The Name of the Wind, the fire and the Sword from Hell

Since I came to Sweden I have been told several times already that my name sounded very Swedish - not too bad to begin with in my new adopted country. :) This made me collect some facts about this (sur)name which I combined with a dash of nordic saga.

Some research on the internet suggests that the name Hellenbrand derives from the old name Hildebrand through sound shift. Hildebrand again consists of the Old High German/Old Nordic words hiltia which means "fight" or "combat" (Old High German dictionary, p. 213) and brant/brand which means "fire" or "sword" (Old High German dictionary p. 252).

Some other sources suggested that Hellenbrandt was one of the most common denotations for hell or a common synonym for the Lord of Darkness. So Sauron and Voldemort can pack their stuff, the only lord of darkness am I! :D (That's why I always tell people about the cookies we have on the dark side ...)

But now let us get to the promised nordic saga ... The name Hildebrand is a very old one. It already appears in the Hildebrandslied - Hildebrand's Tale from the beginning of the ninth century and here I tell a short version of this tale:

Hildebrand left his wife and his son to move to the court of Dietmar von Bern to teach Dietmar's son Dietrich the art of fighting. He seamed to have done a good job as later on Dietrich is one of the few survivors and a later king in the bloody Nibelungenlied. (Advice from my father when I wanted to read the Nibelungenlied some ten years ago: Ah you do not need to read it. At the end everybode is dead. - This is actually a quite accurate summary.) Anyway, when Hildebrand returned to his home country with an army (not with bad intentions as far as I remember) after striking dead Kriemhild with Siegfried's sword (her husband - murdered by Hagen of Tronje some time before) at the end of the Nibelungenlied he meets his son Hadubrand with his army. Hildebrand reveals his identity which Hadubrand does not believe thinking it is an artifice of war and so he challenges his father for a duell. Hildebrand cannot refuse due to the prevailing code of honour and so he tragically strikes his son dead. Afterwards he engraves his son's face into his shield where he engraved all the other 80 opponents' faces he has defeated in combat.

The Tale of Hildebrand's Death tells that Hildebrand was defeated by his half-brother Asmundar later on after his sword broke and - lying on his own shield, his head next to his son's engraved face - asked Asmundar to bury him covered in Asmundar's coat.

This is the (short version of the) tale of Hildebrand, my old namesake. I hope I did not mess up some of the nordic sagas, it has been a while since I read them ...