Ortnit
Ortnit or Otnit is a Middle High German heroic epic about the eponymous king Ortnit. First written down in strophic form around 1230 by an anonymous author, it circulated in a number of distinct versions.
In the earliest version, King Ortnit sets out on an expedition to make the daughter of the heathen King Machorel his bride. He is greatly assisted by the cunning of the dwarf Alberich, who can only be seen by the wearer of a magic ring, and by the martial prowess of the Russian king Ilyas, Ortnit's uncle. In the second part of the story, Machorel, enraged by Ortnit's abduction of his daughter, sends him, in a feigned gesture of reconciliation, two dragon eggs. When these hatch, the dragons terrorise the land. After a year's delay, Ortnit sets out to kill the dragons, but falls asleep and is killed by them.
In most of the surviving versions, this is followed by the story of Wolfdietrich, who avenges Ortnit's death and marries his widow. Though the two stories have distinct origins, they were possibly combined and integrated at an early stage. The earliest surviving versions, Ortnit A and Wolfdietrich A may be the work of a single author.
The bride-quest and dragon motifs come from older oral traditions, but a strong crusading element in the journey to the Levant and defeat of a heathen army reflects the concerns of the 13th century. There is no consensus about the origins of the figure of Ortnit himself.
With a dozen manuscripts, six printed editions and a theatrical adaptation, the story remained popular right up until the early 17th century.
Versions
The story of Ortnit survives in eight narrative versions, grouped in four main traditions:Ortnit A is the oldest version, written around 1230, containing 597 strophes. A later adaptation in the Dresden Heldenbuch condenses the text to about a third of the length.
Ortnit C survives only in two fragments containing around 60 strophes of Ortnit with material close to that of Ortnit A.
Ortnit D, written around 1300, combines material from version C and a further, unknown version. Version D survives in four different variants from the 15th and 16th centuries:
- a 560 strophes, five manuscripts
- e 497 strophes, four manuscripts, including the manuscript version of the Strassburg Heldenbuch
- y 443 strophes, one manuscript
- z 555 strophes, the six printed editions of the Strassburg Heldenbuch.
Wolfdietrich B is not accompanied by a separate Ortnit tale. Instead, the stories are integrated: Wolfdietrich meets Ortnit, defeats him in battle and gains his friendship; Ortnit later kills two giants and a dragon but is then killed in his sleep by a second dragon.
The story
Ortnit A
I. In his castle at Garda, King Ortnit of Lambarten tells his vassals that he means to seek a wife, and one of them, his uncle Ilyas, King of Russia, mentions the beautiful daughter of Machorel of Muntabur, a heathen king. In spite of the fact that Machorel kills any suitor for his daughter, intending to marry her himself once his wife is dead, Ortnit sets his heart on her.II. Delayed from setting out by winter weather, he is given a ring by his mother, who tells him it will lead to adventure. Following her instructions, he rides off into the wilderness until he encounters what he takes to be a child, who can only be seen by the one wearing the ring. After they have argued and fought - the child is unexpectedly strong - the child reveals himself to be the dwarf Alberich and Ortnit's natural father. He gives Ortnit a suit of golden armour with magical properties and vows to accompany him.
III. Ortnit and his army set sail from Messina and, after 10 days at sea, arrive off the coast of Tyre, Machorel's capital. Alberich gives Ortnit a magic stone which allows him to speak and understand any language, and this enables him to pose as a merchant to secure permission to dock. Ortnit wants to take the city immediately, riding through the open gates, but Alberich insists this would be dishonourable. Instead, Alberich goes to Muntabur and gives Machorel a formal challenge: to give his daughter to Ortnit or be attacked. Machorel refuses and flies into a rage.
IV. That night Alberich steals hundreds of small boats from the harbour and the army uses these to land. At dawn, the alarm is given in the city and fierce fighting ensues. Alberich notices that all the city gates are open and the heathens may escape and burn the ships. Leaving Ilyas to continue the main battle, Ortnit gives chase. Returning, successful, he finds that Ilyas has lost all his men, and he re-engages to avenge their deaths. With the battle over, Ilyas is shown a cellar where the remaining heathen warriors are hiding and he beheads all of them in revenge, but Ortnit prevents him from killing the women and children. Attending to the wounded, Ortnit laments the many men he has lost.
