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WOLFDIETRICH

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 773 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WOLFDIETRICH , See also:

German See also:hero of See also:romance. The See also:tale of See also:Wolf See also:dietrich is connected with the Merovingian princes, See also:Theodoric and Theodebert, son and See also:grandson of See also:Clovis; but in the See also:Middle High German poems of See also:Ortnit and Wolfdietrich in the See also:Heldenbuch (q.v.) Wolf dietrich is the son of Hugdietrich, See also:emperor of See also:Constantinople. Repudiated and exposed by his See also:father, the See also:child was spared by the wolves of the See also:forest, and was educated by the faithful Berchtung of See also:Meran. The See also:account of his parents and their wooing, however, differs in various texts. After the emperor's See also:death Wolfdietrich was driven from his See also:inheritance by his See also:brothers at the instigation of the traitor Sabene. Berchtung and his sixteen sons stood by Wolfdietrich. Six of these were slain and the other ten imprisoned. It was only after See also:long See also:exile in See also:Lombardy at the See also:court of See also:King Ortnit that the hero returned to deliver the captives and regain his See also:kingdom. Wolfdietrich's exile and return suggested a parallel with the See also:history of Dietrich of See also:Bern, with whom he was often actually identified; and the Mentors of the two heroes, See also:Hildebrand and Berchtung, are See also:cast in the same See also:mould. Presently features of the Wolfdietrich See also:legend were transferred to the Dietrich See also:cycle, and in the Anhang to the Heldenbuch it is stated in despite of all See also:historical considerations that Wolfdietrich was the grandfather of the Veronese hero. Among the exploits of Wolfdietrich was the slaughter of the See also:dragon which had slain Ortnit (q.v.). He thus took the See also:place of Hardheri, one of the mythical Hartung brothers, the See also:original hero of this feat.

The myth attached itself to the See also:

family of Clovis, around which epic tradition rapidly gathered. Hugdietrich is generally considered to be the epic counterpart of Theodoric (Dietrich), eldest son of Clovis. The prefix was the See also:barbarian See also:equivalent of See also:Frank,l and was employed to distinguish him from Theodoric the Goth. After his father's death he divided the kingdom with his brothers. Wolfdietrich represents his son Theodebert (d. 548), whose See also:succession was disputed by his uncles, but was secured by the See also:loyalty of the Frankish nobles. But father and son are merged by a See also:process of epic See also:fusion in Wolfdietrich. The See also:rape of Sydrat, daughter of the See also:heathen Walgunt of Salnecke, by Hugdietrich disguised as a woman, is typical of the tales of the wooing of heathen princesses made fashionable by the See also:Crusades, and was probably extraneous to the original legend. It may, however, also be put on a semi-historical basis by adopting the See also:suggestion of C. Voretzsch (Epische Studien I. See also:Die Comp. See also:des Huon von See also:Bordeaux, See also:Halle 19oo), that Wolfdietrich is far more closely connected with Theodoric than Theodebert, and that Hugdietrich, therefore, stands for Clovis, the hero, in the Merovingian historians, of a well-known Brautfahrtsaga. Ortnit and Wolfdictrich have been edited by Dr J.

L. Edlen von Lindhausen (Tilbingen, 1906). G. See also:

Sarrazin, in Zeitschr. See also:fur deutsche Phil. (1896), compared the legend of Wolfdietrich with the history of Gundovald, as given by See also:Gregory of See also:Tours in books vi. and vii. of his Hist. Francorum.

End of Article: WOLFDIETRICH

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