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Rh Hagen necessarily discerns evil omens as they journey on. The chap. waters of the Danube are swollen, and as he searches along the banks for a ferryman, he seizes the wondrous apparel of two wise women who are bathing, one of whom promises that if he will give them their raiment, they will tell how he may journey to the Huns' land. Floating like birds before him on the flood, they lure him with hopes of the great honours which are in store for him, and thus they recover their clothes — a myth which feebly reflects the beautiful legends of the Swan maidens and their knights. No sooner, however, are they again clothed, than the wise woman who has not yet spoken tells him that her sister has lied, and that from the Huns' land not one shall return alive, except the king's chaplain. To test her words, Hagen, as they are crossmg the river, throws the priest into the stream ; but although he tries to push him down under the water, yet the chaplain, although unable to swim, is carried by Divine aid to the shore, and the doomed Burgundians go onwards to meet their fate. In the house of Rudiger they receive a genial welcome ; but when Rudiger's daughter approaches at his bidding to kiss Hagen, his countenance seemed to her so fearful that she would gladly have foregone the duty. On their departure Rudiger loads them with gifts. To Gemot he gives a sword which afterwards deals the death- blow to Rudiger himself, who resolves to accompany them ; while Hagen receives the magnificent shield of Nuodung, whom Witege slew. The ominous note is again sounded when Dietrich, who is sent to meet the Burgundians, tells Hagen that Kriemhild still weeps sore for the hero of the Niblung land ; and Hagen can but say that her duty now is to Etzel, as Siegfried is buried and comes again no more. It is the story of the Odyssey. When Dietrich is asked how he knows the mind of Kriemhild, "What shall I say?" he answers ; " every morning early I hear her, Etzel's wife, weep and wail full sadly to the God of heaven for strong Siegfried's body."^ It is the sorrow of Penelope, who mourns for the absence of Odysseus during twenty weary years, though the suitors, like Etzel, are by her side, or though, as other versions went, she became a mother while the wise chief was far away fighting at Ilion or wandering over the wine- faced sea.

is, therefore, quite unnecessary to give where the dawn-maidens mourn be- an abstract of the poem throughout, a cause they have to marry the giant, task which has been performed ahcady but are rescued by the man who made by many writers, and among them by the gold and silver cap, as Penelope Mr. Ludlow, Popular Epics, i. is delivered from her suitors by the ' Compare the Gaelic story of the man who wrought the bed in her bridal Rider of Grianaig (Campljcll, ill. iS), chamber.