Nibelungen

[Jona Lendering]

I agree; the hypothesis may be unnecessary because all elements refer to the fifth and sixth century. On the other hand, the Siegfried part becomes better understandable if we accept a Low-German origin, and Höfler used other argument to identify dragon fights with battles than the draco standard.

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

Why Varus?

Because Höfler, who proposed the theory, had other arguments. #1 and #3 are, although not conclusive, worth considering.

(1)
The Siegfried saga belongs to northern Germany. We know that at least one manuscript, antedating the High German standard version, centered on his marriage to a princess in Soest, not Worms. Please note the connection to Xanten too. The name Nibelungen is Franconian (cf. the town Nijvel in Belgium). A text written in Low German must be the missing link between the High German version and the Icelandic sagas.

I've never been terribly convinced by Höfler's theory (the whole 'dragon=Roman Army" thing, in particular, smacks of some pretty Nineteenth Century thinking about how legends came about). And while the legend may have its origins in Low German-speaking areas, it's quite a leap from that to saying 'Arminius therefore equals Sigfried'.

While there are some characters and events from the Fourth and Fifth Centuries in later Germanic heroic traditions and their late medieval romance derivatives, there's pretty much nothing identifiable from earlier Germanic history. Apart from some names in the Old English Widsith which might be cognates with some tribal names from Tacitus, nothing from that early is preserved in the medieval Germanic material.

(2)
The Icelandic version identifies the place where Sigurd killed the dragon as Gnitaheide. We know from a medieval itinerary that this is somewhere between Minden and Paderborn. This again brings us to northern Germany. It may even be a clue to the identification of the location of the fights in the Teutoburg Forests; Kalkriese, more to the west, need not have been the only location, especially because our sources indicate that several sites were abandoned.

Well, maybe. But I'd be pretty wary about such a late source preserving such precise information from circa 1300 years earlier. Legends tend not to work that way.

(3)
In the saga, the dragon asks Sigurd's name. He can not refuse to answer, but knows he will be cursed if he replies; so he evades the question by saying that he is "a swift stag". "Cheruscans" means "stag people".

Cherusci may mean that. Or it may mean 'sword people' (ie PGmc '*Haruzkoz'). To go from a extremely uncertain interpretation of a heavily Latinised Proto-Germanic tribal name to a piece of dialogue in a saga written over 1000 years later is drawing a really long bow.

Most elements of the Icelandic saga and the High German version are referring to the fifth or sixth century; adding a first-century element is a "Fremdkörper", a strange element.

Agreed.