His mother, exasperated by this resistance finally undertakes to force Gudrun to submit by dint of hardships, and even sends her out barefoot in the snow to do the family washing.

While thus engaged, Gudrun and her faithful companion are discovered by the princess' brother and lover, who arrange the dramatic rescue of the damsels, whom they marry.[26] Next in order come the philosophic epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach, including the immortal Parzifal--which has been used by Tennyson and Wagner in their poems and opera--and the poetic tales of Gottfried of Strassburg, whose Tristan und Isolde, though unfinished, is a fine piece of work.

Hartmann von der Aue is author of Erek und Enide,--the subject of Tennyson's poem,--of Der arme Heinrich,--which served as foundation for Longfellow's Golden Legend,--and of Iwein or the Knight with the Lion.
Among the Minnesingers of greatest note are Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and later, when their head-quarters were at Nueremberg, Hans Sachs.

Their favorite themes were court epics, dealing especially with the legends of Arthur, of the Holy Grail, and of Charles the Great.

Many of these epics are embodied in the Heldenbuch, or Book of Heroes, compiled in the fifteenth century by Kaspar von der Rhoen, while the Abenteuerbuch contains many of these legends as well as Der Rosengarten and Koenig Laurin.
In the second part of the thirteenth century artificiality and vulgarity began to preponderate, provoking as counterweights didactic works such as Der Krieg auf der Wartburg.