_The Nibelungenlied_ is the German Iliad and dates from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. No less than twenty-eight manuscripts of this great epic have come down through the ages. From the time of the Reformation down to the middle of the eighteenth century it seemed to be forgotten. Then a Swiss writer, Bodmer, issued parts of it in connection with a version of the _Klage_, a poem describing the mourning at King Etzel's Court over the famous heroes who fell to satisfy the vengeance of Kriemhild. The real discoverer, who restored the epic to the world, was Dr. J. H. Oberiet, who found a later version of the poem in the Castle of Hohenems in the Tyrol, June 29, 1755. C. H. Myller in 1782 published the first complete edition, using part of Bodmer's version. It was not until the opening of the nineteenth century and during the Romantic movement in Germany that _The Nibelungenlied_ was seriously studied. Partsch, a German critic, developed the theory that _The Nibelungenlied_ was written about 1140 and that rhyme was introduced by a later poet to take the place of the stronger assonances in the original version. The legend of Siegfried's death, resulting from the quarrel of the two queens, and all the woes that followed, was the common property of all the German and Scandinavian people. From the banks of the Rhine to the northernmost parts of Norway and Sweden and the Shetland Isles and Iceland this legend of chivalry and revenge was sung around the camp-fires. William Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_ is derived from a prose paraphrase of the Edda songs. Many English versions of _The Nibelungenlied_ have been made but most of them are harsh. Carlyle's summary of the epic in his _Miscellanies_ is the most satisfactory for the general reader. A good prose version of _The Nibelungenlied_ is by Daniel Bussier Shumway, Professor of German Philology in the University of Pennsylvania. It contains an admirable essay on the history of the epic. (Boston, 1909.) William Morris has made fine renderings in verse of portions of _The Nibelungenlied_ but he has drawn much of his material from the kindred Norse legends. Two translations into English verse are those of W. N. Lettson, _The Fall of the Nibelungen_ (London, 1874), and of Alice Harnton, _The Lay of the Nibelungs_ (London, 1898). A complete bibliography of works in English dealing with _The Nibelungenlied_ may be found in F. E. Sandbach's _The Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America_ (London, 1904).