Random question: E Nomine's "Der Ring Der Nibelungen" - How could a German group screw that up?

Cafe Society
1

This is a very silly and inconsequential question, but I feel like I have to get it off my chest nonetheless. :stuck_out_tongue:

Not too long ago I discovered the German “monumental dance” group E Nomine. I really like their music, but one of their songs is bugging me. Specifically, “Der Ring Der Nibelungen,” which is pretty clearly in reference to Wagner’s cycle of operas. It’s a kickass song, but the title is wrong: Wagner’s cycle is titled Der Ring des Nibelungen, which more or less literally means “The Nibelung’s Ring,” where “The Nibelung” is the dwarf Alberich.

“Der Ring der Nibelungen” would instead mean “The Ring of the Nibelungs.” As I understand it, it’s fairly common for English speakers to misinterpret the title of Wagner’s cycle in this fashion. But since E Nomine is a German group, I would have assumed that they’d know the difference. I can’t think of any reason for them to deliberately get the name wrong, and I haven’t really been able to shed any light on the matter by googling either.

…Is it possible that a German musical group doesn’t know the first thing about Wagner? :dubious:

2

I can offer three explanations:

  1. the obvious one: almost everyone is pretty ignorant about almost everything, even in their own culture.

  2. one charitably assuming a bit more education: commonly, in the context of the Nibelungenlied, the word Nibelungen is usually encountered as a plural noun (the Nibelungs - Gunther’s folk, originally Franks (franci nebulones) but, according to the Nibelungenlied, Burgundians). Des Nibelungen seems to be an archaic-ish genitive form of Der Nibelung - I presume nowadays if my neighbour were one of the Nibelungen, i.e. a Nibelung, and had a ring, I’d refer to it as Der Ring des Nibelungs. So, someone with today’s language background can be excused miscorrecting des Nibelungen to der Nibelungen.

  3. Deliberate choice - making some point of ‘hey, it wasn’t the ring of one particular Nibelung but the ring of all the Nibelungs’.