United States or Guatemala ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Among the animals slain by the hero is the "schelk," described as a powerful and dangerous beast. This name has been a stumbling block to scholars for years, and opinions vary as to whether it was a wild stallion at all times a savage animal or a lone survivor of the Megaceros, or Irish elk.
Two large graminivorous or browsing quadrupeds, the ur and the schelk, once common in Germany, have been utterly extirpated, the eland and the auerochs nearly so. Starker ure viere, unt einen grimmen schelch. XVI. Aventiure. The testimony of the Nibelungen-Lied is not conclusive evidence that these quadrupeds existed in Germany at the time of the composition of that poem.
Modern naturalists identify the elk with the eland, the wisent with the auerochs. The period when the ur and the schelk became extinct is not known.
Word Of The Day