V. At dawn, they set off for Muntabur. On arrival they pitch their tents outside the castle, but are too close and are shot at from the ramparts. That night, however, Alberich steals into the castle and throws the bows and arrows into the moat. Believing this to be the work of the devil, the heathens pressure the queen to let Ortnit have her daughter. But the king rejects the suggestion angrily. The next day, battle is joined. Distressed at the battle and the danger to her father's life, the princess prays to Apollo and Muhammad. Alberich pretends to be a messenger from God but even so cannot persuade the girl to marry Ortnit, until she challenges him to prove he is stronger than her gods, whereupon he shatters her shrine and throws it into the moat. The princess relents in order to spare her father, and sends her ring to Ortnit. Battle ceases and the heathens withdraw into the castle. Alberich sneaks in and brings out the princess to Ortnit, who rides off with her. As soon as her father discovers she is missing he rides in pursuit of Ortnit with his army. In the ensuing battle, the heathen army is completely destroyed, though Machorel escapes to the safety of the castle. Ortnit sets sail and, after the princess has been baptized, they marry.
VI. Machorel is visited by a huntsman, who has stolen two eggs from a dragon's cave and offers to take them to Lombardy to hatch so that they can then devastate Ortnit's land. Machorel agrees and sends the huntsman to Lombardy with gifts. Ortnit and his wife are delighted at these signs of reconciliation. After he has shown these to Ortnit, the huntsman reveals that one gift, an elephant, must be left to grow before being given. Ortnit orders the huntsman to be shown to a suitable cave in the mountains and given provisions. As the dragons grow the provisions start to become inadequate and dragons start to devastate the land in their search for food. After a year, in which knights have failed to defeat the dragons, Ortnit decides that he must take on the task himself.
VII. During an emotional parting from his wife, who tries to dissuade him, Ortnit tells her that if he fails to return, the knight who comes back with his armour, his ring and the dragon's tongue, will have avenged his death. Alberich refuses to accompany Ortnit, but warns him not to fall asleep. After a day and night wandering at random without finding the dragon, he sits down to rest but is overcome by sleep. When the dragon approaches, Ortnit's hound attempts to wake him, but without success. The dragon gulps him down whole, and, returning to its lair, feeds him to its young, who suck Ortnit out through his armour.
VIII. The hound returns to court, and the queen eventually realises that Ortnit is not following it and must be dead. This is confirmed when a vassal follows the hound to where Ortnit was killed. For two years the queen mourns and, is spite of the urging of the court, refuses to remarry unless it's to the knight who avenges Ortnit. For her refusal she is deprived of her wealth and imprisoned in a tower. The margrave takes pity on her and offers to avenge Ortnit, but only once he has a grown son to be his heir. Meanwhile, he sends food and wine to her in the tower. The story concludes with the remark that we will have to wait a long time for the dragon to be killed, as the killer has not yet been born, he who will later be the grandfather of Dietrich of Verona.
Ortnit D
This version follows that of Ortnit A up to the point where the dragons are terrorising the country, at which point it concludes. It is followed in the manuscript and prints with the story of Hugdietrich's bride quest, which then leads into the story of Wolfdietrich, which, in this version, includes Ortnit's pursuit of the dragon and his death.After telling of Wolfdietrich's youth, the story introduces the emperor Ortnit, who is told by one of his courtiers of Hugdietrich, King of Greece, and his three sons, who do no fealty to Ortnit. Ortnit sends twelve counts to Hugdietrich to demand tribute. Although the sons threaten to resist violently any claim for tribute, Hugdietrich, in order to save lives, pays in gold. However, Wolfdietrich warns that when he is full grown he will challenge Ortnit.
After Wolfdietrich has married Sigeminne, he decides to follow up his earlier threat to challenge Ortnit. He defeats Ortnit in battle, the two are then reconciled. When Sigeminne is abducted, Ortnit offers to help and they succeed in rescuing her.
Ortnit returns home to find his land being terrorised by two dragons and two giants, Velle and his wife Runze. After killing the giants, he sets out to kill the dragons, but after he has killed the first with the help of an elephant, he mysteriously falls asleep. He wakes up to find himself being carried off by the dragon, and in spite of his attempts to resist he is smashed against a tree and killed.