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crazy-walls · 3 months

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i just saw in your tags that you have a fave medieval blorbo? not to be nosy but like if you ever feel like talking about him i'd definitely love to read it! (yes i could look him up myself, but where's the fun in that?)

i haven't talked about my boy ortnit in far too long so i absolutely love that you asked and am more than happy to use this opportunity, thank you!!

setting the scene: it's the mystical time that all medieval middle and northern european heroes live in (sometimes at the same time, sometimes a generation or maybe five apart, but like, quite a while ago even for the 1200s onward). here in lampart - italy for us modern peasants - near lake garda there's the coolest, toughest, strongest, richest ...hero... to be. his name is ortnit. [or otnit, medieval authors don't really care about spelling.]

you see, he's the young king of lampart but he's not fully there yet to having the perfect kingdom, because obviously he needs to have a queen to rule said kingdom with. after much consideration, his uncle is like "well, there's this utterly beautiful, virtous (for a savage heathen) princess* somewhere in the middle east but you must not - and i repeat - not go after her because her heathen father machorel will kill you if you take away his daughter. as in, literally chop off your head. because he wants to marry her himself when his wife is dead." [i'd say this is a setup on the uncle's part but medieval characters Just Are Like That.]

obviously, because he's the coolest and strongest king and a complete dumbass, ortnit has to go and get said daughter to marry him. his mother, of course, is anything but thrilled. and you see, ortnit is quite the mama's boy, but no matter how much she pleads with him not to go he is dead set on it, and if he's already on the way anyway he might as well turn that into some kind of crusade. so his mother gives him A Ring and sends him off on a little adventure (=aventiure) first, saying that The Ring will guide him - and it does. The Ring takes him to the dwarf alberich who promises to give him the best armor, the very best sword and also be his Helper. this is kind of a Whole Job in medieval epic poems. oh, also, the dwarf is actually ortnit's biological dad who raped his mother - but that's cool; and gracious as he is, ortnit forgives his mother for her "infidelity" to who he always thought was his actual father. #menwritingwomen or something.

ortnit gets his cool armor and even cooler sword and sails off with his knights towards what is later labeled syria. on the journey his knights think he's insane because dwarf-daddy alberich is invisible to anyone but the wearer of The Ring and ortnit is talking to thin air him. anyway, they reach syria and dwarf-daddy plays invisible matchmaker by insulting and threatening machorel. [this could actually be a setup. jury's still out on that ~800 years later.]

long(ish) aventiure short: there's a siege on the castle, then a big battle, meanwhile invisible dwarf-daddy convinces the princess to come with him and marry ortnit to save her father. blackmailing with a beloved family member's death, such a strong basis for a healthy marriage. she also gets christianed on the run because duh. can't marry some random fucking heathen.

right after that dwarf-daddy has to save the day again and fight machorel because ortnit basically faints on his horse. they make it back to the ship unharmed and sail back to italy. machorel is Not Happy. and he has A Plan: as a ""conciliation gift"" he sends a hunter with two huge eggs to lampart; they'll into a magical "toad" and "elephant".

as we all know, elephants do not hatch from eggs. unfortunately for ortnit, our italian king does not know that. he WILL find out, though. eventually. when the eggs have hatched and two huge dragons are terrorising lampart and eating everything and everyone in their way. and since he's the coolest, toughest, strongest, richest king and responsible for this disaster he is the one who has to slay those dragons. so he dons his armor and heads straight for - you guessed it - dwarf-daddy. alberich, however, is Not Happy either, refuses to help ortnit once more [again, this might be a setup]. he advises him to Not, Under Any And All Circumstances, Fall Asleep. ortnit pouts, throws The Ring at alberich's feet and rides off to find the dragon(s).

the dragon** is rather good at hide-and-seek, though, so ortnit rides and rides and rides. and gets tired. and decides to just have a small rest. and promptly falls asleep.

apparently, dragons also have a sixth sense for sleeping kings. the dragon creeps close, sees that delicious meal-in-a-can and - without even waking ortnit up - carries him to his offspring who SLURP HIM RIGHT OUT OF HIS ARMOR. [-> "sougen in durch daz werc" - "saugen ihn aus der rüstung" - the armor actually stays fully intact which is important since ortnit's tale is later followed by wolfdietrich who slays the dragons, gets the armor and marries ortnit's widow]

the end.

no, really. that's how ortnit dies. slurped out of his armor by dragons the SECOND his mother and biological father can't/refuse to help him. so there he is, this young, strong, pretty, heroic dumbass fratboy of a king who can't get shit done on his own. he has like half a braincell. he is literally Doomed By The Narrative. and i'm utterly obsessed with his ineptitude and death.

