Roman and the Teuton | Page 8

so much is said
and sung in your legendary stories and poems, the famous Dietrich of
Bern, this is really the Theoderic, the first German who ruled Italy for
thirty-three years, more gloriously than any Roman Emperor before or
after. I see no harm in this, as long as it is done on purpose, and as long
as the purpose which Johannes von Muller had in his mind, was
attained.
No doubt the best plan for an historian to follow is to call every man by
the name by which he called himself. Theodoric, we know, could not

write, but he had a gold plate {p6} made in which the first four letters
of his name were incised, and when it was fixed on the paper, the King
drew his pen through the intervals. Those four letters were [Greek text
which cannot be reproduced], and though we should expect that, as a
Goth, he would have spelt his name Thiudereik, yet we have no right to
doubt, that the vowels were eo, and not iu. But again and again
historians spell proper names, not as they were written by the people
themselves, but as they appear in the historical documents through
which they became chiefly known. We speak of Plato, because we have
Roman literature between us and Greece. American names are accepted
in history through a Spanish, Indian names through an English medium.
The strictly Old High-German form of Carolus Magnus would be
Charal, A. S. Carl; yet even in the Oaths of Strassburg (842) the name
appears as Karlus and as Karl, and has remained so ever since {p7}. In
the same document we find Ludher for Lothar, Ludhuwig and
Lodhuvig for Ludovicus, the oldest form being Chlodowich: and who
would lay down the law, which of these forms shall be used for
historical purposes?
I have little doubt that Kingsley's object in retaining the name Dietrich
for the Ost-gothic king was much the same as Johannes von Muller's.
You know, he meant to say, of Dietrich of Bern, of all the wonderful
things told of him in the Nibelunge and other German poems. Well,
that is the Dietrich of the German people, that is what the Germans
themselves have made of him, by transferring to their great Gothic king
some of the most incredible achievements of one of their oldest
legendary heroes. They have changed even his name, and as the
children in the schools of Germany {p8} still speak of him as their
Dietrich von Bern, let him be to us too Dietrich, not simply the Ost-
gothic Theoderic, but the German Dietrich.
I confess I see no harm in that, though a few words on the strange
mixture of legend and history might have been useful, because the case
of Theodoric is one of the most luculent testimonies for that blending
of fact and fancy in strictly historical times which people find it so
difficult to believe, but which offers the key, and the only true key, for
many of the most perplexing problems, both of history and of
mythology.
Originally nothing could be more different than the Dietrich of the old

legend and the Dietrich of history. The former is followed by
misfortune through the whole of his life. He is oppressed in his youth
by his uncle, the famous Ermanrich {p9}; he has to spend the greater
part of his life (thirty years) in exile, and only returns to his kingdom
after the death of his enemy. Yet whenever he is called Dietrich of Bern,
it is because the real Theodoric, the most successful of Gothic
conquerors, ruled at Verona. When his enemy was called Otacher,
instead of Sibich, it is because the real Theodoric conquered the real
Odoacer. When the king, at whose court he passes his years of exile, is
called Etzel, it is because many German heroes had really taken refuge
in the camp of Attila. That Attila died two years before Theodoric of
Verona was born, is no difficulty to a popular poet, nor even the still
more glaring contradiction between the daring and ferocious character
of the real Attila and the cowardice of his namesake Etzel, as
represented in the poem of the Nibelunge. Thus was legend quickened
by history.
On the other hand, if historians, such as Gregory I (Dial. iv. 36) {p10},
tell us that an Italian hermit had been witness in a vision to the
damnation of Theodoric, whose soul was plunged, by the ministers of
divine vengeance, into the volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths
of the infernal world, we may recognise in the heated imagination of
the orthodox monk some recollection of the mysterious end of the
legendary Dietrich {p11}. Later on, the legendary and the real hero
were so firmly welded together