Ortnite
The legend of Ortnit is originally of Low German origin, but was incorporated into the Wolfdietrich epic around the 13th century .
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It tells the legend of King Ortnit, ruler of Lampartenland , who lived in his castle in Garda on Lake Garda. Before he sets off on the dangerous journey to Montabur Castle, where he wants to win Sidrat, the daughter of the pagan king Machorel, his mother gives him a ring and advises him to seek help in the mountains. He finds her there in the form of the elf-like dwarf Alberich , who confesses to be his real father. Alberich equips him with golden armor and the sword Rose, which can even penetrate stones and dragon skin. Only with the help of the invisible Alberich, who accompanies him on the journey, is it possible to kidnap the king's daughter.
Back in Lampartenland, the now married royal couple receives a visit from a messenger from Machorel from Montabur, who presents them with a special gift of reconciliation: Eggs from which lizards will hatch that have a particularly large gem. Ortnit allows the hunter to bring the eggs into the mountains and monitor and raise the hatching. In reality, they are dragon eggs. When the dragons become a plague, Ortnit sets out to fight them, but takes his wife's ring with him, whom he asks only to believe whoever brings this ring back to her. Despite a warning from Alberich, who still meets him, he falls asleep and is thrown to his young by the dragon. Later Wolfdietrich will kill the dragon and its brood and win the widowed queen for himself.
According to Hermann Schneider, the Ortnit legend goes back to Low German origins. Originally it was a king Hertnid from the Russian Gardarich (Novgorod), of whom we only know that he won his bride on a dangerous journey and had to do with a dragon.
Representations
Ortnit is depicted as one of the three giants in the wall paintings from around 1390 at Runkelstein Castle near Bozen. The paintings were commissioned by Niklaus Vintler and are an important testimony to the spread of the legend of Ortnit in the Middle Ages.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Schneider: Deutsche Heldensage (= Göschen Collection; Volume 32), arr. by Roswitha Wisniewski, 2nd edition Berlin 1964, pages 134-145.
literature
- Ortnit and Wolfdietrich , in: Deutsche Heldensagen, retold by Gretel and Wolfgang Hecht. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Taschenbuch 345, 1980, pp. 7–95 and pp. 383–387 (edition with the same text as the book of the same title from Insel-Verlag Anton Kippenberg, Leipzig 1969).
- Hermann Schneider: German heroic saga (= Göschen Collection; Volume 32), arr. by Roswitha Wisniewski, 2nd edition Berlin 1964, pp. 134–145.
- Roswitha Wisniewski: Medieval Dietrichdichtung , (= Metzler Collection; Volume 205), Stuttgart 1986 ISBN 3-476-10205-X .