*please note that the syrian princess doesn't even have a name in the first versions of this epic poem so i'm not using one, sorry girl. she's later called sidrat tho.

**suddenly it's only one dragon who has two baby dragons, there are a few theories about how the offspring being conceived by those first two dragons is a parallel to the incestuous obsession machorel has with his daughter

#medieval #13th century #again thank you!! put in a read more because this got WAY out of hand i just haven't had a good chance to talk about him for like 4 years #you can see several typical medieval motifs that absolutely inspired tolkien who did quite a lot of research on medieval sagas #i have some more medieval blorbos but ortnit is my number 1 #and like. ortnit was still a pretty well-circulated &-known tale in the 1800 and the first half of the 20. century. only that ALL retelling #of his story paint him as this heroic young capable king who just gets unlucky by *mumbling* ~*somehow* getting eating by a dragon whoopsie #they also leave out all the super sexist & weird stuff and frame him as a Good ChristianTM #ortnit my beloved #he's such an idiot and i'm obsessed. like. he's a terrible character. but he's also SO FUN.#anyway this was medieval literature with k #or should i call it aventiure with k perhaps #medieval lit #personal #i guess #did i just spend the past 45ish minutes on this? perhaps.#ortnit

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mask131 · 1 year

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Cold winter: Andvari... or Alberich?

ANDVARI… OR ALBERICH?

Category: The Saga of the Volsungs / German legends

I) Andvari

In Norse mythology (well… in the Icelandic epic known as “Völsunga saga”), there is a dwarf named Andvari. It is said that Andvari lived under a waterfall and owned a magical item, a ring called Andvaranaut (Andvari’s Gift). This ring helped its wearer find sources of gold, and thanks to it Andvari amassed an immense treasure he guarded jealously. Andvari had the habit of turning into a pike every day – and one day, as he was doing his business, Andvari was caught in a net – not just any net, a strong divine net that once belonged to Ran, the sea-goddess herself. And who captured Andvari? None other than Loki, the infamous god! For you see, Loki was in a bit of trouble and needed to obtain Andvari’s gold…

Earlier, Loki alongside other Aesir gods (Odin and Hoenir) went to visit Hreidmarr, a sorcer-king of the dwarfs living in a house of glittering gold and flashing gems. On the way Loki killed an otter due to its incredibly beautiful pelt, and upon arriving at Hreidmarr’s house the gods showed him the pelt… only for the dwarf to get angry at the gods and order his two sons to seize them and bind them in unbreakable chains. For you see… this otter was none other than Hreidmarr’s gluttonous third son, Otr, who had the habit of becoming an otter to eat fish in the river. The dwarf-king wanted the life of his son to be paid with another life, but the gods proved that the murder was accidental, and so the greedy dwarf agreed to a payment in exchange of the god’s freedom. The otter’s skin had to be filled with yellow gold, and covered on the outside with red gold. Easy enough you think? Except that this was a magical skin for a magical otter that itself was a transformed gluttonous dwarf – it is a very big and very stretchy skin. Only a BIG hoard of gold could do the trick… but nonetheless Loki is tasked with finding this ransom while Odin and Hoenir stay captives, and upon remembering that Andvari keeps a treasure big enough to fulfill his task, he promptly set up his plan to capture the dwarf – so that he could obtain his immense treasure in exchange for the dwarf’s freedom.

