HKB
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Often appears with: conquest, plunder, and captives · siegfried invulnerability · prophecy and revelation · nibelung treasure · medea escape · hagan’s testimony · golden fleece · fate, destiny, and necessity · courage and cowardice · aietes tasks
Usually: narrative (1) · speech or oration (1) · the test or trial (1) · exhortation (1) · reverence (1) · wonder (1)
“Yet more I know of Siegfried, that well your ear may hold; A poison-spitting dragon he slew with courage bold, And in the blood then bath'd him; this turn'd to horn his skin. And now no weapons harm him, as often proved has been.” Anonymous (Volks-epic tradition); special introduction by William H. Carpenter, The Nibelungenlied · observation
Hagan explains Siegfried’s past conquests: he won Nibelung’s treasure and defeated Nibelungers, slew a dragon and became invulnerable, and advises Gunther to receive Siegfried courteously as a powerful ally.
That not a hundred wagons could bear the costly load, Still more of gold so ruddy from the Nibelungers' land. All this was to be parted by noble Siegfried's hand. L "So Nibelung's sword they gave him to recompense his pain, But ill was done the service, which they had sought so fain, And he so hard had granted; Siegfried, the hero good, Fail'd the long task to finish; this stirr'd their angry mood. …
Jason performs Aietes’ tasks with the plough of adamant and fire-breathing oxen, learns where Phrixos’ knife and Golden Fleece are, and kills the speckled dragon to escape with Medea to later sow the seed of Euphemos’ line.
of the tasks her father set, and mixing drugs with oil gave him for his anointment antidotes of cruel pain, and they vowed to be joined together in sweet wedlock. But when Aietes had set in the midst a plough of adamant, and oxen that from tawny jaws breathed flame of blazing fire, and with bronze hoofs smote the earth in alternate steps, and had led them and yoked them single-handed, he marked out in a line straigh…