false Hildegund quickly gains the favor of the royal couple of Salnek by
her wonderful embroideries in gold and silver; and when her position at
the court is assured, she requests the honor of becoming an attendant
and playmate to Hildeburg. This granted, Hugdietrich is admitted to the
tower of the captive princess. For twelve weeks, Hugdietrich plays his
role and teaches his love the art of embroidery, but he is unable longer
to restrain his passion, and he reveals himself to her. His love is
reciprocated, and a blissful year is passed by the loving pair. At this
juncture, Duke Berchtung arrives from Constantinople to conduct
Hildegund home, since the king, her brother, wishes to receive her again
into grace and brotherly affection. Hildeburg is left in painful longing
and sadness. Soon afterward she gives birth to a son, whom she tries to
conceal from the sight of men. One day, however, her mother surprises
her by an unexpected visit; and the frightened nurse lets the babe,
wrapped in silken cloths, down among the bushes of the ditch surrounding
the castle. When, after the departure of the queen, the child is
searched for, he is not to be found. A wolf has carried him away as food
for his young. But King Walgund, who, as it happens, is out hunting,
kills the wolves, and finds the child grievously weeping. The king takes
him under his mantle and brings him to his queen, calling him
Wolfdietrich, as he had found him among the wolves. Hildeburg, too, sees
him, and recognizes him as her own child by his birthmark, a red cross
between his shoulders. She confesses everything to her parents, and is
forgiven. Hugdietrich is sent for. He comes, recognizes the boy as his
own, kisses him in truly Germanic fashion, wraps his golden mantle
around him as a token of recognition, and pronounces the words:

"'Wolfdietrich, O dearest child of mine,
Constenople be the inheritance thine.'"

The sagas of the Lombard cycle are the poetic crystallization of the
spread of Teutonism over the world of the Orient; they symbolize the
national thirst for adventure and strife.

We now turn back from the extreme southeast of Europe to the extreme
northwest of that continent, the ideal realm of Gudrun, the noblest type
of German womanhood in the domain of German literature.

King Hagen of Ireland, and Hilde, his wife, have a beautiful daughter,
also called Hilde. But the king "grudges her to any man who is not over
him," and has h