cahn

Literary footnote: now, in the nineteenth century, all the rediscovery of medieval epics (in the case of this one by the Brothers Grimm, btw, who wrote the first modern commentary on it) was a big thing. But someone like Peter H., Germarn mercanary living in the 17th century, could not have read it a version of this epic. He must have learned the story via oral tradition. It's also fascinating that he's so sure that Hildebrand and Hadubrand fought in Mantua and that this is why the two statues he sees are depicting them. Because Hildebrand's boss and protegé, Dietrich von Bern (that's the name under which he shows up both in the Hildebrandlied and in the Nibelungenlied), commonly gets identified with Theoderich, the Goth King ruling most of Italy for a while. Peter Hagendorf doesn't say, but I'm assuming he, too, makes that identification when staying Mantua is where the Hildebrand/Hadubrand fight took place.