Die Funktion von Freundschaft zwischen Frauen in der Kudrun. Zum Thema der closure in der Hildesage

This article studies the depiction of female friendships in the Middle High German Kudrun epic. Since this is the only text from Germanic heroic legend to stage functioning friendship between female characters, their function for the epic as a whole is examined. The article follows the discussion started by Katherine Marie Olley, who views the Hildr legend as an essentially open narrative, and understands the surviving textual sources that render the legend as attempts to establish narrative closure. Drawing on research by Anne-Katrin Federow, it will be argued that the depiction of female friendship works to increase the complexity of the social fabric in the third part of the epic, and thus qualitatively distinguishes the peace concluded at its end from the conflict settlements at the end of the first and second parts. As a result, the article argues that at the end of Kudrun a further disruption of order is not imminent, but that precisely such a possibility is decisively rejected at the end of the text.