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Rhine Sagas, #3
Siegfriend's Contest on the Drachenfels (Dragon Rock)
as they have been told in Germany throughout history. The third
in a series.
Dragons belong to a world of primitive force and wild destruction.
They had enormous strength and looked almost like huge prehistoric
crocodiles. Their rapacity was frightening. They killed their
prey with steely claws and with terrible jaws. They lamed many
a victim, including some of their own kind, with powerful blows
of their long tails. Their backs were protected by thick, horny
armour-plating, topped with a jagged spine. When angry they blew
smoke and fire from blood-red nostrils. They laid in wait for
their prey in caves and rock fissures.
When the first human beings settled
in the Rhine Valley, the dragons had already become scarce. In
their gruesome, bloodthirsty fashon they had slaughtered each
other until they were all but extinct. Just one solitary dragon
still lived in the 'Siebenbirge' mountains. One can still inspect
his cave on the slopes of the Drachenfels. But when he was still
alive, no one would have dared to do so. Because everyone was
defenceless and at this mercy, they worshipped him as a god and
sought to appease him with sacrificial offerings. That only succeded
with human offerings! Thus, he demanded as a tribute each year
a virgin, bound and gagged. The heathens of the right bank of
the Rhine went on a sortie each year to the Christian left bank
to abduct their virgins.
One day a young hero on a snow-white charger came riding along
the right bank. There was a thunderstorm in the air. The blond
youth's name was Siegfried and he was not from that area.
His cradle had stood in the lower reaches, where the land is
flat and even.A Franconian prince named Siegmund had developed
an old Roman encampment, near Xanten, on a small knoll, into
his home. On the "Fürstenberg" (Prince Mountain)
as it is still called today, his wife Sieglinde bore him
a son, whom they named Siegfried, because they were so accustomed
to victories.As soon as he was no longer a child he had learned
how to handle weapons from his father, an experienced warrior.
Then one day young Siegfried set out to learn more of the
world than the daily training on foot and on horseback. The flow
of the Rhine bewitched him and he determined to mover further
and further upstream. The pelting, stormy weather took him unawares
near the smoky forge of the King of the Niebelungs. Siegfried
rapped at the door, and it was opened for him.
"King of the Dwarfs , talented Prince of the Forge,
and Master of the Depths, rich in ore", Siegfried addressed
him respectfully, "please take me on!" The grey-haired
smithy looked a t hime calmly with misty grey eyes. "I need
a mate", he replied hesitantly. "If you will commit
yoursekf to a year with me, then I shall take you under my roof.
You will not lack." So began Siegfried's apprenticeship
with the smithy.
He made good progress in the craft of the dwarfs but he discovered
toward the end of his training that the Nibelung King
had been secretly forging articles out of gold and jewels with
his own hands in the dead of night. The dwarf's mistrust pained
him deeply and in a blazing rage, he grabbed the heaviest of
the sledge-hammers and hammered teh anvil ten fathoms deep into
the ground. This savage strength alarmed the dwarf. He began
to flatter Siegfried cunningly and feigning weakness, sent him
to the charcoal-burner in Heisterbach to fetch the charcoal needed
for the furnace.
As Siegfried well knew, the charcoal-burner was a sooty giant
of enormous strength. Once a month he trudged to the smithy with
a huge load of charcoal on his back. But the dwarf had also impressed
this on him: "If I send someone to you to fetch charcoal,
then finish him off on the spot!" Siegfried could not have
known this and only when his throat was almost in the powerful
clutches of the giant, did he realize that the King of the Nibelungs
had wanted to send him to his death. He managed to dodge the
giant's clutches: whereupon the monster wielded a three hundred
year old oak tree, with which to crush Siegfried. Siegfried ducked
low and with the sword, which he had tempered an honed with his
own hands, he hacked off the giant's left foot. The colossus
keeled over. He roared with pain and fury. Still lying on the
floor, he punched wildly around him with his fists. ut nnow his
neck was accessible to the young hero and with another vlow,
Siegfried severed his head from his body.
The victor then set off the the return journey to the treacherous
King of the Dwarfs. Being under the illusion the Siegfried was
dead, the King had taken out all his valuables and laid them
in a wide magic circle around him. At last he could feast his
eyes on his beloved treasures. When, to his horror, his presumably
dead apprentice stood before him, he could read his fate in teh
way the flashing eyes were staring at him. Even before he had
time to duck his head, Siegfried's sword had finished him off
as well. Then the Siegmund's son collected up all the Nibelung's
treasure in leather bags, which for the time being, he hid under
the floor of the forge.
