t
that Siegfried had been slain by robbers whilst hunting alone. So, on
the following day they crossed the Rhine back to Worms.

In the night Hagen caused the dead body of Siegfried to be laid in
front of Chriemhild's chamber. In the early morning as Chriemhild
accompanied by her attendants was preparing to go to mass in the
cathedral she noticed the corpse of her hero. A wail of sorrow arose.
Chriemhild threw herself weeping on the body of her murdered husband.
"Alas!" she cried "thy shield is not hewn by swords: thou hast been
foully murdered. Did I but know who has done this, I would avenge thy
death." Chriemhild ordered a magnificent bier for her royal hero, and
demanded that an ordeal should be held over the corpse. "For it is a
marvellous thing, and to this day it happens, that when the
bloodstained murderer approaches wounds bleed anew."

So all the princes and nobles of Burgundy walked past the dead body,
above which was the figure of the crucified Redeemer of the world, and
lo! when the grim Hagen came forward the wounds of the dead man began
to flow. In the presence of the astounded men and horrified women
Chriemhild accused Hagen of the assassination of her husband.

Much treachery and woe accompanied the expiation of this great crime.
The Nibelungen Hoard, the cause of the shameful deed, was sunk in the
middle of the Rhine in order to prevent future strife arising from
human greed. But Chriemhild's undying sorrow was not mitigated, nor
her unconquerable thirst for revenge appeased.

After the burial of his son King Siegmund begged in vain that
Chriemhild should come to the royal city of Xanten; she remained at
Worms for thirteen years constantly near her beloved dead.

Then the sorrowing woman removed to the Abbey of Lorch which her
mother, Frau Ute, had founded. Thither also, she transferred
Siegfried's body.

When Etzel (Attila) the ruler of the Huns wooed her, Chriemhild urged
not by love but by very different feelings gave him her hand and
accompanied her heathen lord to the Ungarland. Then she treacherously
invited Siegfried's murderers to visit her husband, and prepared for
them a destruction which fills the mind with horror. The Burgundian
king and his followers, who, since the Hoard had come into their
possession, were called the Nibelungen, fell slaughtered in the
Etzelburg under the swords of the Huns and their allies, thus atoning
for their faithlessness to the hero Siegfried. And with this