The term (German) or (Old Norse) is a personal or clan name with several competing and contradictory uses in Germanic heroic legend. It has an unclear etymology, but is often connected to the root of German , meaning . The term in its various meanings gives its name to the Middle High German heroic epic the .
The most widespread use of the term Nibelung denotes the Burgundian royal house, also known as the (German) or (Old Norse). A group of royal brothers led by king Gunther or Gunnar, the Gibichungs are responsible for the death of the hero Siegfried or Sigurd and are later destroyed at the court of Attila the Hun (called Etzel in German and Atli in Old Norse). This is the only use of the term attested in the Old Norse legends.
In medieval German, several other uses of the term Nibelung are documented besides the reference to the Gibichungs: it refers to the king and inhabitants of a mythical land inhabited by dwarfs and giants in the first half of the Nibelungenlied, as well as to the father and one of two brothers fighting over a divided inheritance. This land and its inhabitants give their name to the "hoard of the Nibelungs" (Middle High German der Nibelunge hort). In the late medieval Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, the name, in the form Nybling or Nibling, is given to a dwarf who again gives his name to the treasure.
In Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848–1874), Nibelung denotes a dwarf, or perhaps a specific race of dwarfs.
In Waltharius The earliest surviving probable mention of a form of the name 'Nibelung' occurs in the Latin poem Waltharius, believed to have been composed around the year 920. In lines 555–6 of that poem Walter, seeing Guntharius (Gunther) and his men approaching says (in the text, usually taken to be the oldest):
Nōn assunt Avarēs hīc, sed Francī Nivilōnēs, cultōrēs regiōnis.
The translation is: "These are not Avars, but Frankish Nivilons, inhabitants of the region." The other texts have 'worthless fellows' instead of , a reasonable replacement for an obscure proper name. (Medieval scribes often used b and v interchangeably in Latin texts, so represents a reasonable Latinization of Germanic .) This is the only text to connect the Nibelungs with Franks. Since the Franks conquered the Burgundians in 534, Burgundians could loosely be considered Franks of a kind and confused with them. The name became a Frankish personal name in the 8th and 9th centuries, at least among the descendants of Childebrand I, Duke of Burgundy (who died ).
In the poem, the center of Gunther's "Frankish" kingdom is the city of Worms on the Rhine. Worms functioned as the capital of the First Kingdom of Burgundy in the early fifth century CE; historical sources record Gunther (Gundahar) (died 437) as a Burgundian king in this period.
Norse tradition In the eddic poem (see Poetic Edda) Atlakviða, the word Niflungar is applied three times to the treasure (arfr) or hoard (hodd) of Gunnar (the Norse counterpart of German Gunther). It is also applied once to Gunnar's warriors and once to Gunnar himself. It elsewhere appears unambiguously as the name of the lineage to which the brothers Gunnar and Högni (Hǫgni) belong and seems mostly interchangeable with Gjúkingar or Gjúkungar, meaning descendants of Gjúki, Gjúki being Gunnar's father.
The variant form Hniflungr also occurs as the name of Högni's son in the eddic poem Atlamál, and as a term for the children borne by Gunnar's sister Gudrún (Guðrún) to Atli (Attila the Hun). It appears to be a general term for "warrior" in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I. Hniflungar might be of separate origin, meaning descendants of Hnef, referring to the Hnæf son of Hoc who is prominent in the Old English Finnesburg Fragment. However h was early dropped initially before other consonants in Norwegian dialects which might have led to the adding of h to names in other dialects where it did not originally belong.
Niblung genealogy Lex Burgundionum In the Lex Burgundionum, issued by the Burgundian king Gundobad (c. 480–516), it is decreed that those who were free under the kings Gibica, Gundomar, Gislaharius, and Gundaharius will remain free. But as will be seen below, legendary tradition often makes Gibiche or Gjúki (that is Gibica) the father of Gunther/Gunnar and names Giselher (the same name as Gislaharius) as one of Gunther/Gunnar's brothers. In Norse tradition another brother is named Gutthorm (Gutþormr) which looks like a slight garbling of Gundomar. German tradition provides instead a third brother named Gernot, which may be a substitution of a more familiar name for an unfamiliar one. In the Nibelungenlied, all three brothers are called kings. If these legends preserve authentic tradition, then historically Gibica of the Burgundian Laws might have been the father of the three kings Gundomar, Gislaharius, and Gundaharius who shared the kingdom among them, presumably with Gundaharius as the high king (the sharing of the throne between brothers was a common tradition among the Germanic tribes, see Germanic king). But if so, the order of the names here is puzzling. One would expect Gundaharius to be named immediately after Gibica.
German tradition In the Waltharius King Gibicho of the Franks is father of Guntharius, that is Gunther, and both father and son are called kings of the Franks, not kings of the Burgundians, though their city is Worms on the Rhine. Another king called Heriricus rules the Burgundians and is father of Hiltgunt, the heroine of the tale. The only other kinsman of Gunther who appears here is Hagano (Hagen). But Hagano's exact familial relation to Guntharius is not given.