Except that Loki being Loki, he couldn’t help but steal Andvari’s magical ring – which apparently wasn’t part of their deal – and Andvari, in rage, cast a curse upon Andvaranaut: all the owners of this magical ring would only know misfortune, and ultimately the ring would be their destruction. Loki promptly filled the otter skin, covered it in red gold and returned to Hreidmarr – but the greedy dwarf noted that one whisker was still protruding, uncovered. There was only one part of Loki’s theft that remained: Andvaranaut. Once the ring was added to the weregild (a fine to compensate the damages done to the family of the person you took the life of) and the gods were set free, Loki warned Hreidmarr of the curse that was set upon the ring, advising him to get rid of it as soon as he could – but the dwarf as, as I said, greedy, and kept the ring.

Let’s just say… it did not end up well for him. Or for anyone else among the numerous owners of the ring. From Hreidmarr it went to Fafnir, from Fafnir it went to Sigurd, from Sigurd it went to Brynhildr… and they all knew some unpleasant fates. At the end of the Völsunga saga, long after the death of all the characters mentioned above, Andvari found back his original hoard of gold in a cave, hidden there by some of the survivors of the curse – but his ring was not in it, and stayed forever lost.

Thus was the tale of Andvari.

II) Alberich

In German legends and poetry, there is a dwarf named Alberich – which is considered the equivalent of the French Auberon and English Oberon. He is a character in two German epics.

One is “Ortnit”, the story of King Ortnit and his quest to make the daughter of a heathen king his bride. Upon setting off on his journey Ortnit is given a magical ring by his mother – this ring notably allows him to see, in the wilderness, a child-like figure that no one else can see. After arguing and fighting together (for this “child” is much stronger than any children should be), the figure reveals itself to be a dwarf named Alberich – and Ortnit’s biological father, who helped his parents when they found out they were unable to conceive a child! Alberich gives Ortnit a magical golden armor and vows to become his faithful companion. Arriving at the heathen king’s capital, in Tyre, Alberich gives Ortnir a magical stone which allows him to speak and understand any kind of language. Ortnit wants to attack the city directly, but Alberich says it would not be an honorable thing to do and rather offers the heathen-king a deal: give up his bride, or fight Ortnit in battle. The king refuses his daughter or the duel, and so Alberich stoles a hundred small boats from the capital’s harbor that Ortnit’s army can use to besiege the city. Upon arriving at the king’s castle, Alberich sneaks inside it and steals all of the bows and arrows to throw them into the moat – which the heathens believe to be “the work of the devil”. He later appears to the heathen-king’s daughter and, pretending to be a messenger of the Christian god, tries to convince her to marry Ortnit – at first she refuses, but when Alberich proves that he is “stronger than her gods” by shattering the altar on which she prayed for her father’s life, she agrees to marry Ortnit, if not to just save her father. Alberich sneaks with the princess to Ortnit and they set off to have a beautiful baptism-marriage.

However her father isn’t ready to give up his daughter so easily, and after seeing his army defeated, decides to rather “curse” Ortnit’s kingdom by sending him as a false-gift a dragon’s egg. As the dragon hatches and grows, it becomes a plague upon the land and Ortnit sets on a second journey to destroy it. This time Alberich refuses to accompany or help him, safe for one important advice: “Be careful not to fall asleep”. An advice that Ortnit will not follow, and during his sleep the dragon will devour him…

Now, before “Ortnit”, Alberich appeared in another Germanic epic quite older – still medieval, but preceding “Ortnit” by at least thirty years, if not much more. And this epic was the “Nibelungenlied” (The Song of the Nibelungs). His role is a bit more secondary than in the story above.

When the great hero Siegfried first met Alberich, they were enemies and entered into a fight – a fight Alberich would have won, for he had the strength of twelve men and the ability to turn invisible… had not Siegfried snatched away from the dwarf his Tarnkappe, which was both his cloak of invisibility and the source of his great strength. Defeated, the dwarf accepts Siegfried as his master (and when they later meet again, they have another battle – but it is just a mock fight for Siegfried to prove to Alberich who he is, as the Tarnkappe multiplies the strength of its wearer and him pulling Alberich is enough for the dwarf to recognize him as his true master). For the rest of the story, Alberich just acts as the appointed guardian of Siegfried’s personal treasure (amassed through battling and slaying various entities, from human warriors to dragons): the guardian of the Treasure of the Nibelung.