In his search for a better hiding place, he came upon the
sumit of the Siebengebirge mountains, where he found great agitation
and excitement. There were men and women, who were continually
invoking curses on the mountain where the dragon dwelled. His
yearly tribute of a virgin was due on that day. The heather warriors
were just returning from the Christian left bank to their own
right bank, and had a bound and trembling girl with them.
"Do these people owe you a tribute?" Siegfried asked
as they came ashore. "And what have you in mind for the
abducted maiden?"- "The dragon up there demands a sacrifice.
We must bring it to him today" - "And has she been
selected for this purpose""- "Yes my lord; otherwise
the brute will indemnify himself from our own children."
At the sight of the wailing creature, a rage come over Siegfried.
however, he could not risk the attempt to free the girl from
so many opponents. Only the death of the monster could save the
unfortunate maiden.
The moment the victim was forced up the mountain on her way
to the caver of the fierce dragon, now draped in white robes,
and splendidly decorated with flowers, our hero Siegfried also
began to climb the Drachenfels. He followed a steeper, shorter
path, and was determined to reach teh dragon before his victim.
he succeeded with a good deal to spare. The dragon's greedy expectations
were aroused on hearing a crackling in the undergrowth. A human
scent was reaching his nostrils earlier than usual. He cheerfully
raised himself from his resting place, and, licking his lips,
he crewled to the entrance of his cave.
However, once outside, the pleasure of anticipation of an
easy victim quickly subsided. Where his greedily flashing eyes
had expected to light upon a girl, dying of fright, there stood
only a defiant young hero. This was an unusual sight for the
dragon, accustomed to humble veneration for so many years. He
crouched as if ready to spring, but that was, in fact, not his
intention. His horny spine offered sufficient protectioon against
any blow from a weapon, no matter how sharp. In fact, the dragon
had crouched down to get a closer view. Siegfried continued to
feed the flames and saw that the horny skin was disolving. Out
of curiosity, the young hero put one of his fingers into the
viscous, fluid substance, and, on closer examination, found the
finger was covered with a hard horny skin. Now he know how he
could protect himself from future danger.
A raging fury welled up inside
him. He began to hiss. First only smoke and then two jets of
fire were blown from his nostrils. He tried to direct the flames
at Siegfried, who nimbly evaded them and strudk a powerful blow
with his sword at the craned neck of the dangerous beast. The
dragon's horny armour-plating was tougher than our hero could
ever have imagined. He sprang back and at a safe distance, hastily
gathered as much dry brushwood as possible. He had discovered
the dragon's weak spot. The latter came right out of his cave
in an attempt to floor his assailant with powerful blows of his
tail. And he again breathed two jets of fire at Siegfried , who
had been waiting for just that. He tossed the bundle of brushwood
into the dragon's gaping jaws, which were equipped with enormous
teeth. The dry wood immediately burst into flame. Roaring with
pain and anger, the monster shook the burning wood out of his
teeth, but thereby exposed his soft neck for an instant. Siegfried
drove his sharp sword up to the hilt into the dragon's throat.
A stream of blood spurted out of the fatal wound. The strength
even failed him to leap at the hero. The defeated dragon scraped
the ground for a while with his twitching claws, and beat it
more and more weakly with his once terrifying tail. Then the
monster perished.
He hastily threw off his clothes, cast aside his weapons,
and rolled around in the liquid horny skin, which then made our
hero from Xanten invulnerable. With one slight exception: between
his shoulders. By the time he had become aware of this, the liquid
horny skin had already seeped into the ground. The small spot
on his back remained unprotected. How the fierce Hagen learned
of this and fatally wounded him with a spear between the shoulder
blades, is related in another story.
Unsuspecting, the heathens had dragged the abducted maiden
in the meantime, and bound her to an oak tree below the dragon's
lair. Siegfried blocked their path as they were about to make
off. "Shame on you, you cowards!" he thundered. "Why
did you not fight the dragon? Why did you let him make you his
slaves?" "The dragon is invulnerable, a god, only sacrifices
can appease him", answered a white-bearded okd man with
unworthy dignity. Then Siegfried showed them the head, which
he had severed from the dragon's body. They shrank from him in
awe as if from a superior being.
Left alone, he freed the maiden from her bonds and brought
her home safe and sound. But as much as she would have longed
to follow him, he did not marry her. He returned once again to
the forge of the King of the Dwarfs. Night after night he took
all the treasures of the Nibelung's hoard from their hiding-place,
transported them carefully to the dead dragon's cave, and buried
the whole of the treasure of gold there, before setting off on
new adventures on the banks of the Rhine.
Rhine Sagas 1: Lohengrin, the Swan Knight
of Kleve
Rhine Sagas 2: Siegfried and Kreimhilde
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