Blood and Symbols in the Nibelungenlied: A Mythocritical Approach to Time, Gender and Catabasis

This article, co-authored by Dr. Martin Simonson and doctoral candidate Daniel Casado, presents a mythocritical analysis of The Nibelungenlied, focused on unravelling the symbolic systems that govern the temporal, elemental, and gender dynamics of the work. The main objective is to demonstrate how the symbolic economy of blood, wine, gold, and water functions as a framework of collective memory and mythic structure. We have drawn on the research of Jung, Durand, Cirlot, and Gutiérrez, among others, applying the triad of the diurnal symbolic cluster known as “The Faces of Time”. Through the scrutiny of key episodes involving Siegfried, Brunhild, Kriemhild, and Hagen, the results reveal that the poem operates as an ontological defense mechanism against the anxiety of human finitude. We conclude that the female figures act as the true engine of the nictomorphic symbols of epic fatalism, and that the work constitutes a coherent mythic system designed for negotiation and symbiosis with time, identity, and sacred violence.