Nibelung

The term Nibelung (German) or Niflungr (Old Norse) is a personal or clan name with several competing and contradictory uses in Germanic heroic legend. It has an unclear etymology, but is often connected to the root Nebel, meaning mist. The term in its various meanings gives its name to the Middle High German heroic epic the Nibelungenlied.

The most widespread use of Nibelung is used to denote the Burgundian royal house, also known as the Gibichungs (German) or Gjúkingar (Old Norse). A group of royal brothers led by king Gunther or Gunnar, the Gibichungs are responsible for the death of the hero Siegfried or Sigurd and are later destroyed at the court of Attila the Hun (called Etzel in German and Atli in Old Norse). This is the only use of the term attested in the Old Norse legends.

In medieval German, several other uses of the term Nibelung are documented besides the reference to the Gibichungs: it refers to the king and inhabitants of a mythical land inhabited by dwarfs and giants in the first half of the Nibelungenlied, as well as to the father and one of two brothers fighting over a divided inheritance. This land and its inhabitants give their name to the "hoard of the Nibelungs" (Middle High German der Nibelunge hort). In the late medieval Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, the name, in the form Nybling or Nibling, is given to a dwarf who again gives his name to the treasure.

In Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848–1874), Nibelung denotes a dwarf, or perhaps a specific race of dwarfs.

The earliest probable surviving mention of the name is in the Latin poem Waltharius, believed to have been composed around the year 920. In lines 555–6 of that poem Walter, seeing Guntharius (Gunther) and his men approaching says (in the Chronicon Novaliciense text, usually taken to be the oldest):

Nōn assunt Avarēs hīc, sed Francī Nivilōnēs,
cultōrēs regiōnis.

The translation is: "These are not Avars, but Frankish Nivilons, inhabitants of the region." The other texts have nebulones 'worthless fellows' instead of nivilones, a reasonable replacement for an obscure proper name. In medieval Latin names, b and v often interchange, so Nivilones is a reasonable Latinization of Germanic Nibilungos. This is the only text to connect the Nibelungs with Franks. Since Burgundy was conquered by the Franks in 534, Burgundians could loosely be considered Franks of a kind and confused with them. The name Nibelunc became a Frankish personal name in the 8th and 9th centuries, at least among the descendants of Childebrand I (who died in 752). Yet, in this poem, the center of Gunther's supposedly Frankish kingdom is the city of Worms on the Rhine.

In the eddic poem (see Poetic Edda) Atlakviða, the word Niflungar is applied three times to the treasure (arfr) or hoard (hodd) of Gunnar (the Norse counterpart of German Gunther). It is also applied once to Gunnar's warriors and once to Gunnar himself. It elsewhere appears unambiguously as the name of the lineage to which the brothers Gunnar and Högni (Hǫgni) belong and seems mostly interchangeable with Gjúkingar or Gjúkungar, meaning descendants of Gjúki, Gjúki being Gunnar's father.