in some respects physically from the ordinary Niam-Niam type. Apart also from numerous tribal divisions, the eastern NiamNiam proper form three very distinct branches. The bleak northern highlands bordering east on the Bongo and north on Dar-Fertit are occupied by the Banda Niam-Niam. To the southwards are the more civilized Belanda Niam-Niam, who hold the fertile hilly territory of the Nile-Congo watershed. Very different from either are the so-called White" NiamNiam, neighbours of the Madi of the Makua-Welle river basin. Their complexion is of a lighter bronze tint, and they are distinguished from the other branches of the family by their tall stature, symmetrical figure, long kinky hair and beard and higher social culture. They wear cotton garments, obtained by barter for ivory, copper and iron, and have a tendency to political unity under one chief.1 There is, however, a very distinct Niam-Niam type, one of the most marked in the whole of Africa. "These beings," remarks Schweinfurth, on his first introduction to them, "stood out like creatures of another world . . . a people of a marked and most distinct nationality, and that in Africa and amongst Africans is saying much:" They are of medium height and powerful build. The great space between the eyes, which are almond-shaped and slightly slanting, gives them a peculiar expression. They have a very short nose, with correspondingly long upper lip; woolly hair; a very round head, agreeing in this respect with the Bongo of the Bahr-el-Ghazal but differing from the great majority of the other African dark races; features generally round, with less jaw-projection and altogether more regular than the typical Negro; of a ruddy brown or chocolate colour, scarcely ever black, but occasionally bronze and even olive. The average Niam-Niam is distinguished by some excellent qualities, such as frankness, courage, an instinctive love of art, and above all a genuine and lasting affection for his women, such as is betrayed by no other African race. By tribal custom the men are all hunters, armed with long knives and spears and carrying oblong shields of wicker-work; the women all tillers of the soil, which with little toil yields abundant crops of cereals, yams, manioc, colocasia and Virginian tobacco. Both sexes wear large pins of ivory, iron, monkey or human bone stuck in their hair, and stain their skin with red camwood and the oil of a wild berry. The Niam-Niam are intelligent, skilful builders, and proncient in many native industries. Prominent among these are their earthenware vessels, which display considerable symmetry; iron smelting and metal work, such as swords, knives and spears; wood carvings, such as stools, benches, bowls and tobacco pipes, of varied and intricate design and often admirable works of art. They are great smokers, and very fond of music. Of the ox, horse, ass or camel they have no knowledge; the only domestic animals are poultry, and a breed of dogs, like small wolf-hounds, with smooth red hair, twisted tail like a porker's, large ears, pointed nose and four-clawed hind feet. These curious little "greyhounds" join in the chase with small wooden bells round the neck, and are thus soon found when lost in the woods. The Niam-Niam are distinguished by their elaborate headdresses (they formerly wore a sort of big full-buttomed wig, and Dr W. Junker actually saw elderly people in these), and peculiar tattoo markings-square patterns on forehead, temples or cheeks, About the middle of the 19th century, most of the eastern NiamNiam lands appear to have been subject to Yapaty, son of Mabengeh. But after his death they were distributed amongst his seven sons, Renjy, Balia, Perkye, Tombo, Bazimbey, Manuba; and in 1870 there were already fourteen reigning princes of this dynasty, besides several of doubtful relationship with the line of Mabengeh. In the Niam-Niam districts visited by the traders from the Egyptian Sudan there were at that time altogether as many as thirty-five independent chiefs. But reports were current of a very powerful "sultan" named Mofio, whose empire lay some 300 m. farther west: Another large state, founded in the Welle region by Kipa (Kifa), brother of Yapaty, also fell to pieces after his death in 1868. The powerful chiefs Bakangoi and Kanna, visited in 1883 by G. Casati, were sons of this Kipa, whose grave near Kanna's village was still watched by twenty-five" vestals," bound, under penalty of death, to keep a fire Constantly burning, and to preserve their chastity inviolate (sploratore, August 1883) an X-shaped figure in a cartouche below the chest, and various zigzag, straight or dotted lines on the upper arm and breast. Most of them file the incisors. From the malted grain of a species of eleusine they brew good beer, of a sparkling brown or reddish colour and pleasant bitter taste, derived from the stalk of the same cereal. In this widespread Negroid family are now provisionally grouped the Makaraka, intermingled with the Mundu, and the Babukur in the north-east (Bahr-el-Ghazal); the Krej, Banda and N'Sakkara in the north-west (Dar-Fertit, and thence to the upper Shari); the Banziri, Ndris, Togbo, Languassi, Dakoa, Ngapu, Wia-Wia, Manja, Awaka, Akunga