The Nibelungen Tradition brings together in one volume all of the literary and extra-literary references pertinent to the Nibelungen tradition. This work is intended as a reference guide to pre-literary and literary sources of the Nibelungen tales; from the reception of the theme in art, music, sculpture, film and modern literature to its application in 20th century military, politics and propaganda. This reference provides an analysis of all the primary literary sources, thumbnail sketches of characters and places, significant motifs and concepts, the historical background to the tradition...

Kudrun is an heroic epic written around 1230 second in importance only to the Nibelungenlied; it is characterized by its greater focus on female characters and a tone gentler than that of the brutal Nibelungenlied. For his translation Professor McConnell has gone back to the sole (a later and problematic) existing manuscript, found in the Ambraser Handschrift in the holdings of the Austrian National Library at Vienna.

Few works of the middle ages can boast the staying power' of the 'heroic' Nibelungenlied and few have generated more controversy both among scholars and the educated public. The Nibelung theme has been ubiquitous over the past 150 years in a wide spectrum of literary and as well as non-literary endeavors. It was used by Friedrich Hebbel as the basis for one of his best psychological dramas, by Wagner, along with the Old Norse analogues, for Die Ring des Nibelungen, and by the film maker Fritz Lang for his 1920s Expressionist masterpiece, Die Nibelungen. Its heroes provided suitable models for...