heart for well he knows Brunhild
Siegfried consents. Accompanied by but a few warriors, Gunther and
Siegfried sail down the Rhine, and after a twelve days' journey they
land on Isenstein. In sight of the royal castle, surmounted by
eighty-six towers rising in gloomy magnificence, Siegfried, in order to
pass for a vassal, holds the stirrup of Gunther. Brunhild receives the
dragon slayer, whose fame and glory are well known to her, with the
words:

"'Welcome you are, Sir Siegfried, here to this my land.
What means your journey hither, now let me understand?'
Quoth Siegfried: 'Lady Brunhild, great thanks to you I owe,
That you, most gentle princess, should deign to greet me so
Before this noble hero who stands beside me here;
For he is my master...
He is by name Gunther, a mighty King and dread;
If he your love can conquer, his fondest wish is sped.'"

Brunhild proclaims the conditions upon which she may be won. The hero
who wishes to win her to wife must conquer her in three games: spear
throwing, stone throwing, and leaping. If he fails in one of the three
tests he must lose his head. Gunther declares himself ready for the
trial though he feels that his strength is not equal to the superhuman
power of Brunhild. Siegfried comes to his friend's assistance, and clad
in his Tarn-cap which he had won from the Nibelung treasure, and which
makes him invisible, he undertakes the task while Gunther merely
executes the gesture of the action. Brunhild is defeated and with
forebodings of evil follows the Burgundian king to Worms where a joyful
double marriage is celebrated. Then Siegfried takes his bride to Xanten,
his capital, where he passes ten years of peace and happiness. But the
Norns, the Fates, have decreed that his joy shall not endure. King
Gunther invites his friend and his sister to a great festival at Worms
at the time of the summer solstice. On the eleventh day before Vespers,
during the walk to church, a fatal quarrel breaks out between the
queens. The quarrel is precipitated by a question of precedence.
Brunhild, consumed by jealousy of Siegfried's heroic fame and
Kriemhilde's happiness, insultingly taunts the latter that her consort
is after all but a vassal of Gunther, an accusation which Kriemhilde
violently rejects. The two queens part with vehement words. Kriemhilde
threatens:

'"Since thou hast my Siegfried claimed as thy subject now,