oa Tracking former royal dignity: The bear in medieval German literature

Preview this chapter:

Tracking former royal dignity: The bear in medieval German literature, Page 1 of 1

< Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/10.1484/M.TANE-EB.5.133678/M.TANE-EB.5.134379-1.gif

In medieval German literature, the bear - compared to the horse, the dragon, the lion or the fox - leads a rather marginal existence. At first glance, Michel Pastoureau’s thesis of the bear as the “ fallen king” seems fully confirmed: The bear has not only been eliminated from the medieval forest, but also from German literature. This article tracks, and indeed finds, remains of the bear’s “ former royal dignity” in the legend of St Gallus (Vita Galli, 8th century, German translation in the 15th century), in the animal epic Reynke de Vos (1498) and in the heroic epic Nibelungenlied (around 1200). An additional sideways glance at the tale of Schrätel und Wasserbär, or Kobold und Eisbär (late 13th century) sheds light on these findings from a different perspective. Even if it cannot be proven beyond doubt that knowledge of the brown bear as the “old king of animals” was actually still present in the minds of authors and audiences, the readings referred to in this article show that the above texts gain in depth when bearing this in mind, although with an interesting result: Whether the bear is the “royal vassal of the king of kings” (Vita Galli), a “rejected alternative to the king” (Reynke de Vos), the “representative of a royal competitor to be eliminated” (Nibelungenlied), or the origin of a myth about a rural household spirit as a “royal gift with consequences” (Schrätel und Wasserbär) - in all cases showing traces of his “royal dignity” - Pastoureau’s thesis of the bear as a king-no-more nevertheless finds confirmation.