ays with profuse magnificence and
numberless gifts to the bride; but Kriemhilde's heart is faithful to her
first and only love.

"When now the thought would cross her how by the Rhine she sat
Beside her noble husband, with tears her eyes were wet;
Yet must she weep in secret that it by none was seen."

Thus she proceeds sadly down the Danube to the Etzel castle, a stranger
in a strange land concealing her deep woe under her royal splendor.
After seven years she bears to Etzel a son, Ortlieb, then six years more
pass by twenty-six years in all since Siegfried was murdered at the
linden fountain in the Oden forest then at last the time arrives to
quench the thirst of her revenge.

Kriemhilde says to Etzel: "For long years I have now been here in a
strange land, and no one of my lofty kinsmen has visited us. No longer
may I bear the absence from my relatives, for already the rumor goes
here, since no one of my family visits us, that I am an exile and a
fugitive from my land, without home or friends." The king, ever ready to
please Kriemhilde, sends the two singer-heroes, Werbel and Swemlin, to
Worms as envoys to invite the Burgundian kings with their suite to visit
Hungary at the next solstice. Kriemhilde urges all her relatives to
come. The ever suspicious Hagen dissuades the kings from the journey.
"You know indeed what we have done to Kriemhilde, that I with my own
hand slew her husband. How can we dare to travel in Etzel's land? There
we shall lose life and honor King Etzel's wife is of long revenge!" When
his warning fails, he advises that the expedition shall be strongly
armed and of large numbers. All the vassals are summoned, and eleven
thousand men go joyfully forth on their dire mission. The element of
music and song is not wanting; brave, cheerful Volker, the fiddler, an
expert singer and musician as well as a great warrior, is of the party.

Kriemhilde is informed of the success of the mission, and voices her
grim joy: "How are you pleased with the good tidings, dear husband and
master; what I have desired ever and ever is now fulfilled." "Your will
is mine," replied Etzel; "I never rejoiced thus over the arrival of my
own relatives as I do over the arrival of yours."

An ill omen almost prevents the fateful expedition. The hoary mother of
the Burgundian Kings and of Kriemhilde dreams, during the preparations
for departure, that all the birds in the land lie scattered dead on the
fi