ABSTRACT
Parzival, 1877]. 26 It is noteworthy that, within the confines of German drama of the middle
of the nineteenth century, a theatrical version of The Nibelung was also created by Hebbel. The difference between Wagner and Hebbel is very substantial and significant As regards folklore and medieval studies, Hebbel is in fact attuned to the historic school, whereas Wagner favors solar mythology [associated with Max Muller]. Hebbel uses the Austrian version of The Song of the Nibelung, a variation that had by this time been stripped of its mythic charge, and had been Christianized and romanticized. Wagner, on the other hand, bases his work al most completely on the more archaic Scandinavian version, taking the story from the Edda and the The Volsung Saga.
