A mesmerizing rendition of the “Song of Hildebrand” - one of the earliest surviving texts in Old High German, dating to the 9th century.
It tells of a father and a son (Hildebrand and Hadubrand) meeting on the battlefield at the head of opposing armies. Hildebrand rode off to the east with the warlord Dietrich (Theoderic) to flee from king Otacher (Odoacer). After many years, he returns home to find his son ruling over his land. Hadubrand, however, doesn’t recognize his own father, believing him to be an impostor and his real father dead. Hildebrand proffers him his band of rings given to him by the “leader of the Huns” and Hadubrand refuses it, calling him “an old Hun” (alter hun - a possible wordplay (Hun and Hund (dog)? Hildebrand's honor code bars him from yielding and he proceeds to fight him. Just as the two clash in single combat, the original text breaks off and we do not know the end of the story, although from the later versions of the legend it is assumed that Hildebrand kills him.
What I find impressive about this from the historical perspective is that even in the early 9th century, the memory of Attila the Hun and Gothic kings (who lived more than three centuries before the poem was written) is still vivid, despite the illiteracy of the population in that period. Not only is the main conflict in this poem reminiscent of that between Luke and Darth Vader (I am your father!), but this motive also appears in Irish, East Slavic and Persian stories, making some consider a common Indo-European origin of this story.
