Rune Poems - House of Dubhros

48 Introduction to
The hero of the poem is that Hildebrand who occupies a
far from insignificant position in the Nibelungenlied and
the poems of the Heldenbuch. The story of the fragment,
unknown from either of these sources, is concerned with the
meeting of Hildebrand and his son Hadubrand. Leaving
his wife and child at home Hildebrand has followed Dietrich
to the court of Etzel, and now returning after thirty years
of exile finds his son arrayed against him. He learns their
kinship and reveals himself; but Hadubrand, suspecting
treachery, refuses to believe him. The fragment breaks off
just as the fight begins; but there can be no doubt that
as in the Sohrab and Rustum story from the Shah-Nameh
the father is obliged to slay his son 2 .
The whole atmosphere of the fragment forebodes a tragic
on the
sequel, though it is true that later German poems
subject, as well as the closely related episode in piSriks
also in Holthausen's
saga, cc. 405-409 (Bertelsen, li. 471;
Altisldndisches Lesebuch, p. 24 ff.), end happily
with the
mutual recognition of the father and the son. Such are :
1. The fifteenth century Der vater init dem sun, of
Kaspar von der Ron ; cf. Henrici, Das deutsche Heldenbuch,
pp. 301 ff., translated by F. A. Wood, The Hildebrandslied,
pp. 7 ff. (Chicago, 1914).
2. A broadsheet of 1515; cf. von Liliencron, Deutsches
Leben im Volksklied um 1530, pp.
84 ff.
Moreover an allusion to the death of Hadubrand is pre
served in a poem found both in Saxo Book vil. (Holder,
p. 244) :
medioxima nati
Illita conspicuo species caelamine constat
Cui manus haec cursum metae vitalis ademit.
Unicus hie nobis haeres erat, una paterni
Cara animi, superoqae datus solamine matri.
Sors mala, quae laetis infaustos aggerit annos,
Et risum mcerore premit sortemque molestat,
1896); for the literature of the subject, cf. Braune, Ahd. Lesebuch M,
p. 188 (Halle, 1911).
2 A comparative study of the motive will be found in M. A. Potter,
Sohrab and Eastern (London, 1899).