nd him. Then was he too taken before Kriemhild, and once
again the noble Dietrich begged a life from the Queen. This she gladly
promised, but treachery was in her heart. Then went she to Hagen and
said to him that if he would return the Nibelungs' treasure to her
he might still go home safe and sound to Burgundy. The grim champion
answered that she wasted her words, and that he had sworn an oath not
to show the hoard while any of his lords still lived. At that answer a
terrible thought entered the mind of Kriemhild, and without the least
compunction she ordered that her brother Gunther's life be taken. They
struck off his head like that of a common malefactor, and by the hair
she carried it to the Knight of Trony. Full sorrowfully he gazed upon
it, then turning his eyes away from the haggard and distorted features,
he said to Kriemhild:

"Dead is the noble King of Burgundy, and Giselher, and Gernot also.
Now none knoweth of the treasure save me, and it shall ever be hid from
thee, thou fiend."

The Death of Hagen and Kriemhild

Greatly wroth was Kriemhild when she heard that her stratagem had
come to naught. "Full ill have ye requited me, Sir Hagen," she cried
fiercely, and drawing the sword of Siegfried from its sheath, she raised
it with both hands and struck off the Burgundian's head.

Amazed and sorrowful was King Etzel when he saw this. "Alas," cried he,
"that such a hero should die bound and by the hands of a woman. Here
lieth the best of knights that ever came to battle or bore a shield.
Sorely doth this deed grieve me, however much I was his foe."

Then spake old Hildebrand, full of horror that such a thing had come to
pass, "Little shall it profit her that she hath slain him so foully," he
cried; "whatever hap to me, yet will I avenge bold Hagen."

With these words he rushed at Kriemhild. Loudly did she cry out, but
little did that avail her, for with one great stroke Hildebrand clove
her in twain. The victims of fate lay still. Sorely wept Dietrich and
Etzel. So ended the high feast in death and woe. More is not to be said.
Let the dead rest. Thus fell the Nibelungs, thus was accomplished the
fate of their house!

The place of origin of the Nibelungenlied is much disputed, a number of
scholars arguing for its Scandinavian genesis, but it may be said that
the consensus of opinion among modern students of the epic is that
it took its rise in Germany, along the banks of the Rhine, among the
Frankish divis