Gudrun

This medieval German epic, sometimes called the sister poem to the Nibelungenlied, tells three linked stories of abduction, loyalty, and rescue across the cold northern seas. It opens with Hagen, carried off by a griffin as a boy and left to survive on a wild island before he grows into a king. His granddaughter gives the poem its heart: promised to the man she loves, Gudrun is seized by a rejected suitor and held captive for years, forced to wash clothes on a bleak shore, yet she refuses to yield or break faith. Her eventual rescue brings the tale to its hard-won close. Mary Pickering Nichols rendered the Middle High German verse into English. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.