and others about both slopes of the Congo-Chad water-parting. These last, who give such an enormous westward extension to the family, present much the same physical characters as the Zandeh proper, and speak dialects of the widely diffused Ndris language, which is not Bantu, but appears to show affinities with Zandeh the Fula of west and central Sudan, and to substitute for the now This great division ethnologists are even disposed to connect with exploded Nuba-Fula a "Zandeh-Fula family, resulting from various secular interminglings between the true negroes and the Berbers of North Africa. Such crossings have undoubtedly been in progress since prehistoric times over an enormous area south of the certain constant characters, such as long ringlety or kinky black hair, Sahara (AFRICA: Ethnology), and are almost everywhere marked by coppery, reddish or bronze shades of complexion, brachycephalic (round) head, often highly pronounced, and indicated outwardly by an unusually wide space between the orbits, and generally by some what softened negro features. But, owing to the different environments and to the different initial ratios of intermixture, the transitional forms are almost endless, so that it becomes difficult to constitute distinct ethnical groups without calling in the aid of language. Where type and speech correspond, as to a large extent is the case with most of the above-mentioned tribes, even strict systematists will be disposed to constitute separate ethnical groups, at least as working hypotheses, always allowing for the somewhat untrustworthy nature of the linguistic factor. In the case under consideration Fula has no kind of connexion with Zandeh speech, but this by no means precludes the possibility of racial connexion. Beyond a few meagre vocabularies no materials have yet been collected for the study of the Zandeh language, which, except in the Madi country, appears to be everywhere spoken with considerable uniformity in the eastern Niam-Niam lands. Its phonetic system, such as initial mb and vowel auslaut, affiliates it, not to the Libyan, as has been asserted, but to the Negro linguistic type. Within this order of speech its pronominal prefix inflection points to affinity rather with the southern Bantu than with the Sudan group of languages. Thus the personal plural a-, as in A-Zandeh, A-Madi, A-Banga. &c., would appear to be identical in origin and meaning with the Bantu wa-, as in Wa-Ganda, Wa-Swaheli, Wa-Sambara, &c. There is also the same dearth of abstract terms, which renders the translation of Scripture into the Negro tongues such a difficult task. Compare gumbah, an expression for the Deity, really meaning "lightning," with the Chinyanja chuuta thunder = God (?) and the Zulu Unkulunkulu = equivalent for the Deity in that language. great-grandfather, also adopted by the missionaries as the nearest Politically the dismembered Zandeh empire and dependent principalities are divided up between France, which claims the sultanates" of Rafai, Dinda, Zemio and Tambura in the Mbomu valley, with all the peoples in Fertit and the Shari basin; Belgium, which administers the eastern section between the Mbomu and the upper Welle; and Great Britain, to whose share have fallen the Makaraka and other Niam-Niam groups of the Bahr-el-Ghazal region. See John Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan and Central Africa (1861): Carlo Piaggia's" Account of the Niam-Niam," communicated by the Marchese O. Antinori to the Bolletino of the Italian Geographical Society (1868), pp. 91-168; G. A. Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa (English edition, 1873); G. Casati," Journey to the Niam-Niam Country," in Esploratore for August 1883. and Ten Years in Equatoria (1891); F. R. Bohndorff, Reisen in Central Africa (1885); Dr W. Junker, "Rundreise in dem südlichen Niamniam-Lande," in Petermann's Mittheilungen for May 1883, English edition, Travels in Africa (1890). NIAS, the largest island in the chain off the west coast of Sumatra, Dutch East Indies, lying about 1° N., 97° 30′ E. It is roughly oblong in form, measuring about 80 m. by 28, and appears to be partly of volcanic origin and to consist partly of older rocks corresponding with those of Sumatra. Its extreme elevation is about 2300 ft. A number of islets (Nako, Bunga, &c.) lie off the west and north coasts. The island is thickly populated by a pagan people, who by some authorities, including F. Junghuhn, have been associated with the Battas, but are probably a distinct branch of the pre-Malayan or Indonesian race. Slavery and head-hunting are universal, despite the efforts of Dutch and German missionary societies. The natives are skilled in such crafts as weaving and metal-work, as well as in agriculture | and road-making. Coco-nut oil is produced on Nias and also more especially on the Nako group. A Dutch commissioner is established at Gunong Sitoli on the east coast, a settlement of Malay and Chinese traders. NIBELUNGENLIED, or DER NIBELUNGE NÔT, an heroic epic written in a Middle High German dialect. The story on which the poem is based belongs to the general stock of Teutonic saga and