nd while we tell thee Gunther's
message. After, we will sit. Gunther and Brunhild, with whom it is
well, and Queen Uta, your mother, and Giselher, the youth, and eke
Gernot, and your nearest kinsmen, send greeting from Burgundy."

"Now God reward them," said Siegfried; "I hold them for good and true, as
a man should trust his friends. The like doth their sister. Say on,
whether they be of good cheer. Hath any done my wife's brethren a hurt
since we parted? Tell me, for I will stand by them till their foemen rue
my help."

Margrave Gary, the good knight, answered, "It is well with them, and they
are of good cheer. They bid thee to a hightide, and were right glad if
thou camest. They bid my Lady also. So soon as the winter shall be
ended, before midsummer, they would see you."

But Siegfried said, "That can hardly be."

Whereupon Gary the Burgundian answered, "Your mother Uta, Gernot, and
Giselher, pray that ye deny them not. Every day I hear them lament that
ye dwell so far. Brunhild my mistress, and her maidens, rejoice in the
hope to see you."

The message seemed good to Kriemhild. Gary was her kinsman; and the king
bade him sit, and tarried not longer to let pour the wine for the guests.

Thither came Siegmund also, when he saw the messengers, and he spake to
them on friendly wise. "Ye be welcome, ye knights, Gunther's men; since
Siegfried won Kriemhild to wife, ye should have been seen here oftener,
if you would have proved your love."

They answered that, if he willed it, they would come gladly, for that joy
had taken from them their mickle weariness.

Then they bade the envoys sit, and set meats before them, whereof
Siegfried gave order they should have enough. Nine days they were kept
at the court, till at last they murmured, saying that if they tarried
longer, they durst not return again to their land.

Meanwhile Siegfried had let summon his friends. He asked them their mind
about his journey. "Gunther my brother-in-law, and his kinsmen, have
bidden me to a hightide at the Rhine, and Kriemhild also, that she ride
with me. And I were fain to go if his country lay not so far off. Now
counsel me, dear friends, for the best. Had I to harry thirty lands for
their sake, my hand were at their service."

His knights made answer, "If thou wouldst ride to this hightide, we
counsel thee on this wise: take with thee a thousand knights to the
Rhine, that thou mayest have honour among the Burgundi