- - - - - -

Why did I present to you two seemingly unrelated dwarfs? Because they became one!

When talking about the Nibelung, one immediately thinks: Wagner. His “Der Ring des Nibelungen” didn’t just reinvent the Nibelung legend, it also changed completely the way people knew the story thanks to its massive European success – and in it, Wagner rewrote the character of Alberich by adding to him numerous elements taken from Andvari.

Alberich appears in the first opera of the cycle, “Das Rheingold”. Alberich is here one of the Nibelungen (reinvented by Wagner as the name of the dwarfs as a whole), and titular thief of the “gold of the Rhin”. Originally he appeared to three Rhinemaidens to try to woo them, only to met with mockery – but as he gets angry at the maidens’ rejection, he spots the gold they were tasked with keeping and hear about how it can be used to create a magic ring which will give power to rule over the world to whoever holds it, but only if said bearer renounces all love. The lustful and bitter dwarf promptly renounces love and steal their gold. Later, the German gods are in quite trouble for they promised two giants that built their castle (Fasolt and Fafner) the goddess Freia (German version of Freyja) as a reward. The gods asked Loge (Germanic Loki), the cunning demigod of fire, to find an alternative payment that would please the giants more – and Loge only found one being in the whole world that was able to renounce love. It was Alberich, who rather chose his powerful magical ring. Ultimately the two giants agree to have the gold of the Nibelungen as an alternative payment, but still keep Freia as an hostage until they receive said gold. (Note here that this Freia is not so much the equivalent of the Norse Freyja as of the Norse Idunn – she is reinvented as the goddess of beauty and youth, whose golden apples prevented the gods from aging, hence why they are so intended on having her return). So Wotan, king of the gods (Germanic Odin) travels with Loge to Alberich’ underground kingdom, Nibelheim – for with the power of the ring he enslaved the rest of the Nibelungen to his will, and forced his brother, Mime, a skillful smith, to create for him the Tarnhelm, a helmet of invisibility, which he uses to torment his subjects.

Wotan and Loge find Alberich who boasts about his plan of conquering the entire world with the power of the ring. Loge hears about how the Tarnhelm can allow its wearer to change form, and he asks to have the power demonstrated several times – the final time, asking him to turn into something small. Alberich turns into a toad and the gods promptly seize him and bind him, offering him his freedom in exchange for the gold he had his subjects amass. Alberich accepts to have the Nibelungen give up their hoard of gold. He asks his Tarnhelm in return, but Loge claims he will keep it as part of the ransom. As Alberich says that at least he kept his ring, Wotan demands it and ends up tearing it away from the dwarf’s hand to put it on his own. Alberich then curses the ring: until it returns to him, it will only inspire jealousy to those who own it, and cause murderous envy to those who do not. When the giants meet back with the gods, they demand that the gold be piled up, and they will only accept it if the pile is as tall as Freia. They do so – but have to relinquish both the Tarnhelm and the ring in the process.

After skipping the second opera (Die Walküre), Alberich returns for the third, “Siegfried”. Alberich found back his hoard, kept by the giant Fafner now turned into a dragon. As the dwarf spies on the dragon’s cavern, Wotan appears and the two discuss – Alberich explaining his plan to regain the ring and control the world, and Wotan swearing to not interfere but merely observe, even offering to wake up the dragon so that Alberich can bargain with him. Alberich provides to Fafner the knowledge that a hero is here to kill him (Siegfried), and he offers to take care of him in exchange for the ring – but Fafner dismisses him. As Siegfried arrives and kills the dragon, Alberich discovers that his brother Mime is with the hero and they quarrel for both of them want the ring of power and the Nibelungen treasure. Alberich hides when Siegfried returns, but then laughs spitefully at his brother’s death when the hero stabs him in self-defense.

Finally, Alberich’s final appearance is in the fourth and last opera of the cycle, “Twilight of the Gods”, but it is a quite minor one, one scene of him interacting with his… let’s say “replacement” for this story: Hagen, his half-human half-dwarf son who made one solemn oath to his father. To regain the ring of power by any way possible, and to rule the world with its power…

#cold winter #andvari #germanic legends #alberich #mythological dwarf #norse mythology #the ring of the nibelung

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