was very widespread under various forms, some of which are preserved. Thus it is touched upon in Beowulf, and fragments of it form the most important part of the northern Eddas, the poets of which evidently assumed that the tale as a whole was well known and that their hearers would be able to put each piece in its proper place. In the prose Edda, or Volsungasaga, which, though largely primitive in spirit, dates from the 13th century, it is set forth in full. The substance of this Norse version is as follows: The three Anses-Odin, Loki and Hörnir-saw an otter devouring a salmon beside a waterfall. They killed and skinned the otter and, taking the skin with them, sought shelter for the night with Rodmar the giant. But Rodmar recognized the skin as that of his son, and demanded as weregild gold enough to cover it completely. Loki thereupon went back to the stream, where Andvari in the form of a pike was guarding a great treasure, caught him in a net, and forced him to surrender his hoard. But the piled-up gold left one hair exposed; in order to cover it Loki returned to Andvari and forced him to surrender a magic ring which had the virtue of breeding gold. Thereupon Andvari, enraged, laid upon the hoard and all who should possess it a cursc. This curse, the Leitmotif of the whole story, began to operate at once. Rodmar, for the sake of the treasure, was slain by his sons Fafnir and Regin; and Fafnir, seizing the whole, retired to a desolate heath and, in the form of a snake or dragon, brooded over the hoard. Regin, cheated of his share, plotted vengeance and the conquest of the treasure. To Regin, a notable smith, was sent Sigurd-son of the slain hero Sigmundr the Volsung and his wife Hiortis, now wife of the Danish king Alf-to be trained in his craft. To him Regin told of Fafnir and the hoard, and the young hero offered to go out against the dragon it Regin would weld him a sword. But every brand forged by the smith broke under Sigurd's stroke; till at last he fetched the fragments of the sword Gram, Odin's gift to his father, which Hiortis had carefully treasured. These Sigurd forged into a new sword, so hard that with it he could cleave the anvil and so sharp that it would sever a flock of wool floating against it down stream; and, so armed, he sought and slew the dragon. But while roasting Fafnir's heart, which Regin had cut out, Sigurd burned his finger with the boiling fat and, placing it to his lips, found that he could understand the language of birds, and so learned from the chattering of the woodpeckers that Regin was planning treachery. Thereupon he slew the smith and loading the treasure on the magic steed Grani, given to him by Odin, set out upon his travels. On the summit of a fire-girt hill Sigurd found the Valkyrie Brunhild in an enchanted sleep, and ravished by her beauty awakened her; they plighted their troth to each other and, next morning, Sigurd left her to set out once more on his journey. Coming to the court of Giuki, a king in the Rhine country, Sigurd formed a friendship with his three sons, Gunnar, Hogni and Guthorm; and, in order to retain so valuable an ally, it was determined to arrange a match between him and their sister Gudrun. Queen Grimhild, skilled in magic, therefore gave him an enchanted drink, which caused him to forget Brunhild. Gunnar, on the other hand, wished to make Brunhild his wife, and asked Sigurd to ride with him on this quest, which he consented to do on condition of receiving Gudrun to wife. They set out; but Gunnar was unable to pass the circle of fire round Brunhild's abode, the achievement that was the condition of winning her hand. So Sigurd, assuming Gunnar's shape, rode through the flames on his magic horse, and in sign of troth exchanged rings with the Valkyrie, giving her the ring of Andvari. So Gunnar and Brunhild were wedded, and Sigurd, resuming his own form, rode back with them to Giuki's court where the double marriage was celebrated. Brunhild was moody and suspicious, remembering her troth with Sigurd and believing that he alone could have accomplished the quest. One day the two queens, while bathing in the river, fell to quarrelling as to which of their husbands was the greater. Brunhild taunted Gudrun with the fact that Sigurd was Gunnar's vassal, whereupon Gudrun retorted by telling her that it was not Gunnar but Sigurd who rode through the flames, and in proof of this held up Brunhild's ring, which Sigurd had given to her. Then Brunhild "waxed as wan as a dead woman, and spoke no word the day long." Maddened by jealousy and wounded pride, she now incited the three kings to murder Sigurd by exciting their jealousy of his power. The two elder, as bound to him by blood-brotherhood, refused; but the youngest, Guthorm, who had sworn no oaths, consented to do the. deed. Twice he crept into Sigurd's chamber, but fled when he found the hero awake and gazing at him with flashing eyes. The third But time, finding him asleep, he stabbed him; but Sigurd, before he died, This story, in spite of the late date of the Volsungasaga and of added elements due to the imagination of its author, evidently represents a very primitive version. In the Nibelungen