The old Norse Thidreksaga, as registered about the year 1250 by an Icelander, according to oral traditions and ancient songs, relates the history of the birth and youth of Siegfried, as follows: [68] King Sigmund of Tarlungaland, on his return from an expedition, banishes his wife Sisibe, the daughter of King Nidung of Hispania, who is accused by Count Hartvin, whose advances she has spurned, of having had illicit relations with a menial. The king’s counsellors advise him to mutilate instead of kill the innocent queen, and Hartvin is ordered to cut out her tongue in the forest, so as to bring it to the king as a pledge. His companion, Count Hermann, opposes the execution of the cruel command, and proposes to present the tongue of a dog to the king. While the two men are engaged in a violent quarrel, Sisibe gives birth to a remarkably beautiful boy; she then took a glass vessel, and after having wrapped the boy in linens, she placed him in the glass vessel, which she carefully closed again and placed beside her (Rassmann). Count Hartvin was conquered in the fight, and in falling kicked the glass vessel, so that it fell into the river. When the queen saw this she swooned, and died soon afterwards. Hermann went home, told the king everything, and was banished from the country. The glass vessel meantime drifted down stream to the sea, and it was not long before the tide turned. Then the vessel floated on to a rocky cliff, and the water ran off so that the place where the vessel was perfectly dry. The boy inside had grown somewhat, and when the vessel struck the rock, it broke, and the child began to cry. [Rassmann] The boy’s wailing was heard by a doe, which seized him with her lips, and carried him to her litter, where she nursed him together with her young. After the child had lived twelve months in the den of the doe, he had grown to the height and strength of other boys four years of age. One day he ran into the forest, where dwelt the wise and skilfull smith, Mimir who had lived for nine years in childless wedlock. He saw the boy, who was followed by the faithful doe, took him to his home, and resolved to bring him up as his own son. He gave him the name of Siegfried. In Mimir’s home, Siegfried soon attained an enormous stature and strength, but his wilfulness caused Mimir to get rid of him. He sent the youth into the forest, where it had been arranged that the dragon Regin, Mimir’s brother, was to kill him. But Siegfried conquers the dragon, and kills Mimir. He then proceeds to Brynhild, who names his parents to him.
Similarly to the early history of Siegfried, an Austrasiatic saga tells of the birth and youth of Wolfdietrich. [69] His mother is likewise accused of unfaithfulness, and intercourse with the devil, by a vassal whom she has repulsed, and who speaks evil of her to the returning king, Hugdietrich of Constantinople. [70]
The king surrenders the child to the faithful Berchtung, who is to kill it, but exposes it instead, in the forest, near the water, in the hope that it will fall in of its own accord and thus find its death. But the frolicking child remains unhurt, and even the wild animals, lions, bears, wolves, which come at night to the water, do not harm it. The astonished Berchtung resolves to save the boy, and he surrenders him to a game keeper who, together with his wife, raises him and names him Wolfdietrich. [71]
The following later hero epics may still be quoted in this connection. In the thirteenth century, the saga of Horn, the son of Aluf, who after having been exposed on the sea, finally reaches the court of King Hunlaf, and after numerous adventures wins the king’s daughter, Rimhilt, for his wife. Furthermore, a detail suggestive of Siegfried, from the saga of the skilfull smith Wieland, who, after avenging his foully murdered father, floats down the river Weser, artfully enclosed in the trunk of a tree, and loaded with the tools and treasures of his teachers. Finally the Arthur legend contains the commingling of divine and human paternity, the exposure and the early life with a lowly man.