The Nibelungenlied and Njal’s Saga

The words honor and power in romance languages such as Spanish and French are el honor y el poder and le honneur et le pouvoir, respectively. Both Spanish and French categorize honor and power with masculine articles, which in many ways limits these qualities to only manlihood. Though English, a Germanic language, does not genderize nouns, many English speakers still associate honor and power with very masculine qualities. This is proven by the fact that American society often describes men as honorable and powerful—only until the recent decades did women, such as Oprah and Hilary Clinton, received such recognition. Unlike its English counterpart, German language classifies both honor and power with feminine articles, die ehre und die kaft. This begs the question why the German language places feminine articles on honor and power when others associate these words with masculinity.

Perhaps the cliché phrase “behind every great man is a powerful woman” can shed light on why Germans consider honor and power feminine. Many people often idealize men with power and women with gentleness. However, the Germanic tales, The Nibelungenlied and Njal’s Saga, both demonstrate a very different reality. The heroes of both tales, Siegfried and Gunnar, are very well respected and powerful men who only married women they viewed of considerable prestige and status. Yet, Siegfried’s and Gunnar’s wives, Kriemhild and Hallgerd, usurps power from their husbands through manipulation, which ironically results in their husbands’ deaths. Arm with their manipulative power, both Kriemhild and Hallgerd are arguably much more powerful than their heroic husbands; yet, they differ in the way they reveal this power leading Kriemhild’s successful revenge and Hall...

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...ion of their society. As a society, we might be quick to relate the words power and honor but we often overlook the real power that woman possess. Since women are unsuitable in most societies to hold a sword and fight physically, they learned other necessary skills—the power to manipulate—to thrive in such societies. In both Germanic tales, Kriemhild and Hallgerd exemplified the use of manipulation to acquire honor and prestige. However, Kriemhild successfully masked her manipulative power and thus became even more successful than Hallgerd. This shows that the power to deceive and hide your manipulation so that others are not aware of your capabilities is arguably much more influential than just possessing that ability alone. Conceivably, we should correct the phrase “behind every great man is a powerful woman” to “behind every great man is a manipulative woman”.