The "Nibelungenlied," like the Northern poems before it, is legendary, with only here and there a historical fact as a nucleus about which has gathered in the course of the centuries material for many times and places. The destruction of the Burgundians, under their King Gunther, by the Huns, which occurred in the year 437, has undoubtedly furnished the ultimate catastrophe. It is not known, however, that Attila, the Atli of the "Edda" and the Etzel of the "Nibelungenlied," was the leader of the Huns on this occasion, although the event did take place during his lifetime. Attila's brother Bleda appears in the poem as Blœdelin. Giselher, the brother of Gunther, is also mentioned in the old Burgundian law-code, the _Lex Burgundionum_. Of Siegfried and Brunhild history knows no trace, although an attempt has been made to connect the one with Arminius and the other with Brünehild of Austrasia. The appearance in the poem of Dietrich of Bern, Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogothic conqueror of Italy, who lived from 475 to 526, is an example of the absorption of material from another cycle into the original legend, material which, in its turn, clusters about a historical character. The Bishop Pilgrin, of Passau, represented in the poem as the uncle of the Burgundian kings and of Kriemhild, has a historical prototype in an actual Pilgrin who held the see of Passau from 971 to 991 and has, it may be, been here introduced by the poet to honor him. As for the rest, facts that may have been ultimately historical have been freely used by the poet of the "Nibelungenlied" and his predecessors until it is no longer possible to tell where legend begins and history ends.