story, on the other hand, though its extant versions are of much earlier date, and though it contains elements equally primitive not found in the other, the spirit and the motives of the earlier story have to a large extent been transmuted by later influences, the setting of the story being-though by no means consistently-medieval rather than primitive. Thus the mysterious hoard is all but lost sight of; no mention is made of the curse attached to it; and it is only as an afterthought that Siegfried (Sifrit) is described as its master. Everywhere the supernatural elements are climinated or subordinated, and the story becomes a drama of human motives, depending for its development on the interplay, of human passions and activities: To us in ancient story wonders great are told Of heroes rich in glory and of adventures bold, Of feast and joyous living, of wailing and of woe, Of gallant warriors striving may ye now many marvels know.1 That is all he gives by way of preface. The gods have vanished from the scene; there is nothing of Loki and his theft of Andvari's hoard, nothing of Odin and his gifts of the sword Gram and the magic horse Grani; and not till the third Aventiure, when Siegfried comes to Worms, are we given even a hint that such things as the sword and treasure exist. On the other hand, in the very next stanza we are introduced to what is to be the leading motive of the plot: Kriemhild, the Burgundian princess, on whose account " many a noble knight was doomed to perish." For, as in the legend of Sigurd the Volsung, the plot had turned upon the love and vengeance of Brunhild, so in the song of the Nibelungs it is the love and vengeance of Kriemhild, the Gudrun of the northern saga, that forms the backbone of the story and gives it from first to last an artistic unity which the Volsungasaga lacks. Of the story itself it is impossible here to give anything but the barest outline, sufficient to show its contrast with the northern version. We may note at the outset the spirit of pessimism which, like the curse on the hoard, pervades the whole. It appears in the very first Aventiure, when Kriemhild, in answer to her mother's interpretation of her dream, declares that she will never marry, since "it has been proved by the experience of many women that joy is in the end rewarded by sorrow"; it is repeated in the last stanza but one of the long poem: As ever joy in sorrow ends and must end alway." This tragic contrast is emphasized by the pomp and circumstance that surround the ill-fated hero of the story at the beginning. 1 Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit Von heleden lobebaeren von grôzer arebeit Von freude unt hôchgeziten von weinen unde klagen Von küener recken striten muget ir nun wunder hoeren sagen. NIBELUNGENLIED The primitive setting of the northern version has vanished utterly. It is at this point (Avent. iv.) that some of the primitive One day, while Siegfried and his wife were on a visit to the Burgundian court, the two queens fell to quarrelling on the question of precedence, not in a river but on the steps of the cathedral (Avent. xiv.). Kriemhild was taunted with being the wife of Gunther's vassal; whereupon, in wrath, she showed Brunhild the ring and the golden girdle taken by Siegfried, proof that Siegfried, not Gunther, had won Brunhild. So far the story is essentially the same as that in the Volsungasaga; but now the plot changes. Brunhild drops out, becoming a figure altogether subordinate and shadowy. The death of Siegfried is compassed, not by her, but by the " henchman, who thinks the glory of his master unduly overgrim" Hagen, Gunther's faithful shadowed by that of his vassal. Hagen easily persuades the weak Gunther that the supposed insult to his honour can only be wiped out in Siegfried's blood; he worms the secret of the hero's vulnerable spot out of Kriemhild, on pretence of shielding him from harm (Avent. xv.), and then arranges a great hunt in the forest, so that he may slay him when off his guard. The 16th Aventiure, describing this hunt and the murder of Siegfried, is perhaps the most powerful scene in all medieval epic. To heighten the effect of the tragic climax the poet begins with a description of the hunting, and describes the high spirits of Siegfried, who captures a wild boar, rides back with it to camp, and there lets it loose to the great discomfiture of the cooks. When the hunters sat down to feast, it was found that the wine had been forgotten. Hagen thereupon proposed that they should 1 Compare the heel of Achilles. Siegfried readily agreed, and though handicapped by carrying shield, sword and spear, easily reached the goal first, but waited, race to a spring of which he knew some way off in the forest. with his customary courtesy, until the king had arrived and drunk before slaking his own thirst. Then, laying aside his it through the spot marked by Kriemhild on Siegfried's surcoat. The hero sprang up and, finding that his sword had been removed, arms, he stooped and drank. Hagen, seizing the spear, thrust attacked Hagen with his shield. Though to death he was wounded he struck so strong a stroke That from the shattered shield-rim