lordings sate them down for weariness. Folker and Hagen came forth
from the hall; upon their shields the haughty warriors leaned. Wise
words were spoken by the twain. Then Knight Giselher of Burgundy spake:
"Forsooth, dear friends, ye may not ease you yet; ye must bear the
dead from out the hall. I'll tell you, of a truth, we shall be attacked
again. They must no longer lie here beneath our feet. Ere the Huns
vanquish us by storm, we'll yet how wounds, which shall ease my heart.
For this," quoth Giselher, "I have a steadfast mind."

"Well is me of such a lord," spake then Hagen. "This rede which my young
master hath given us to-day would befit no one but a knight. At this,
Burgundians, ye may all stand glad."

Then they followed the rede, and to the door they bare seven thousand
dead, the which they cast outside. Down they fell before the stairway
to the hall, and from their kinsmen rose a full piteous wall. Some there
were with such slight wounds that, had they been more gently treated,
they would have waxed well again; but from the lofty fall, they must
needs lie dead. Their friends bewailed this, and forsooth they had good
cause.

Then spake Folker, the fiddler, a lusty knight: "Now I mark the truth of
this, as hath been told me. The Huns be cravens, like women they wail;
they should rather nurse these sorely wounded men."

A margrave weened, he spake through kindness. Seeing one of his kinsmen
lying in the blood, he clasped him in his arms and would have borne
him hence, when the bold minstrel shot him above the dead to death. The
flight began as the others saw this deed, and all fell to cursing this
selfsame minstrel. He snatched javelin, sharp and hard, the which had
been hurled at him by a Hun, and cast it with might across the court,
far over the folk. Thus he forced Etzel's warriors to take lodgement
further from the hall. On every side the people feared his mighty
prowess.

Many thousand men now stood before the hall. Folker and Hagen gan speak
to Etzel all their mind, wherefrom these heroes bold and good came
thereafter into danger. Quoth Hagen: "'Twould well beseem the people's
hope, if the lords would fight in the foremost ranks, as doth each of
my lordings here. They hew through the helmets, so that the blood doth
follow the sword."

Etzel was brave; he seized his shield. "Now fare warily," spake Lady
Kriemhild, "and offer the warriors gold upon your shield. If Hagen doth
but reach you there, ye'll