In spite of the general Teutonic traits and customs which the Germans east and west of the Rhine possessed in common with the Anglo-Saxons, distinct qualities appear in the one and the other from the moment of our nearer acquaintance with their separate history and literature. So scanty, however, are the literary remains of German heathendom that recourse must be had to Christian productions to discover, for example, that with the Germans the sentiment of home and its dear relationships[178] is as marked as the Anglo-Saxon's elegiac meditative mood. Language bears its witness to the spiritual endowment of both peoples. The German dialects along the Rhine were rich in abstract nouns ending in _ung_ and _keit_ and _schaft_ and _tum_.[179]
There remains one piece of untouched German heathenism, the _Hildebrandslied_, which dates from the end of the eighth century, and may possibly be the sole survivor of a collection of German poems made at Charlemagne's command.[180] It is a tale of single combat between a father and son, the counterpart of which is found in the Persian, Irish, and Norse literatures. Such an incident might be diversely rendered; armies might watch their champions engage, or the combat might occur unwitnessed in some mountain gorge; it might be described pathetically or in warrior mood, and the heroes might fight in ignorance, or one of them know well, who was the man confronting him. In German, this story is a part of that huge mass of legend which grew up around the memory of the terrible Hun Attila, and transformed him to the Atli of Norse literature, and to the worthy King Etzel of the _Nibelungenlied_, at whose Court the flower of Burgundian chivalry went down in that fierce feud in which Etzel had little part. Among his vassal kings appears the mighty exile Dietrich of Bern, who in the _Nibelungen_ reluctantly overcomes the last of the Burgundian heroes. This Dietrich is none other than Theodoric the Ostrogoth, transformed in legend and represented as driven from his kingdom of Italy by Odoacer, and for the time forced to take refuge with Etzel; for the legend was not troubled by the fact that Attila was dead before Theodoric was born. Bern is the name given to Verona, and legend saw Theodoric's castle in that most beautiful of Roman amphitheatres, where the traveller still may sit and meditate on many things. It is told also that Theodoric recovered his kingdom in the legendary Rabenschlacht fought by Ravenna's walls. Old Hildebrand was his master-at-arms, who had fled with him. In the _Nibelungen_ it is he that cuts down Kriemhild, Etzel's queen, before the monarch's eyes; for he could not endure that a woman's hand had slain Gunther and Hagen, whom, exhausted at last, Dietrich's strength had set before her helpless and bound. And now, after years of absence, he has recrossed the mountains with his king come to claim his kingdom, and before the armies he challenges the champion of the opposing host. Here the Old German poem, which is called the _Hildebrandslied_, takes up the story: