Named for a type of ancient standing stone…
Photo by Paulo Santos on Pexels.com
…Menhir is a German Metal band that doesn’t have a great web presence, but has been around since 1995.
Founded in Thuringia, Germany and writing largely about ancient history and folklore, it’s not surprising that they’ve got a song about a major piece of German folklore.
In brief, the Hildebrandslied is an Old High German alliterative poem from the 800s, telling the story of events in the 400s against the backdrop of the conflicts between Ostrogothic Theodoric the Great and Roman usurper of barbarian origin Odoacer.
Specifically, two warriors meet “between two armies,” presumably as their army’s respective champion in a single combat, which would looking something like this:
Admittedly, that’s a depiction of a duel between Vikings, so it’s not quite the right time period or geographic location, but it’s at least broadly similar to what’s being described in the Hildebrandslied by dint both being part of the wider Germanic martial tradition.
The two warriors, Hildebrand and Hadubrand each give a, as John Cena would say, “fine speech” before, inevitably, they end up fighting.
Oh, and it turns out they’re long-lost father and son.
Based on what I’m reading, the Hildebrandslied has confounded generations of scholars.
Quoth Wikipedia:
The text is highly problematic: as a unique example of its genre, with many words not found in other German texts, its interpretation remains controversial. Difficulties in reading some of the individual letters and identifying errors made by the scribes mean that a definitive edition of the poem is impossible. One of the most puzzling features is the dialect, which shows a mixture of High German and Low German spellings which cannot represent any actually spoken dialect.
Notably, the ending of the poem does not survive.
Although there are related or later poems derived from the original that do reveal the end of the duel — Hildebrand killing Hadubrand is the most common but there are also variations where the two reconcile peacefully — the original manuscript of the Old High German Hildebrandslied doesn’t really help clear things up: the two warriors have broken their shields in their fight…
…and then the manuscript breaks off in the middle of the line. This is, incidentally, not uncommon for ancient manuscripts.
Father Time doesn’t really care about your satisfactory dramatic arcs.
My Old High German isn’t great. Shocking, I know…
As far as I can tell, Menhir’s Hildebrandslied is just a one-to-one recitation of the poem set to Heavy Metal instrumentation. I can at least kinda-sorta follow along with the opening lines and as far as I can tell, it is just the poem.
Which, incidentally, looks like this:
“Ik gihorta ðat seggen
from Wikipedia.
ðat sih urhettun ænon muotin
Hiltibrant enti Haðubrant untar heriun tuem
sunufatarungo iro saro rihtun
garutun se iro guðhamun gurtun sih iro suert ana
helidos ubar hringa do sie to dero hiltiu ritun“
And, in English, goes something like this:
“I have so heard it said:
as translated by Bruce McMenomy
That once came together in single combat
Hildebrand and Hadubrand between two hosts
Father and son. Their fittings they fastened,
Securing their byrnies: bound their swords on
Over the ring-mail ere they rode to the fighting.”
And, when put to Heavy Metal music, it sounds like this:
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