Miracle (epic)
The saga of the miracle worker is a poetry probably dating from the 13th century from the area of the aventiuric Dietrichepik . She tells how a beautiful king's daughter appears at King Etzel's court and asks for help against the wild miracle worker who has been chasing and eating her with a pack of dogs for three years. The miracle worker penetrates the Etzelburg with his pack of dogs. He explains that he is a king's son, that the girl was promised to him by her father, but that she disdains him. That is why he would rather eat them than leave them to others. Dietrich von Bern , who stayed at Etzel's court and was only around 15 years old, fought with him for several days and cut off his head. The girl who introduces herself as Mrs. Saelde says goodbye.
For literary design
The specialty of this lock picking adventure is the motive of the spurned lover who hunts the brittle lover in order to kill her. This narrative type can also be found in the eighth novella of Boccaccio's Decameron . This motif can also be found in other Dietrichepen ( corner song , virginal ), but is not the focus. However, there is a tradition from Verona from the first half of the 14th century in which Theodoric persecutes nymphs in the woods after his rapture on the devil's horse . The miracle worker also goes into the rapture of Dietrich in an excursus, but tells it differently: the devil incited Dietrich to say a rash word and that is why he was kidnapped in old age in the wust Rumeney ( Romagna ?) And has to stay there until the youngest Days of fighting dragons to repent. This bends the negative older tradition of the world chronicle of Otto von Freising (1143-46) that Dietrich went to hell while sitting on a horse, because the raptured Dietrich is not in hell and he fights evil (dragons). This positive transformation is probably also done in order to be able to incorporate the lockpick of the old heroic poetry into a new poem with a courtly attitude as a positive figure.
The figure of Dame Saelde can also be found in other court literature and is a replica of the Roman goddess of fortune Fortuna . The miracle worker also attributes supernatural abilities to her: she sees through everyone at first sight, her blessing makes invincible, and she can move from one place to another in no time at all. This is why connections were made to folk tales from the Tyrolean folk tale (the fairy-like 'Salgfrauen') or the sister of Venus named 'Selga', who mentions a fortune-teller who was interrogated in Vorarlberg in 1525 . However, such connections are speculative, and the similarity of names can be explained by the independent tradition of the Fortuna figure in sagas and fairy tales.
In contrast to the representation in Goldemar , Dietrich's advocacy of the persecuted is not motivated by love, but by the chivalrous obligation to protect the persecuted. Nevertheless, the miracle worker belongs more to courtly poetry than to the older heroic poetry, in which a fight is waged simply to compete even without such a reason.
literature
- Joachim Heinzle: Introduction to Middle High German Dietrichepik . Berlin: de Gruyter 1999. ISBN 3-11-015094-8 (especially p. 190 ff.)