Helche

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Helche (also Herche , Old Norse Erka ) is a figure from the Germanic heroic saga , wife of King Etzel in the Nibelungenlied . In the Thidrek saga , Erka is mentioned as the wife of Attila.

Helche had been kidnapped from her father Osantrix by Rüdiger von Bechelaren and brought to Etzel and had given birth to two sons, Erp and Ortwin, who both died in the battle of ravens in the fight against Ermenrich . After her death, Kriemhild became Etzel's wife.

The Erkelenzer Erka

An erka was mentioned in a colored drawing by Mathias Baux in his late medieval town chronicle, page 292f. portrayed as the mythological founder of Erkelenz . It says in the tape above the figure

" The heroine Erka, patroness of the castle of Erkelenz "

and in the cartridge

" It is said that the daughter named Erkelenz sprang from mother Ercka unter der Linde "

.

In the Old Town Hall of Erkelenz a large painting that showed this drawing from the Baux-Chronicle was until 1945th

Karl Simrock first referred to this passage in 1851. His friend Nikolaus Hocker made a connection with the legendary figure Herka , wife of King Attila.

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^ Mathias Baux. Chronicle of the city of Erkelenz and the country of Geldern , 2 volumes. Edited by Hiram Kümper in collaboration with Rudolf Bosch and Christoph Walther (translations), Manuel Hagemann ( heraldry ), Willi Wortmann (city history Erkelenz) and a team at the Historical Institute Mannheim and the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV, Erkelenz 2016, ISBN 978-3 -9815182-9-0
↑ both quotations are translated from Latin
^ Karl Simrock, The picturesque and romantic Rhineland, Bonn 1851, p. 370
↑ Nikolaus Hocker, Erkelenz and Erka, in: Yearbooks of the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland 21 (1854), pp. 97-109

[1] Mathias Baux. Chronicle of the city of Erkelenz and the country of Geldern , 2 volumes. Edited by Hiram Kümper in collaboration with Rudolf Bosch and Christoph Walther (translations), Manuel Hagemann ( heraldry ), Willi Wortmann (city history Erkelenz) and a team at the Historical Institute Mannheim and the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande eV, Erkelenz 2016, ISBN 978-3 -9815182-9-0

[2] th quotations are translated from Latin

[3] Karl Simrock, The picturesque and romantic Rhineland, Bonn 1851, p. 370

[4] Nikolaus Hocker, Erkelenz and Erka, in: Yearbooks of the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland 21 (1854), pp. 97-109