in form and substance from the Northern version which has just been
outlined, though the two have still enough points of similarity to
indicate clearly a common origin. Each bears the stamp of the poetic
genius of the people among whom it grew. Of all the sagas of the Germanic
peoples none holds so prominent a place as the Nibelungen saga, and it
may safely be said that the epic literature of the world, though offering
poems of more refined literary worth, has none that are at the same time
such valuable records of the growth of the poetic genius of two kindred
peoples through many centuries of their early civilization as the Edda
poems of this saga and the Nibelungenlied. It is impossible here to
undertake a comparison of the two and point out in detail their
parallelism and their respective significance as monuments of
civilization; suffice it to indicate briefly the chief points of
difference in the two stories, and note particularly those parts of the
Nibelungenlied that have, as it were, suffered atrophy, and that point to
earlier stages of the saga in which, as in the Northern version, they
played a more important role.

First, as to the hoard. The Nibelungenlied knows nothing of its being
taken by Loki from Andvari, of the latter's curse upon it, and how it
came finally into the possession of Fafnir, the giant-dragon. Here it
belongs, as we learn from Hagen's account (strophes 86-99), to Siegfried
(Sigurd), who has slain the previous owners of it, Schilbung and
Nibelung, and wrested it from its guardian the dwarf Alberich (Andvari).
From this point onward its history runs nearly parallel in the two
versions. After Siegfried's death it remains for a time with Kriemhild
(Gudrun), is treacherously taken from her by Gunther (Gunnar) and Hagen
(Hogni), and finally, before their journey to Etzel (Atli), sunk in the
Rhine.