Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/168

146 Etzel; for the legend was not troubled by the fact that Attila was dead before Theodoric was born. Bern is the name given to Verona, and legend saw Theodoric's castle in that most beautiful of Roman amphitheatres, where the traveller still may sit and meditate on many things. It is told also that Theodoric recovered his kingdom in the legendary Rabenschlacht fought by Ravenna's walls. Old Hildebrand was his master-at-arms, who had fled with him. In the Nibelungen it is he that cuts down Kriemhild, Etzel's queen, before the monarch's eyes; for he could not endure that a woman's hand had slain Gunther and Hagen, whom, exhausted at last, Dietrich's strength had set before her helpless and bound. And now, after years of absence, he has recrossed the mountains with his king come to claim his kingdom, and before the armies he challenges the champion of the opposing host. Here the Old German poem, which is called the Hildebrandslied, takes up the story:

There is a break here in the poem; but the uncontrolled son evidently taunted the father with cowardice. The old warrior cries: