THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 13

WHO WAS HAGEN/HOGNI, THE MURDERER OF SIEGFRIED/SIGURD?

One of the most important, indeed central, characters of the medieval Germanic Nibelungenlied and its related Scandinavian poems and sagas is Hagen, or Hogni in the Old Norse.  He is the murderer of Siegfried, ON Sigurd.  By his act he plunges the Burgundians and the Huns, as well as their allies, on a collision course that will destroy both kingdoms.  He remains perhaps the most fascinating and complex of the heroes in this epic tragic poem.

Yet, curiously, in the words of A.T. Hatto, famed translator of the Nibelungenlied, “Hagano is not known to history.  His name does not alliterate with the names of the Burgundian kings.”  Some have seen in him an incarnation of Wotan, Norse Odin, for he is said to be one-eyed, a characteristic mentioned in both the Nibelungenlied and in Waltharius.

Hagen is said to be lord of Tronege (a place-name exbibiting a simple metathesis), which is Tournai. We find Tournai spelled in forms such as Latin Toronicis in Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks.  Gregory’s work gives the historical account of the assassination of Sigibert.

In Book IV.51, we learn that King Sigibert, husband of Queen Brunhild, the immediate historical prototype for Siegfried, who wins Brunhild for Gunther, has sent an army to besiege King Chilperic in Tournai.  Queen Fredegund, Chilperic’s wife, sends two young man (in the Latin, duo pueri) with poisoned scramasaxes to speak with Sigibert, who is gathering the rest of his army at the royal villa of Vitry (Victuriaco in the text; estate of Victorius).  They stab him and he dies a short time after.

Neither of the names of these two young men is recorded.  So what to do with Hagen or Hagano, thought to derive from a root with a meaning ‘hedge’ or ‘enclosure’?

Well, let us look first at the entry for Tournai in the Dictionary of Continential Celtic Place-Names:

Turnacum

LN

LN: Tournai/(Flemish Doornik [OFlem. Dornick]) (B). Turnaco TP 1,3; Turnacum IA 376,7; 377,2; 377, 5;  378,9; (var. turnum) 378,11; Tornacensis ND oc 11, 57, Turnacensium 28,15;  Ciuitas Turnacensium (var. tornatensium, turnacentium, turiacensium) NG 6, 8;  Infra Thornacensis muros Greg. Tur. HF 4, 35 (50), a Thornaco 36 (51), Tornacum  5, 15 (22), In pago Tornacensi 5, (49), Tornacensis 10, 27; Genio Turnace(n)siu[m]  CIL 13, 3565; etc. Celtic, an -?ko- derivative of a PN Turn(i)us. Acording to Delamare (DLG: 304-5), directly to G.  turno- ?height?? < *t?er-?, cfr. Breton tornaot ?clif, slope?.

Note the Old Flemish Dornick especially, but also the forms in Torn- or Thorn-.

Compare these with the second element in the following word for hawthorn:

OE. haga, identical in form with haga hedge, fence, connection with which appears to be shown by the forms of hawthorn, OE. haga-, haguðorn = MDu. hagedorn (Du. haagdoorn), MHG. hagendorn (G. hagedorn), ON. hagþorn; cf. OE. hæġðorn ‘hedge-thorn’.

MHG hagendorn is the most interesting form here.  If we may assume that a fairly typical folk etymology attached itself to Tournai early on, linking the Celtic name wrongly with the Germanic word for ‘thorn’, then Hagano as ‘hedge’ would be the natural complement.  Hagen(e) von Tronege would then be, quite simply, “Hedge of the Thorn-Place” or, perhaps, quite literally ‘Hawthorn’.

Hagen, then, is a fictitious name for one of the unnamed assassins of Sigibert the Frank.  But if so, why does he appear to have been associated with Wotan?

Well, let’s go look at the Old Icelandic Saga of the Volsungs.  There, when Sigurd awakens Brynhild, we learn that Odin had put her in the enchanted sleep by pricking her with a “sleep THORN (Old Icelandic svefn-thorn).  He had done this because she awarded victory to the wrong man, slaying Hjalmgunnar instead of his adversary.  Helm-gunnar is here a nice foreshadowing of King Gunnar of the Burgundians.