forthwith out there broke Showers of flashing jewels; the shield in fragments lay. Siegfried fell dying Then reproaching them for their cowardice and treachery, gathered round lamenting. At this point two stanzas may be quoted as well illustrating the poet's power of dramatic "amid the flowers," while the knights characterization: The king of the Burgundians he too bewailed his death: Then spake the dying hero: " You weep for an ill fortune that you yourself have wrought: Nay, now you waste your breath! That is a shameful sorrow: it were better you said nought!" Then out spake the grim Hagen: This is for us the ending of sorrow and of pain. "I know not why ye plain: Full few are left of foemen that dare withstand us now. Glad am I that the hero was by this hand of mine laid low!" ancient German tradition, is far finer than the northern version, This account of the death of Siegfried, which embodies the according to which Hogni murders the hero in his bed. The whole spirit of this Aventiure, too, is primitive Teutonic rather than medieval. The same is true, indeed, of the whole of the pomp of medieval Catholic rites; but Kriemhild, while praying rest of the poem. Siegfried, to be sure, is buried with all the for his soul like a good Christian, plots horrible vengeance like her pagan prototype. With this significant difference, however: Gudrun revenged upon her husband the death of her brothers; Kriemhild seeks to revenge upon her brothers the death of her husband. The Catholic bond of marriage has become stronger than the primitive Teutonic bond of kinship. Mistress now of to win a following by lavish largesses; but this Hagen frustrated the inexhaustible hoard of the Nibelungs, Kriemhild sought by seizing the treasure, with the consent of the kings, and sinking it in the Rhine, all taking an oath never to reveal its hidingplace, without the consent of the others, so long as they should live (Avent. xix.). At last, however, after thirteen years, Etzel (Attila) king of the Huns, whom she consented to marry Kriemhild's chance came, with a proposal of marriage from Then more years passed; old feuds seemed to be forgotten; on condition that he would help her to vengeance (Avent. xx.). and the Burgundian kings, in spite of Hagen's warnings, thought it safe to accept their sister's invitation to visit her court (Avent. xxiii. xxiv.). by the poet at great length (Avent. xxv.-xxvii.). The story is The journey of the Burgundians into Hunland is described full of picturesque detail and stirring incident, full also of interesting problems in folk-lore and mythology; and throughout it cowardice and his advice spurned, is determined that there shall is dominated by the figure of the grim Hagen, who, twitted with be no turning back and that they shall go through with it to the bitter end. Danube and then, when the last detachment has crossed, destroys the boat, so that there may be no return. With his own hands he ferries the host over the (Avent. xxviii.) it is again Hagen who provokes the catastrophe At Attila's court with him the hoard of the Nibelungs: by taunting Kriemhild when she asks him if he has brought " "The devil's what I bring you!" Hagen then replied, The sword was Siegfried's. It is Hagen, too, who after the Anglo-Norm. and adopted by Freeman in his Norman Conquest first onslaught of the Huns strikes off the head of Ortlieb, the son of Etzel and Kriemhild, and who, amid the smoke and carnage of the burning hall, bids the Burgundians drink blood if they are thirsty. Besides Hagen, during the ride into Hunland and in the final fight, another figure comes to the front, that of Volker the Fiddler, so far only mentioned as a hero of the Saxon war in Avent. ii. He rides fiddling at the head of the host; he plays to the weary warriors in the intervals of the battle in the court of Etzel's palace; but he is also expert at performing other music, with "a strong fiddle-bow, mighty and long, like to a sword, exceeding sharp and broad." He is the type of the medieval knightly minstrel of the age of the Minnesang. But for all their prowess, after a prolonged struggle (Avent. xxix.-xxxvii.), the Burgundians were at last overwhelmed. Most of the chief figures of heroic saga had come up against them: Attila, Hildebrand, the Ostrogoth Theodoric (Dietrich von Bern). To the last-named even Hagen armed with Siegfried's sword had to yield (Avent. xxxviii.). Kriemhild came to him as he lay in bonds and demanded the Nibelung treasure. He refused to reveal its hiding-place so long as Gunther, also a prisoner, should live. Gunther was accordingly slain by the queen's orders and his head was brought to Hagen, who cried out when he saw it that all had been accomplished as he had foretold: "Now none knows where the hoard is save God and I alone: That to thee, devil-woman, shall nevermore be known!" Whereupon Kriemhild slew him with Siegfried's sword. But Kriemhild was not destined, like Gudrun, to set out on further adventures. Hildebrand, horrified at her deed, sprang forward and cut her to pieces with his sword. In sorrow now was ended the king's high holiday, | Etzel as Attila, Dietrich of Bern as Theodoric of Verona, and the