To the researches of Lachmann and Müllenhoff we owe the knowledge that the Nibelungensaga which appears in the Nibelungenlied as an organic and an artistic unity is in reality a composition of two elements: of the Sigfridsaga and the legend of the Burgundians. While it is a well established fact that the latter saga preserved certain reminiscences of the historical annihilation of the Burgundians by Attila in 437, no account can be found in history which might, in a like manner, explain the origin of the Sigfridsaga. It was Lachmann who, for this reason, first advanced the opinion that the legend of Sigfrid was of mythological origin, and this mythological explanation of our legend is, in some form or other, now held by most scholars.