The Old Norse Þiðrekssaga is a medieval translation of German legendary material into Norwegian. Here Gunther (given the Old Norse form Gunnar) and his brothers are sons and heirs of Irung (in one place) or Aldrian (elsewhere) by Aldrian's wife Ode. The sons are named Gunnar, Gernoz, and Gisler. Ode also bears a daughter named Grímhild. One later passage adds Guthorm. But Guthorm is never mentioned again and is possibly an addition from Norse tradition by the translator or by an early copyist. Hǫgni (German Hagen) appears as their maternal half-brother, fathered on Ode by an elf when Ode once fell asleep in the garden while her husband was drunk. Yet one passage names Hǫgni's father as Aldrian. There are confusions and doublings in the Þiðrekssaga and it may be that Aldrian was properly the name of Hǫgni's elf father. Gunnar and his legitimate brothers are often called Niflungar and their country is named Niflungaland. Their sister Grímhild bore to Atli (Attila) a son named Aldrian who is slain by Hǫgni. At the end of the resultant battle, Hǫgni, though mortally wounded, fathered a son on Herad, one of Þiðrek's relations. This son, named Aldrian, accomplished Atli's death and became Jarl of Niflungaland under Brynhild (Brynhildr). In the Faroese Hǫgnatáttur a similar tale is told. Here Gunnar and Hǫgni have two younger brothers named Gislar and Hjarnar, both slain along with their elder brothers. Hǫgni lies with a Jarl's daughter named Helvik on his deathbed and prophecies to Helvik that a son born to her will avenge him. The son in this account is named Högni. On the birth of the child, Helvik, following Hǫgni's advice, secretly exchanged it with a newborn child of "Gudrún" and "Artala". As a result, Gudrún slew the supposed child of Hǫgni, thinking to have put an end to Hǫgni's lineage, but in fact killed her own child and then brought up Hǫgni's child as her own. This second Hǫgni learned of his true parentage and took vengeance on Artala as in the Þiðrekssaga.
In the Nibelungenlied and its dependent poems the Klage and Biterolf, the father of Gunther, Gernot, Giselher, and Kriemhild is named Dankrat and their mother is named Uote. Hagen is their kinsman (exact relationship not given), and has a brother named Dancwart whose personality is bright and cheerful in contrast to Hagen's. Hagen also has a sister's son named Ortwin of Metz. These family relationships might seem to prohibit any elvish siring, but in the cognate story of Brân the Blessed in Branwen ferch Llŷr, Hagen's counterpart Efnisien had a brother named Nisien who was similarly his opposite and Efnisien and Nisien are maternal half-brothers to Brân and Manawyddan just as in the Þiðrekssaga, Hǫgni was maternal brother to Gunnar and Gernoz. In the second half of the Nibelungenlied both Hagen and Dankwart are called sons of Aldrian. Nothing further is told of Aldrian here. Also in the Nibelungenlied, Gunther and Brunhild had a son named Siegfried and Siegfried and Kriemhild had a son named Gunther. Kriemhild's later son born to Etzel (= Attila) who is slain by Hagen is here named Ortlieb. The Klage relates that Gunther's son Siegfried inherited the kingdom.
Norse tradition The Skáldskaparmál names the founder of the Niflung lineage as Nefi, one of the second set of nine sons of Halfdan the Old who founded many famous legendary lineages. The Ættartolur (genealogies attached to the Hversu Noregr byggdist) call this son of Halfdan by the name Næfil (Næfill) and relate that King Næfil was father of Heimar, father of Eynef (Eynefr), father of Rakni, father of Gjúki.
The form Gjúki is etymologically equatable to Gebicca of the Lex Burgundionum. According to the Skáldskaparmál and the Ættartolur, Gjúki was father of two sons named Gunnar (Gunnarr) and Högni (Hǫgni) and of two daughters named Gudrún (Guðrún) and Gullrönd. Their mother was named Grímhild (Grímhildr). Gudný is mentioned in no other extant texts. A younger brother named Gutthorm (Gutþormr) take on the role of Sigurd's slayer, after being egged on by Gunnar and Högni in the eddic poems Brot af Sigurðarkviðu (stanza 4), in Sigurðarkviða hin skamma (stanzas 20–23), and in the Völsunga saga (as well as being mentioned in the eddic poems Grípisspá and Guðrúnarkviða II). According to the eddic poem Hyndluljóð, stanza 27:
If Gotthorm or Gutthorm, the slayer of Sigurd in northern tradition, is brother of Gunnar and Högni, but is not a son of Gjúki, he must be a maternal half-brother, just as Hagen, the slayer of Siegfried in the German tradition, is a maternal half-brother in the Thidreks saga.
Gudrún bore to Sigurd a son named Sigmund according to the Völsunga saga, presumably the same as the unnamed son mentioned in stanza 5 of Sigurdarkvida hin skamma. But nothing more is said of him. More often mentioned is Gudrún's daughter named Svanhild (Svanhildr) who became the wife of Jörmunrek (Jǫrmunrekr). By her third husband Jónakr, Gudrún is mother of Hamdir (Hamðir) and Sörli (Sǫrli). In the eddic poems Guðrúnarhvöt and Hamðismál, Erp (Erpr), a third son of Jónakr, was born by a different mother. But in the Skáldskaparmál and the Völsunga saga Erp is also a son of Gudrún.
In the Atlakviða (stanza 12), a son of Högni says farewell to his father as Gunnar and Högni depart to visit Atli. The Atlamál (stanza 28) brings in two sons of Högni by his wife Kostbera, named Snævar (Snævarr) and Sólar (Sólarr). They accompany their father and uncle on their fateful journey to Atli's court where they also meet their deaths. These sons are also mentioned in the prose introduction to the eddic poem Dráp Niflunga along with a third son Gjúki. The Atlamál later introduces another son of Högni (or possibly Gjúki son of Högni under another name) who, along with Gudrún, kills Atli. In the Völsunga saga this son is named Niflung (Niflungr). He may be a reflex of the posthumous son of Högni who is called Aldrian in the Thidreks saga. The Danish Hven Chronicle also tells the story of Högni's posthumous son begotten as Högni is dying, of the switching of children so that Högni is brought up as son of Atli and "Gremhild", and of how this son lures Gremhild to the cave of treasure and seals her in.
Other interpretations of Nibelung A northern people