on the
morrow.

"Since it is your last day with us," said Gunther, grown cunning through
Hagen's teaching, "what say you, dear Siegfried, to a hunt in Odin's
Wood?"

"Right glad will I be to join you in such sport," answered Siegfried.
"I will change my war-coat for a hunting-suit, and be ready within an
hour."

Then Siegfried went to his apartments, and doffed his steel-clad armor,
and searched in vain through his wardrobe for his favorite hunting-suit.
But it was nowhere to be found; and he was fain to put on the rich
embroidered coat which he sometimes wore in battle, instead of a
coat-of-mail. And he did not see the white lime-leaf that Kriemhild with
anxious care had worked in silk upon it. Then he sought the queen, and
told her of the unlooked-for change of plans, and how, on the morrow,
they would ride towards Nibelungen Land; but to-day he said he had
promised Gunther to hunt with him in the Odenwald.

But Kriemhild, to his great surprise, begged him not to leave her, even
to hunt in the Odenwald. For she had begun to fear that she had made a
great mistake in telling Hagen the story of the lime-leaf; and yet she
could not explain to Siegfried the true cause of her uneasiness.

"Oh, do not join in the hunt!" she cried. "Something tells me that
danger lurks hidden in the wood. Stay in the castle with me, and help me
put things in readiness for our journey homewards to-morrow. Last night
I had another dream. I thought that Odin's birds, Hugin and Munin, sat
on a tree before me. And Hugin flapped his wings, and said, 'What more
vile than a false friend? What more to be feared than a secret foe?
Harder than stone is his unfeeling heart; sharper than the adder's
poison-fangs are his words; a snake in the grass is he!' Then Munin
flapped his wings too, but said nothing. And I awoke, and thought at
once of the sunbright Balder, slain through Loki's vile deceit. And, as
I thought upon his sad death, a withered leaf came fluttering through
the casement, and fell upon my couch. Sad signs and tokens are these, my
husband; and much grief, I fear, they foretell."

But Siegfried was deaf to her words of warning, and he laughed at the
foolish dream. Then he bade her farewell till even-tide, and hastened to
join the party of huntsmen who waited for him impatiently at the gate.

When the party reached the Odenwald, they separated; each man taking his
own course, and following his own game. Siegfried, with but one trusty