Wälsungen
The Wälsungen (also Wölsungen , Welsungen , Völsungar ) are a legendary Germanic family , named after their progenitor .
Progenitor
The progenitor of the Wälsungen is mentioned for the first time in the old English epic Beowulf (no later than the 10th century; perhaps older) as Waels . In Old Norse poems, which were recorded in writing in the 13th century, it appears in Old Norse spelling as Volsungr . In more recent Icelandic spelling, this corresponds to Völsungr . Since Old Norse v is pronounced like German w , German translations sometimes choose the spelling Wälsung or Wölsung (the r is the nominative ending, which is often left out in translations).
Sigmund, Sinfiötli and Sigurd
Wölsung's son is Sigmund , who lives together with his son and nephew Sinfiötli as a werewolf in the forest: a werewolf is a person who drives into a wolf's skin and thus transforms himself into a wolf - a mythical- magical idea (Sinfiötli is Sigmund's son and nephew at the same time, since he fathered him in the incest with his sister Signy ).
Like Wölsung, Sigmund already appears in Beowulf (his companion there is only his nephew and bears the name Fitela , an abbreviation of Sinfiötli ). In the Beowulf, Sigmund is the famous dragon slayer of the past .
In a skald poem in honor of a Norwegian king from the 10th century, Sigmund and Sinfiötli are the great prehistoric heroes; Sigurd does not appear in it yet.
In the 11th century rock carvings were made in Scandinavia depicting the killing of a dragon, the details of which correspond to the Edda songs recorded in the 13th century about Sigurd's killing of the dragon.
In the poems recorded in the 13th century, Sigmund is nowhere mentioned as a dragon slayer, but Sigurd, who is a son of Sigmund with his last wife. In Germany, Siegfried is the dragon slayer .
Nordic and Germanic versions
The details of the Nordic Jung Sigurd songs are so different from what was told about Siegfried in Germany (not only in the Nibelungenlied , but also in the Hürnen Seyfrit and in the German source of the Thidrek saga , which has been translated into Norwegian ) that one has to assume , various dragon slayer myths and legends were merged into one figure.
Above all, several Edda songs as well as the Völsunga saga, possibly composed around 1250, pass on such mixed versions of Nordic and German sagas: The Völsunga saga knew a.o. a. already the 50 years older Nibelungenlied . The Völsunga saga offers the story in a mythized form by naming the god Odin as the ancestor of the race (who can be traced back to a Germanic form Wodanaz ).
genealogy
The Völsungasaga offers the following genealogy of the peoples: Odin - Sigi - Rerir - Wölsung - Sigmund ;
Sigmund's four sons are:
- Sinfiötli (mother: Sigmund's sister Signy )
- Helgi and Hamund (mother: Sigmund's wife Borghild)
- Sigurd (mother: Sigmund's last wife Hjördis ).
Artistic receptions
In Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (first performance of the entire cycle : Bayreuth 1876), the family is conceived by the Germanic god Wotan under the name of Wälse . Other important artistic receptions are the story Wälsungenblut by Thomas Mann (withdrawn first edition : 1906) and the historical fantasy novel Rheingold (1992) by Stephan Grundy , which, in addition to the Siegfried legend, also describes in great detail the “prehistory”, i.e. the history of the Wälsungen .