The Nibelungenlied: Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original

The Nibelungenlied is one of the great forgotten epics of Western literature, a thunderous medieval tale of love, betrayal, and blood revenge that shaped Germanic mythology for centuries. Siegfried, a prince of the Netherlands with the invincibility of dragon-blood on his hands, arrives at the court of Burgundy and wins the hand of the radiant Kriemhild by helping her brother Gunther subdue a fearsome Icelandic queen. But loyalty curdles into murder when courtly envy turns deadly, and Siegfried falls to a spear in the forest, leaving Kriemhild alone with a treasure hoard and a wound that will not heal. What follows is one of literature's most terrifying portraits of grief transformed into purpose: a wronged queen who turns kingdom against kingdom, who makes alliances with the enemy of all christendom, who becomes something far more dangerous than a spurned woman. This translation captures the relentless momentum of the original Middle High German, its rhyming couplets pounding forward like a horse at gallop. The Nibelungenlied endures because it understands that some wounds can never be forgiven, only avenged, and that honor in a world without law is a thing both glorious and doomed.