Etzel

Also known as: King Etzel / the Hunnish king · Family: Huns · Role: king · First appears: Adventure XX · How King Etzel Sent To Burgundy For Kriemhild · Part 1

In Adventure XX, after Helca’s death, Etzel commissioned Rudeger to woo Kriemhild as his wife. She first refused, then vowed to become his bride and go to the Huns. In Adventure XXII, Etzel met her at Tulna; they rode to Vienna, held their wedding feast there, and then journeyed to the Hunnish land. In Adventure XXIII, Kriemhild bore their son Ortlieb, and Etzel agreed to invite her kinsmen to his land.

When the Burgundians arrived in Adventure XXVIII, Etzel recalled that Hagen had once been a hostage at his court, and called him a friend for his earlier service. In Adventure XXXI, he intervened in a quarrel to protect Folker, ordering the Huns to leave his guests in peace, and asked Gunther and the other kinsmen to take Ortlieb to the Rhine and raise him honorably. But in Adventure XXXVI, after the fighting and the deaths of Ortlieb and many of his kinsmen, Etzel and Kriemhild renewed the attack on the strangers. Gunther told him, “I came to thee in trust, I weened thou wast my friend.” In Adventure XXXVII, Rudeger vowed to fight for Etzel, who promised to care for his people and hoped he would go unscathed.