gave to his wife as a dowry. The hoard filled
thirty-six wagons. After the murder of Siegfried, Hagan seized the
hoard, and, for concealment, sank it in the "Rhine at Lockham,"
intending to recover it at a future period, but Hagan was assassinated,
and the hoard was lost for ever.--_Nibelungen Lied_, xix.

=Nibelungen Lied= [_Ne.by-lung.'nleed_], the German _Iliad_ (1210). It is
divided into two parts, and thirty-two lieds or cantos. The first part
ends with the death of Siegfried, and the second part with the death of
Kriemhild.

Siegfried, the youngest of the kings of the Netherlands, went to Worms,
to crave the hand of Kriemhild in marriage. While he was staying with
G[:u]nther, king of Burgundy (the lady's brother), he assisted him to
obtain in marriage Brunhild, queen of Issland, who announced publicly
that he only should be her husband who could beat her in hurling a
spear, throwing a huge stone, and in leaping. Siegfried, who possessed a
cloak of invisibility, aided G[:u]nther in these three contests, and
Brunhild became his wife. In return for these services, G[:u]nther gave
Siegfried his sister Kriemhild, in marriage. After a time, the bride and
bridegroom went to visit G[:u]nther, when the two ladies disputed about
the relative merits of their respective husbands, and Kriemhild, to
exalt Siegfried, boasted that G[:u]nther owed to him his victories and
his wife. Brunhild, in great anger, now employed Hagan to murder
Siegfried, and this he did by stabbing him in the back while he was
drinking from a brook.

Thirteen years elapsed, and the widow married Etzel, king of the Huns.
After a time, she invited Brunhild and Hagan to a visit. Hagan, in this
visit, killed Etzel's young son, and Kriemhild was like a fury. A battle
ensued, in which G[:u]nther and Hagan were made prisoners, and Kriemhild
cut off both their heads with her own hand. Hildebrand, horrified at
this act of blood, slew Kriemhild; and so the poem ends.--Authors
unknown (but the story pieced together by the minnesingers).

[Asterism] The _V[:o]lsunga Saga_ is the Icelandic version of the
_Nibelungen Lied_. This saga has been translated into English by William
Morris.

The _Nibelungen Lied_ has been ascribed to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a
minnesinger; but it certainly existed before that epoch, if not as a
complete whole, in separate lays, and all that Heinrich von Ofterdingen
could have done was to collect the floating lays, connect them, and