigurd is once again killed treacherously, but the additional tragic element is that he had engaged himself to Brynhild before marrying Gudrun (known as Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied). For Sigurd was given a magic potion that caused him to forget the promises he made to Brynhild. Angered at his disloyalty, it is Brynhild who arranges to have Sigurd murdered. However, she remains devoted to him in spirit and throws herself upon his funeral pyre. Thus, the tragic misunderstanding caused by the magic potion leads to a sorrowful ending in which both Sigurd and Brynhild are dead. From such a promising beginning, they have met with the sharp end of their doom, and their joy is turned to sorrow.
Doom in Tolkien’s Legendarium
The theme of doom made its way from the pre-Christian tales into the medieval Nibelungenlied. Despite the fact that the characters in the Nibelungenlied are ostensibly Christians (with the exception of the Hungarians) and are often seen going to Mass, their sense of how the universe operates is heavily influenced by the pagan conception of fate or wyrd. How have these pre-Christian ideas influenced modern writers?
Here the most interesting case study is the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. As a professor of Ango-Saxon and devoted scholar of northern European legends, Tolkien borrowed significantly from that world when constructing his legendarium. He envisioned his work as a kind of pre-history for England, filling the role of the Poetic Edda, Volsunga Saga, and Nibelungenlied in their respective national cultures. We therefore see the concept of doom popping up in Tolkien’s legendarium, but in contrast to the earlier tales, Tolkien makes doom subservient to a single deity.
There are a some explicit mentions of doom in The Lord of the Rings, such as when the Fellowship arrives at Balin’s Tomb in the Mines of Moria. Having learned definitively that Balin’s party were all slaughtered, they make to exit the room, but suddenly hear, “a rolling Boom that seemed to come from depths far below, and to tremble in the stone at their feet…Doom, doom it rolled again, as if huge hands were turning the very caverns of Moria into a vast drum.”[19] Again and again, they hear the pounding, and it is significant that Tolkien describes the sound as “Doom,” for this is the moment when Gandalf’s doom is brought to bear. When the wizard finally sees the balrog, he mutters, “What an evil fortune!”[20]
Then, of course, there is the not-so-subtly-named Mount Doom, where Frodo and Sam must throw the Ring of Power in the flames. (A ring that, much like Andvaranaut in the Volsunga Saga, entraps its wearer in a web of doom.) Even as they arrive in the mountain’s inner chamber, the characters Faramir and Éowyn stand upon the walls of the city of Minas Tirith, staring in the direction of Mount Doom. They know that the critical moment has come, and Éowyn says, “I wait for some stroke of doom,” to which Faramir replies, “Yes, we wait for the stroke of doom.”[21]
Frodo, standing within the bowels of Mount Doom, claims the Ring for himself and becomes visible to the dark lord Sauron. “Then [Sauron’s] wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.”[22] And when Gollum reappears at the last moment to steal the Ring from Frodo and fall, still clutching his prize, into the fires of the volcano, it is clear that this is the doom that was written long before and could not have happened apart from the very will of God himself.
But the concept of doom shines most truly in Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Here the influence of the northern European myths is strongest, and we see doom play a critical role in two of the key stories: the tale of Túrin Turambar, and that of Beren and Lúthien. However, there is a major difference between them that will become apparent upon close inspection.
Túrin’s story is strictly in keeping with the tragedies of pre-Christian northern Europe. His father, Húrin, is captured by the evil lord Morgoth, who forces Húrin to watch his children fall into the net of a doom Morgoth has devised for them. This is the clearest example we have in Tolkien’s legendarium of someone other than God managing to set someone’s doom. (Though there is reason to believe from Tolkien’s notes that he planned a future reversal of fortune that would make clear the inferior nature of Morgoth’s power.)
Early in the tale, Túrin’s mother, Morwen, sends her son to a place she hopes he will be safe. “Therefore in the autumn of the Year of Lamentation Morwen sent Túrin forth over the mountains with two aged servants, bidding them find entry, if they could, into the kingdom of Doriath. Thus was the fate of Túrin woven…”[23] We later read that, “Túrin grew fair and strong in Doriath, but he was marked with sorrow.”[24] As we have already seen, sorrow is part and parcel of doom-laden tragedies such as the Nibelungenlied, and it is in the tale of Túrin Turambar that we see Tolkien delve into sorrow most fully, as when Túrin accidentally kills his friend Beleg. “Thus ended Beleg Strongbow, truest of friends, greatest in skill of all that harboured in the woods of Beleriand in the Elder Days, at the hand of him whom he most loved; and that grief was graven on the face of Túrin and never faded.”[25]
Later in the tale, the elf Finduilas falls in love with Túrin, who has been using a false name. Elves and Men do not typically mix in this way, and the character Gwindor warns Finduilas that it will end very badly for her, revealing Túrin’s true name in the process. “A doom indeed lies on him, as seeing eyes may well read in him, but a dark doom. Enter not into it!”[26] When Finduilas informs Túrin of Gwindor’s words, he responds in anger.
