When you think of child welfare stamps, you think of smiling mums and happy children, or children’s toys, games and storybook characters. But not in 1920s Austria. Among a plethora of semi-postal issues, we find a child welfare set commemorating the founding legend of the German people: the ‘Song of the Nibelungen’.
The original poem has its origins in an oral tradition and probably dates back to the 5th or 6th centuries. This was the migration period in German history, a time when Germanic tribes were moving west into the eastern fringes of the collapsed Roman Empire. The story also features in Scandinavian sagas, which contain some of the legend’s earliest versions.
The song was first written down around 1200 and its structure – short stanzas of four lines – means it was almost certainly sung rather than spoken. By 1500 or so, the poem had been forgotten and might
