oral storytelling, synchronization. Dietrich is already associated with an exile among the Huns in the Old High German Hildebrandslied (before 900), and possibly with Etzel/Attila, depending on how one interprets the mentioned huneo druhtin (Hunnish lord),. The Hildebrandslied nevertheless still retains Theodoric's historical opponent Odoacer, seemingly showing that Odoacer was the original opponent. It is also possible that the author of the Hildebrandslied altered the report in the oral saga by replacing the unhistorical Emenrich with the historical Odoacer. It is possible that Ermenrich/Ermanaric was drawn into the story due to his historical enmity with the Huns, who destroyed his kingdom. He was famous for killing his relatives, moreover, and so his attempts to kill his kinsman Dietrich make sense in the logic of the oral tradition. It is possible that Dietrich's association with Verona suggests Longobardic influence on the oral tradition, as Verona was the Longobardic capital for a time, while Ravenna was under the control of the Byzantines. The figure of Dietrich's tutor and mentor Hildebrand is also often thought to derive from Longobardic influence. Heinzle suggests that the exile-saga may have been first told among the Longobards, giving the end of the sixth century as the latest date at which the story may have formed, with the Longobardic conquest of Italy. Dietrich has been identified as "Dietrich von Bern" (Middle High German for Verona) or Theodericus Veronensis since at least the composition of the Annals of Quedlinburg. Lastly, Dietrich's various mythological and demonic attributes may derive from ecclesiastical criticism of the Arian Theodoric, whose soul, Gregory the Great reports, was dropped into Mount Etna as punishment for his persecution of orthodox Christians. Another notable tradition, first reported in the world chronicle of Otto of Freising (1143-1146), is that Theodoric rode to hell on an infernal horse while still alive. Other traditions record that Theodoric was the son of the Devil. It is unclear whether these negative traditions are the invention of the Church or whether they are a demonization of an earlier apotheosis of the heretical Theodoric. None of the surviving heroic material demonizes Dietrich in this way, however, and presents a generally positive view of the hero. In the 1980s, Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg proposed that Dietrich von Bern and Theodoric the Great were in fact two distinct historical figures: he argued that Dietrich was an unattested Frankish petty king based at Bonn. However, Ritter-Schaumburg was not a