Burgundian kings Gunther, Giselhêr and Gernot as the Gundaharius, Gislaharius and Godomar of the Lex Burgundiorum; in 1820 Julius Leichtlen (Neuaufgefundenes Bruchstück des Nibelungenliedes, Freiburg-im-Breisgau) roundly declared that "the Nibelungenlied rests entirely on a historical foundation, and that any other attempt to explain it must fail." This view was, however, overborne by the great authority of Lachmann, whose theory, in complete harmony with the principles popularized by the brothers Grimm, was accepted and elaborated by a long series of critics. It is only of late years that criticism has tended to revert to the standpoint of Müller and Leichtlen and to recognize in the story of the Nibelungen as a whole a misty and confused tradition of real events and people. Mythical elements it certainly contains; and to those figures whichlike Siegfried, Brunhild, Hagen and the "good margrave Ruedegêr of Bechlâren-cannot be traced definitively to historical originals, a mythical origin is still provisionally ascribed. But criticism is still busy attempting to trace these also to historical originals, and Theodor Abeling (Das Nibelungenlied, 1907) makes out a very plausible case for identifying Siegfried with Segeric, son of the Burgundian king Sigimund, Brunhild with the historical Brunichildis, and Hagen with a certain Hagnericus, who, according to the Life of St Columban, guided the saint (the chaplain of the Nibelungenlied), who had incurred the enmity of Brunichildis, safe to the court of her grandson Theuderich, king of the West Franks. " Herr Abeling's theory of the sources of the Nibelungen story is one among many; but, as it is one of the latest and not the least ingenious, it deserves mention. That the Icelandic Eddas contain the oldest versions of the legend, though divided and incomplete, is universally admitted. It is equally well established, however, that Iceland could not have been its original home This Herr Abeling locates among the Franks of what is now To some MSS. of the Nibelungenlied is added a supplementary poem called the Klage or Lament, a sequel of 2160 short-line couplets, describing the lament of the survivors-notably Etzel-southern France, whence the stories spread, from the 6th century over the slain, the burying of the dead, and the carrying of the news to the countries of the Burgundians and others. At the end it is stated that the story was written down, at the command of Bishop Pilgrim of Passau, by a writer named Konrad (Kuonrât) in Latin, and that it had since been sung (getichtet) often in the German tongue. Sources of the Story.-The origin and nature of the various elements that go to make up the story of the Nibelungenlied have been, and continue to be, the subject of very lively debate. The view at one time most generally accepted was that first propounded by Karl Lachmann in his "Kritik der Sage von den Nibelungen" (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Num. 249, 250, 1829, republished in his Zu den Nibelungen Anmerkungen in 1836), namely, that the story was originally a myth of the northern gods, modified into a heroic saga after the introduction of Christianity, and intermingled with historical elements. This view is maintained by Richard von Muth in his Einleitung in das Nibelungenlied (Paderborn, 1877), who thus sums up the result of his critical researches: "The basis of all is an old myth of a beneficent divine being (Siegfried), who conquers daemonic powers (the Nibelungen), but is slain by them (the Burgundians turned Nibelungen); with this myth was connected the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom, ascribed to Attila, between 437 and 453, and later the legend of Attila's murder by his wife; in this form, after Attila and Theodoric had been associated in it, the legend penetrated, between 555 and 583, to the North, where its second part was developed in detail on the analogy of older sagas, while in Germany a complete change of the old motif took place." To this theory the objection is raised that it is but a theory; that it is unsupported by any convincing evidence; and that the process which it postulates, that, namely, of the transformation of the gods into heroes by the popular imagination, is contrary to all that we know of the fate of dethroned deities, who are apt to live on in fairy stories in very unheroic guise. So early as 1783 Johannes von Müller of Göttingen had called attention to the historical figures appearing in the Nibelungenlied, identifying | onwards, on the one hand across the Rhine into Franconia, on the other hand westwards and northwards, by way of Irelandat that time in close intercourse with continental Europe-and the northern islands, to Iceland. Hence the two traditions, the German and the Icelandic, of which the latter alone is preserved in something of its primitive form,1 though primitive elements survive in the Nibelungenlied. The basis of the story is then, according to this view, historical, not mythical: a medley of Franco-Burgundian historical traditions, overlaid with mythical fancies. The historical nucleus is the overthrow of the Burgundian kingdom of Gundahar by the Huns in 