Back to the bardcore version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” here are the lyrics for Verse 2:

Charlemagne, Alfred
Anne Boleyn without a head
Few things here to read
But the Nibelungenlied
Castile with Aragon
Second pope in Avignon
Novgorod, Chinggis Khan
Beowulf, Decameron

Again, there are many intriguing allusions, but today I’m going to write about the Nibelungenlied, the first heroic epic put into writing in Germany.

This is the summary of the content from WIkipedia:

“In the first part, the prince Siegfried comes to Worms to acquire the hand of the Burgundian princess Kriemhild from her brother King Gunther. Gunther agrees to let Siegfried marry Kriemhild if Siegfried helps Gunther acquire the warrior-queen Brünhild as his wife. Siegfried does this and marries Kriemhild; however, Brünhild and Kriemhild become rivals, leading eventually to Siegfried’s murder by the Burgundian vassal Hagen with Gunther’s involvement. In the second part, the widow Kriemhild is married to Etzel, king of the Huns. She later invites her brother and his court to visit Etzel’s kingdom intending to kill Hagen. Her revenge results in the death of all the Burgundians who came to Etzel’s court as well as the destruction of Etzel’s kingdom and the death of Kriemhild herself.”

Now some more information about the Nibelungenlied:

• Middle High German heroic epic composed around 1200 (referenced in Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, c. 1204/5)
• Title is translated “Song of the Nibelungs,” that is, the Burgundian royal family
• Based on oral tradition called the Nibelungen saga
• Referred to as the “German Iliad“
• Poet is anonymous
• Probably written in Passau (Bavaria, south-east Germany)
• Written in rhyming four-line stanzas with many formulaic phrases
• Contains elements of chivalric romance
• Poet was familiar with Latin literature
• Eleven complete manuscripts and twenty-four fragments exist (must have been very popular in the Middle Ages)
• Has Scandinavian parallels in the Poetic Edda and in Völsunga saga
• Forgotten after 1500 and rediscovered in 1755
• Richard Wagner’s operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen is loosely based on the Nibelungenlied, but also on Old Norse sources
• After World War I it was used in anti-democratic and then Nazi propaganda