One of Odin’s names was Svafnir, according to Simek, “the one who puts to sleep = death?”.

But can we identify this particular thorn with the hawthorn?  Perhaps.  Brynhild tells Sigurd not only that Odin had pricked her with the sleep-thorn, but that

“He also said that I must marry.”

The hawthorn is the tree of May 1st or Beltaine in Celtic lands, and was the tree usually used for the Maypole.  The same is also true of the maibum of Germany, which could be birch or maple, but also hawthorn.  And, of course, May is traditionally the month of marriages.  So it stands to reason that the thorn used by Odin to put Brynhild in her enchanted sleep, a state she would remain in until awakened by the man who would claim her as his wife, would be from a hawthorn tree.  In the case of Brynhild, sleep and awakening is symbolic of the rebirth of the lunar goddess.  I have elsewhere discussed the fire-encircled mountain top and the smoke and flame-encircled barrow of Germanic myth, themselves merely symbols of the cloud-covered earth.  The sun and moon and other heavenly bodies must pass through the fiery cloud before they can set into the earth or rise into the sky. 

Hagen of Tronege as the ‘hedge-thorn’ thus became a hypostasis for Odin in his guise as Svafnir, the Bringer of Sleep/Death.

As an Odinic character, Hagen quite rightly enjoys considerable interplay with both of the valkyrie characters Brunhilt and Kriemhilt.  I've already shown that historically speaking, Brunhilt (or Brunhild or Brynhildr) was the wife of the Frankish king Sigebert.  Her name is from OHG brunia, 'byrnie', plus hiltia, 'conflict'.  This last word is found in Old Norse sources for a valkyrie and so Brunhilt taking on valkyrie characteristics during the development of heroic legend is easy enough to account for.  Kriemhilt, originally from an OHG grim, 'terrible', was later replaced with grim (cf. OE grima, mask, helmet, ON grima, cowl, hood), plus the same hiltia.  We know Odin went by the names Grimnir and Grimr, the 'masked one'. Although Kriemhilt becomes Gudrun in the Old Norse sources, she takes the place of Fredegunda in Gregory of Tours, where that queen's conflict with Brunhildis after the murder of the latter's husband Sigebert (Siegfried/Sigurd) is recorded.

Christianity and the new fashion for courtly romance obscured the true nature of the valkyrie, and did much to make ambiguous a story that was once more myth than history or legend.  As I've written about elsewhere, men fought and died for the sake of the valkyrie.  She not only took the souls of dead warriors from the battlefield to Valholl, but she also instigated all warfare.  Kriemhilt's inciting of mayhem is well in keeping with the role of the valkyrie, and many a woman in the Icelandic sagas exhibit this same personality trait.  But there is even another level that has been preserved in this story that is sometimes missed by a reader unfamiliar with the structure and meaning of Germanic myth.

When Sigurd first comes to Brynhild, he is said to chastely lay his sword between them when they sleep.  This is veiled language for intercourse with the goddess, as everyone who lives in the post-Freudian world knows what Sigurd's sword represents in this case.  Later, he again comes to the goddess/valkyrie, but this time IN THE FORM OF GUNTHER/GUNNAR.  He later sexually subdues and supposedly deflowers Brynhild IN HIS CAPACITY AS GUNTHER/GUNNAR.  The meaning of this, read mythically, is simple and straight-forward: Siegfried and Gunther are not only the quintessential opponnents for the goddess, but are the classic "twins' of the year who share the goddess between themselves.  The same twins in the persons of the Einherjar battle daily until Ragnarok for the same goddess.  This seasonal battle is at the root of most never-ending battle stories.  Celtic culture has similar themes imbedded in its myth.  Quite often these themes have to do with the Goddess of Sovereignty, whom one must possess in order to be king and rule over the land.

So we are not to buy into the "betrayal motif" concerning Brynhild.  The actual victim of the never-ending battle cycle, represented symbolically by Siegfried and Gunther's "sharing" of the queen, is not the goddess.  Rather, the willing victims are the warriors who struggle and die for her, over and over and over until the end of the world.