436; and round this there gathered an accretion of other episodes, equally historical in their origin, however distorted, with a naïve disregard of chronological possibility: the murder of Segeric (c. 525), the murder of Sigimund by the sons of Chrothildis, wife of Clovis (identified by Abeling with Kriemhild), the murder of Attila by his Burgundian wife Ildico (see KRIEMHILD). In the Eddas the identity of the original Franco-Burgundian sagas is fairly preserved. In the Nibelungenlied, on the other hand, the influence of other wholly unconnected stories is felt: thus Hildebrand appears during the final fight at Etzel's court, and Theodoric the Great (Dietrich von Bern; see THEODORIC), for no better reason than that the Dietrich legend had sent him into exile there, and that he must have been there when the Burgundians arrived. Origin of the Poem.-The controversy as to the underlying elements of the Nibelung legend extends to the question of the authorship and construction of the poem itself. Was it from the first-whatever additions and interpolations may have Bishop Saemund Sigfusson (1056-1133) The Eddas were first written down, as is commonly assumed, by The process of this overlaying is easy to realize if we remember how usual it was to transfer characteristics and episodes drawn from immemorial folk-lore to successive historical personages. A good example is the "Swan-maiden " myth connected with the house of Bouillon (see LOHENGRIN). See also other interesting cases cited in the chapter on the "Geste of John de Courci" in Mr J. H. Round's Peerage and Pedigree (London, 1910). followed-conceived as a single, coherent story, or is it based on a number of separate stories, popular ballads akin to the Eddas, which the original author of the Nibelungenlied merely collected and strung together? The answer to these questions has been sought by a succession of scholars in a critical comparison of the medieval MSS. of the poem still surviving. Of these 33 are now known, of which 10 are complete, the rest being more or less fragmentary. The most important are those first discovered, viz. the MSS. lettered C (Hohenems, 1755), B (Schloss Werdenberg, 1769), A (Hohenems, 1779); and round these the others more or less group themselves. They exhibit many differences: put briefly, C is the most perfectly finished in language and rhythm; A is rough, in places barbarous; B stands half-way between the two. Which is nearest to the original? Karl Lachmann (Zu den Nibelungen und zur Klage, Anmerkungen, 1836) decided in favour of A. He applied to the Nibelungenlied the method which Friedrich August Wolf had used to resolve the Iliad and Odyssey into their elements. The poem, according to Lachmann, was based on some twenty popular ballads, originally handed down orally, but written down about 1190 or 1200. This original is lost, and A-as its roughness of form shows-is nearest to it; all other MSS., including B and C, are expansions of A. The great authority of Lachmann made this opinion the prevalent one, and it still has its champions. It was first seriously assailed by Adolf Holtzmann (Untersuchungen über das Nib., Stuttgart, 1854), who argued that the original could not have been strophic in form the fourth lines of the strophes are certainly often of the nature of "padding"-that it was written by Konrad (Kuonrât of the Klage), writer to Bishop Pilgrim of Passau about 970-984, and that of existing MSS. C is nearest to this original, B the copy of a MS. closely akin to C, and A an abbreviated, corrupt copy of B. This view was adopted by Friedrich Zarncke, who made C the basis of his edition of the Nibelungenlied (Leipzig, 1856). A new hypothesis was developed by Karl Bartsch in his Untersuchungen über das Nibelungenlied (Leipzig, 1865). According to this the original was an assonance poem of the 12th century, which was changed between 1190 and 1200 by two separate poets into two versions, in which pure rhymes were substituted for the earlier assonances: the originals of the Nibelungenlied and Der Nibelunge Not respectively. Bartsch's subsequent edition of the Nibelunge Nôt (1st ed., Leipzig, 1870) was founded on B, as the nearest to the original. To this view Zarncke was so far converted that in the 1887 edition of his Nibelungenlied he admitted that C shows signs of recension and that the B group is purer in certain details. As a result of all this critical study Herr Abeling comes to the following conclusions. The poem was first written down by a wandering minstrel about 971 to 991, was remodelled about 1140 by Konrad,' who introduced interpolations in the spirit of chivalry and was perhaps responsible for the metre; during the wars and miseries of the next fifty years manners and taste became barbarized and the fine traditions of the old popular poetry were obscured, and it was under this influence that, about 1190, a jongleur (Spielmann) revised the poem, this recension being represented by group B. After 1190, during the Golden Age of the art poetry (Kunstdichtung) of the Minnesingers (q.v.), a professional poet (Rudolf von Ems?) again remodelled the poem, introducing further interpolations, and changing the title from