Alberich- Germanic SpiritSpirit

The Nibelungen Hoard

In the Nibelungenlied (c. 1200), Alberich guards the Nibelungen treasure, a hoard so vast that twelve wagons running for three days could not carry it all. The treasure originally belonged to the Nibelung princes Schilbung and Nibelung, who asked the hero Siegfried to divide it between them. When they quarreled with his division and attacked him, Siegfried slew them both and defeated their champion Alberich, binding the dwarf to service as the hoard's guardian.

The Tarnkappe

Among Alberich's possessions is the Tarnkappe, a magical cloak that grants invisibility and the strength of twelve men. When Siegfried defeats Alberich, he claims the Tarnkappe along with the treasure. This artifact proves crucial to the epic's central deception: Siegfried uses it to impersonate King Gunther in Brünhild's bedchamber, subduing the warrior-queen in a wrestling match and taking her ring and girdle as trophies. When these tokens later surface and Kriemhild reveals the fraud to Brünhild, the alliance between the courts shatters. Hagen murders Siegfried at a hunting party to avenge Brünhild's humiliation. The chain of treachery that began with a dwarf's stolen cloak ends in the destruction of the entire Burgundian court.

Alberich in the Ortnit

Alberich appears in a different role in the Middle High German epic Ortnit (13th century), where he is the supernatural father of the hero Ortnit, conceived through a union with a mortal queen. Here he acts as a protective figure, using his invisibility and magical powers to aid his son's quest. The mischievous father helping his boy stands a long way from the bound guardian of the Nibelung hoard.