The Siegfried Fountain in Odenheim: the place where Hagen von Tronje killed Siegfried von Xanten, hero of the Nibelungen saga

I enjoy visiting mystical places that have an inexplicable effect on me. One of these places is the Siegfried Fountain in Odenheim. It is considered the place where Siegfried von Xanten, the hero of the Nibelungenlied, is said to have been murdered by Hagen von Tronje. I went to this place, which is located in the middle of the forest. The air was clear and an icy wind was blowing. The water in the fountain splashed and I looked at the monument up close. The plot of the Nibelungenlied stems from both mythological storytelling and poetic imagination. However, the characters and place names mentioned in the Nibelungenlied mostly have a real reference. Therefore, the old historical dispute as to whether Odenheim is the site of the murder of the Nibelung hero Siegfried has receded into the background, while the fact that “Otenhain,” the earlier spelling of Odenheim, is mentioned in stanza 1013 of the C version of the Nibelungenlied has gained in significance. The translation of this Middle High German verse is carved into the stone slab of the fountain, which I could clearly see. The inscription reads as follows: If you seek the fountain where Siegfried was slain, you shall hear me tell you the true story. There, before the Odenwald, lies a village called Odenheim. There, the fountain still flows. Of that there can be no doubt. But how did this geographical name Otenhain find its way into the Nibelungenlied? The most plausible assumption is that the writer of the C version, presumably a cleric or Benedictine monk, stayed temporarily at the Odenheim monastery or included the verse in his version of the Nibelungenlied out of affection for the abbey. The Benedictine monastery of Odenheim was in its heyday around 1200, when the Nibelungenlied was written down, and the abbot of the monastery at that time was called Siegfried. The history of the Nibelungenlied goes back a long way into the world of Germanic and Nordic heroic sagas. The old tales mentioned in the opening verse of the epic tell of names and stories that had been passed down orally for centuries. Around the year 1200, these various traditions were combined by anonymous authors into a written work that we know as the Nibelungenlied, the most famous version of which is version C. One of the historical cores of the saga is believed to be the destruction of the Burgundian Empire in the Worms area around the year 436. The Song of the Nibelungs is about kings and heroes, love and passion, loyalty, betrayal, and revenge, and is considered the greatest poem of the German Middle Ages. It is a recipe for success that has also been used by world-famous series such as “Game of Thrones” and Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” Part of the Nibelungenlied is the rise of the king’s son Siegfried of Xanten. He defeated a dragon and subsequently won the Nibelung treasure. By bathing in the dragon’s blood, he became invulnerable—except for one spot on his back, which was covered by a falling linden leaf during the bath. The hero Siegfried helped the Burgundian king Gunther in Iceland to win his wife Brunhilde and in return received King Gunther’s sister, Kriemhilde, as his wife. Quarrels, resentment, and jealousy at the court of Worms ultimately led to a murder plot between Brunhilde and her loyal follower Hagen von Tronje. The assassination finally took place on a hunting trip outside the Odenwald. When Siegfried bent down to drink from a spring after a victorious race, he was killed from behind by Hagen’s spear. The murder was only possible because Krimhilde had marked Siegfried’s vulnerable spot with an embroidered cross. This was intended to protect him, as Hagen had previously assured her in a devious manner. Krimhilde swore revenge. The downfall of the Burgundians was sealed. I marvelled at this monument, which was erected in 1932 at the former Siegfried’s Spring. The construction of the monument was made possible by a generous donation from Sigmund Odenheimer, a Jew who emigrated to America and made a name for himself as an inventor in his new homeland. He was born in Odenheim in 1860 and is said to have made the donation in nostalgic memory of his childhood sweetheart. The fountain, designed by Karlsruhe art professor Wilhelm Nagel and built from local reed sandstone, is 3.65 meters high and has a pointed arch shape. The relief, which depicts the murder of Siegfried by Hagen, was carved in stone by the Karlsruhe stone sculptor C. Dietrich. The stonework was carried out by Odenheim stonemasons Adam Zirkel and Friedrich Lemle. The forecourt was redesigned in the 1960s after the road was completed. I marveled at this fountain for quite a while and wondered whether the story of the hero Siegfried had really happened that way. Did he actually exist and was he murdered here in this idyllic place? The Nibelungenlied is a poem full of symbolism and allegorical historical events. For me, this place had something mysteriously dark about it, yet surrounded by forest and trees, it was peaceful. Whatever happened here will remain an unsolved mystery forever.