KÖNIG ROTHER WAR PROBABLY composed in its present form around the middle of the twelfth century, between 1150 and 1160, although more recently the later date of 1160–70 has been proposed. The text is preserved in one nearly complete manuscript, H=Heidelberg, cpg 390, which dates to the end of the twelfth century, and four surviving fragments: M=Munich, cgm 5249; A=Berlin, ms. germ. Fol. 923; B=Nürnberg, Nr. 27744; and E=Ermlitz (in private hands). The plot is divided into two distinct sections, the second a doubling of the first, with doubled variations occurring on both the structural and the motivic level. Part 1 (lines 1–2942, –2946 or –2986), which may have been the complete tale in its ancient oral form (for example, de Vries 1922/74, xxxv), consists of a perilous bridal quest, in which the bride is abducted with her consent, Siefken's type C. In part 2 (lines 2943–, 2946– or 2987–end) the bride's father abducts his daughter from her abductor, who must win her again. Here the narrative structure of the perilous bridal quest is repeated, but with a reversal of motifs; it is, at least on the surface, a mirror image of part 1: one sees the same face, to use Schröder's metaphor (1955/77, 342–44), but with the sides reversed. This implies that the doublings and variations in part 2 are purposely based upon the preexisting structures and motifs of part 1.