Siegfried, << SEEG freed >>, was a legendary hero in medieval German literature. As a young man, Siegfried had acquired the fabulous treasure of the Nibelungs and a cloak that made him invisible. He also killed a dragon and bathed in its blood, which made his body invulnerable. But a linden leaf had fallen on the spot between his shoulders, leaving the spot unprotected. Years later, Hagen, a member of the Burgundian court, killed Siegfried by thrusting a spear into the unprotected spot. Hagen later took the treasure from Siegfried’s wife.
Siegfried is the hero of the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem composed by an unknown author about A.D. 1200. Siegfried is known as Sigurd the Volsung in the Volsunga Saga, a prose story written in Iceland in the 1100’s or 1200’s. The German composer Richard Wagner drew upon both works in his cycle of four operas, The Ring of the Nibelung (1869-1876).
