In this "Iliad of the Germans," which dates from the end of the twelfth century, the Siegfried story is given as a finished epic. But its originally heathen Teutonic character is overlaid there with admixtures of Christian chivalry. In the Edda and other Scandinavian sources, the tale appears in fragmentary and lyrical shape, but in a purer version, without additions from the new faith or from mediaeval chivalry. It is in the Sigurd-, Fafnir-, Brynhild-, Gudrun-, Oddrun-, Atli-, and Hamdir Lays of the Norse Scripture that the original nature of the older German songs, which must have preceded the epic, can best be guessed. Rhapsodic lays, referring to Siegfried, were, in all probability, part of the collection which Karl the Great, the Frankish Kaiser, ordered to be made. Monkish fanaticism afterward destroyed the valuable relics. Fortunately, Northmen travelling in Germany had gathered some of those tale-treasures, which then were treated by Scandinavian and Icelandic bards in the form of heroic lyrics. Hence the Eddic lays in question form now a link between our lost Siegfried "Lieder" and our national epic. Even as in the "Nibelungen Lied" so also in the "Edda," Sigurd (abbreviation for Siegfried) is not a Scandinavian, but a Southern, a Rhenish, a German hero. The whole scene of the tragic events is laid in the Rhinelands, where the killing of the Worm also takes place. On a hill in Frank-land Sigurd frees Brynhild from the magic slumber into which Odin had thrown her on a rock of punishment, because she, as a Valkyr, or shield-maiden of his, had brought about the death of a Gothic king to whom the god of battle had promised victory. In the south, on the Rhine, Sigurd is murdered. In the Rhine, Hoegni (Hagen) hides the Nibelung treasure. Many German tribes--Franks, Saxons, Burgundians, Goths, even a Svava-land, or Suabian land, are mentioned in the "Edda." The "Drama of Revenge," after Sigurd's death, though motives of the act somewhat different from those stated in the "Nibelungen Lied" are assigned, is also localized on the Lower Rhine, in the Hall of Atli, the King of the Hunes. In the "Nibelungen Lied," that name appears as Etzel (Attila), King of the Hunns.