Gudrun

Gudrun, or KUDRUN, an old German epic, built up out of the popular songs and traditions of the seafaring folk who dwelt on the shores of the North Sea between Elbe and Seine. It relates the history of three generations of the kings of the Hegelings (Frisians), and in the third part tells how Gudrun, the daughter of Hettel, king of the Hegelings, was carried off from her home by Hochmut, son of the king of Normandy, how she preferred to work like the lowest maidservant in the house of Hochmut's mother, and endure the greatest indignities, rather than break her troth pledged to Herwig, king of Zealand, and how finally she was rescued by her brother and her betrothed. This poem, which has been entitled the German Odyssey, as the Nibelungenlied is sometimes called the German Iliad, was written, or rather arranged and edited, by an unknown poet in Austria, in all probability in the end of the 12th century. The best editions are by Karl Bartsch (4th ed. 1880), Martin (1872), and Symons (1883); and the best translations into modern High German by Simrock (8th ed. 1873) and Weitbrecht (1884).