Der Nibelunge Not into Das Nibelungenlict, this version being the basis of the group C. The MS. A, as proved by its partial excellence, is based directly on Konrad's work, with additions borrowed from B. Bartsch and others ascribe its authorship, with much plausibility, to an Austrian knight of the race of Kürenberg, the earliest of the courtly lyric poets, whose lyrics are written in the Nibelung strophe. Thus compare Kürenberg's lyric (Lachmann and Haupt, Des Minnesangs Frühling, 4th ed., F. Vogt, Leipzig, 1888) "Ich zôch mir einen valken mêre danne ein jâr " with the Nibelungen Nôt (Bartsch) Av. i. 13 troumte Kriemhilde. Wie sie züge einen valken, starc scoen' und wilde." Theodor Abeling (Das Nibelungenlied und seine Literatur (Leipzig, 1907) gives a full bibliography, embracing 1272 references from 1756 to 1905. There are English translations of the poem by A. G. FosterBarham (1887), Margaret Armour (prose, 1897) and Alice Horton (1898). (W. A. P.) NICAEA, or NICE [mod. Isnik, i.c. eis Nikalav] an ancient town of Asia Minor, in Bithynia, on the Lake Ascania. Antigonus built the city (316 B.C. ?) on an old deserted site, and soon afterwards Lysimachus changed its name from Antigonia to Nicaea, calling it after his wife. Under the Roman empire Nicaea and Nicomedia disputed the title of metropolis of Bithynia. Strabo describes the ancient Nicaea as built regularly, in the form of a square, with a gate in the middle of each side. From a monument in the centre of the city all the four gates were visible at the extremities of great cross-streets. After Constantinople became the capital of the empire Nicaea grew in importance, and after the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders became the temporary scat of the Byzantine emperor; the double line of walls with the Roman gates is still well preserved. The possession of the city was long disputed between the Greeks and the Turks. It remained an important city for some time after its final incorporation in the Ottoman empire; but became subsequently an insignificant village. NICAEA, COUNCIL OF. The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) is an event of the highest importance in the history of Christianity. Its convocation and its course illustrate the radical revolution which the position of this religion, within the confines of the Roman empire, had undergone in consequence of the Edict of Milan. Further, it was the first oecumenical council, and this fact invested it with a peculiar halo in the eyes of subsequent ages; while among its resolutions may be found a series of decisions which acquired a lasting significance for the Christian Church. This applies more especially to the reception of the doctrine of the Trinity; for though, immediately after the close of the synod, it was exposed to a powerful opposition, it gained the day, and, in the form which it received at Nicaea and at the council of Constantinople (381), still enjoys official validity in the principal churches of Christendom. Finally, the council marks an epoch in the history of the conception of the Christian religion, in that it was the first attempt to fix the criteria of Christian orthodoxy by means of definitely formulated pronouncements on the content of Christian belief-the acceptance of these criteria being made a sine qua non of membership of the Church. Moreover, it admitted the principle that the state might employ the secular arm to bring the Christian subjects of the Roman world-empire under the newly codified faith. Thus the Nicene Council is an important stage in the development of the state-church, though the completion of that edifice was delayed till the reign of Theodosius the Great. The relation of the emperor Constantine to the assembly was in itself a step in the direction of that independent treatment of ecclesiastical affairs, which, in the following centuries, created the peculiar type of the Byzantine state-church. From his accession Constantine had shown himself the friend of the Christians; and, when his victory over Licinius (A.D. 323) gave him undisputed possession of the crown, he adhered to this religious policy, distinguishing and fortifying the Christian cause by gratuities and grants of privilege. This propitiatory attitude originated in the fact that he recognized Christianitywhich had successfully braved so many persecutions-as the most vital and vigorous of religions, and as the power of the future. Consequently he directed his energies toward the establishment of a positive relationship between it and the Roman state. But the Church could only maintain its great value for the politician by remaining the same compact organism which it had proved itself to be under the stormy reign of Diocletian. Scarcely, however, did it find itself in the enjoyment of external peace, when violent feuds broke out in its midst, whose extent, and the virulence with which they were waged, threatened to dismember the whole religious body. Donatism in the West was followed by the Arian struggle in the East. The former movement had been successfully arrested, though it survived in North Africa till the 5th century. The conflict kindled by the |