“Now when Túrin learnt from Finduilas of what had passed, he was wrathful, and he said to Gwindor: ‘In love I hold you for rescue and safe-keeping. But now you have done ill to me, friend, to betray my right name, and call my doom upon me, from which I would lie hid.’ But Gwindor answered: ‘The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.’”[27]
Nevertheless, Túrin makes a further attempt to escape his doom. “He took therefore a new name, Turambar, which in the High-elven speech signified Master of Doom; and he besought the woodmen to forget that he was a stranger among them or ever bore any other name.”[28] But try as he might, Túrin cannot escape his terrible fate. Both he and his sister end up dead after marrying each other in ignorance of their true identities. Various aspects of Túrin’s story were inspired by the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland with which Tolkien was very familiar.
Beren and Lúthien’s story has many sad moments as well, but the overall feel is very different, for it is God himself who writes their doom. Thus, it carries the classic Tolkien distinction of love mingled with grief, from which only the tale of Túrin significantly deviates. In the introduction to Beren and Lúthien’s story, we read, “Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures.”[29] Here we see not a joy that is overcome by sorrow, but one that lives side-by-side with it.
As with Túrin and Finduilas, we have a romantic entanglement involving a Man (which in Tolkien’s mythology is not only a sex distinction, but also a sort of species distinction) and a female Elf. Beren, a man who is doomed to die like all his race, comes upon the undying Lúthien in a forest glade, and is immediately transfixed by her beauty and grace.
“Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinúviel; and the woods echoed the name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking.”[30]
The negative aspect of Lúthien’s doom is that she has fallen in love with one who is mortal and will eventually be parted from him by death. Likewise, Beren’s love for Lúthien will doom him to participation in a quest that will ultimately claim his life. But the strangest aspect of Beren and Lúthien’s love story is that, upon Beren’s death, Lúthien will plead to the angelic powers themselves, boldly asking for the normal rules of the universe to be reversed and Beren to be raised to life again. This is eventually granted to her on the condition that she will also become mortal, and one day they will both die indeed. Thus, Tolkien writes that, “In his fate Lúthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain.”[31]
But there is also a positive aspect to Beren and Lúthien’s doom, for out of their union comes a long line of people, both mortal and immortal, who introduce great good into the world and confront the forces of evil time after time. The characters of Aragorn and Arwen, so critical to the plot of The Lord of the Rings, are among their descendants. We are led to believe that this was the will of God himself: that only he could have brought about a union such as Beren and Lúthien’s. The pre-Christian notion of doom as something unfeeling and unredemptive is therefore forsaken by Tolkien in favor of a doom based upon the will of a single, loving God.
From the Volsunga Saga and Poetic Edda to the Nibelungenlied and finally to the works of Tolkien, the concept of doom plays a central role, but the nature of that doom changes along with the times, taking on a far more Christian character. Thus, as is so often the way, we see both continuity and change among the great myths of northern Europe.
Come back next time, when Amy will examine another of the Nibelungenlied’s themes. Until then, you can visit her personal Substack, Sub-Creations.
[1] Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Act I, Scene III. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html
[2] Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/wyrd
[3] Brooklyn Museum. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/the_norns
[4] Anonymous. The Nibelungenlied (The Lay of the Nibelungs), Trans. Cyril Edwards, Oxford World’s Classics edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 214.
[5] Nibelungenlied, 5.
[6] Nibelungenlied, 6.
[7] Nibelungenlied, xvi-xvii.
[8] Nibelungenlied, 141.
[9] Nibelungenlied, 141
[10] Nibelungenlied, 214.
[11] Anonymous. The Saga of the Volsungs: The Legend of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer and the Magic Ring of Power (New York: Penguin Classics, 2013), 54.
[12] Saga of the Volsungs, 60.
[13] Anonymous. Poetic Edda (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2019), 142.
[14] Poetic Edda, 146.
[15] Saga of the Volsungs, 58.
[16] Saga of the Volsungs, 59.
[17] Saga of the Volsungs, 64.
[18] Saga of the Volsungs, 70-1.
[19] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings, Single volume movie tie-in edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 315.
[20] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 321.
[21] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 941.
[22] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 925.
[23] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, second edition, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 198.
[24] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 199.
[25] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 208.
[26] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 210.
[27] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 211.
[28] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 217.
[29] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 162.
[30] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 165.
[31] Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 165-6.