Dietrich von Bern- Germanic HeroHero"Lord of the Amelungs"

The Exile

The historical Theodoric the Great conquered Italy. The legendary Dietrich von Bern was driven from it. In the Dietrichs Flucht, his uncle Ermenrich seizes his kingdom through treachery, and Dietrich flees to the court of Etzel, the Hunnish king, with a handful of loyal followers. He would remain there for thirty years.

The exile cost everything. Dietrich fought battle after battle to reclaim his lands, and each campaign failed. At the Battle of Ravenna, told in the Rabenschlacht, he lost Etzel's young sons, who had been entrusted to his care, and his own nephew Diether. He had led other men's children to death while trying to recover what he himself had lost.

Father and Son

The oldest German heroic poem, the Hildebrandslied (c. 830), tells what thirty years of loyalty cost Hildebrand, Dietrich's weapons-master and lifelong companion. Returning from exile, Hildebrand encounters a young warrior at the border. It is Hadubrand, his own son, grown to manhood in his father's absence.

Hildebrand tries to identify himself. He offers golden arm-rings. Hadubrand refuses, accusing the old man of being a Hunnish trickster. The poem's single surviving manuscript, preserved at Fulda, breaks off at the moment of combat. The fuller tradition in Old Norse and later German ballads confirms what the Old High German poet could barely bring himself to write: Hildebrand kills his son.

The Giant Ecke

In the Eckenlied, the giant Ecke hears of Dietrich's reputation and rides out to find him. Not to destroy him, but to test himself. The duel is prolonged and brutal. Dietrich wins, but barely, and he honors his fallen opponent by taking up Ecke's sword and armor.

In the Sigenot, Dietrich rides out alone against another giant, ignoring Hildebrand's counsel. The giant captures him and locks him in a cave. Hildebrand, with the help of a dwarf, tracks him down and frees him.

The Feast at Etzel's Court

In the Nibelungenlied, Dietrich is at Etzel's court when the Burgundians arrive for the feast that will destroy them all. He sees what is coming. He warns the Burgundian lords of Kriemhild's vengeance. They do not listen.

When the feast hall erupts in slaughter, Dietrich tries to stay out of it. His own retainers are drawn in and killed. He fights Hagen, and flames burst from his mouth: the only time in the poem that his fire-breathing power appears. One of his ancestors, tradition holds, was conceived when a devil took the shape of the grandmother's husband. The fire comes from that lineage, and it comes only at the extremity of rage.

Dietrich captures Gunther and Hagen and delivers them to Kriemhild, begging her to spare their lives. She kills them both. Dietrich weeps.

The Coal-Black Horse

After thirty years, Dietrich returns to Bern and reclaims his kingdom. The homecoming is hollow. Nearly everyone who fought for his return is dead. Hildebrand survives. Almost no one else does.

The strangest tradition says that Dietrich did not die. A coal-black horse appeared and carried him away alive. Some say it was sent from Hell, a final claim on the hero whose fire and fury had always come from an unholy source. Other traditions place him sleeping in a mountain cave, waiting like other legendary kings for the day he is needed again.