The Story of Siegfried

The Story of Siegfried

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Title: The Story of Siegfried
Author: James Baldwin
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6866] [Yes, we are more than

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Produced by J. C. Byers

The Story of Siegfried
By James Baldwin
New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1899

To My Children,
Winfred, Louis, and Nellie,
This Book Is Affectionately Inscribed.

The Fore Word.

When the world was in its childhood, men looked upon the works of
Nature with a strange kind of awe. They fancied that every thing upon
the earth, in the air, or in the water, had a life like their own, and that
every sight which they saw, and every sound which they heard, was

caused by some intelligent being. All men were poets, so far as their
ideas and their modes of expression were concerned, although it is not
likely that any of them wrote poetry. This was true in regard to the
Saxon in his chilly northern home, as well as to the Greek in the sunny
southland. But, while the balmy air and clear sky of the south tended to
refine men's thoughts and language, the rugged scenery and bleak
storms of the north made them uncouth, bold, and energetic. Yet both
the cultured Greek and the rude Saxon looked upon Nature with much
the same eyes, and there was a strange resemblance in their manner of
thinking and speaking. They saw, that, in all the phenomena which took
place around them, there was a certain system or regularity, as if these
were controlled by some law or by some superior being; and they
sought, in their simple poetical way, to account for these appearances.
They had not yet learned to measure the distances of the stars, nor to
calculate the motions of the earth. The changing of the seasons was a
mystery which they scarcely sought to penetrate. But they spoke of
these occurrences in a variety of ways, and invented many charming,
stories with reference to them, not so much with a view towards
accounting for the mystery, as towards giving expression to their
childlike but picturesque ideas.
Thus, in the south, when reference was made to the coming of winter
and to the dreariness and discomforts of that season of the year, men
did not know nor care to explain it all, as our teachers now do at school;
but they sometimes told how Hades had stolen Persephone (the summer)
from her mother Demetre (the earth), and had carried her, in a chariot
drawn by four coal black steeds, to the gloomy land of shadows; and
how, in sorrow for her absence, the Earth clothed herself in mourning,
and no leaves grew upon the trees, nor flowers in the gardens, and the
very birds ceased singing, because Persephone was no more. But they
added, that in a few months the fair maiden would return for a time to
her sorrowing mother, and that then the flowers would bloom, and the
trees would bear fruit, and the harvest-fields would again be full of
golden grain.
In the north a different story was told, but the meaning was the same.
Sometimes men told how Odin (the All-Father) had become angry with

Brunhild (the maid of spring), and had wounded her with the thorn of
sleep, and how all the castle in which she slept was wrapped in
deathlike slumber until Sigurd or Siegfried (the sunbeam) rode through
flaming fire, and awakened her with a kiss. Sometimes men told how
Loki (heat) had betrayed Balder (the sunlight), and had induced blind
old Hoder (the winter months) to slay him, and how all