Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/158

126 hundred yet remain; the Huns attack them two to one. The fight is desperate. Rudiger, compelled to take part in it sorely against his will, is slain with his own sword by Gemot; and at length Volker the minstrel is killed by Hildebrand, who strives in vain to wound Hagen, for he is the master of Balmung, Siegfried's sword, the Gram of the Volsung story. Dietrich is at length more successful, and the slayer of Siegfried is at last brought bound into the presence of the woman who lives only to avenge him. With him comes Gunther, the last of the Burgundian chiefs who is left alive. Once more, in this last dread hour, the story reverts to the ancient myth. Kriemhild places them apart, and then coming to Hagen, tells him that even now he may go free if he will yield up the treasure which he stole from Siegfried. Hagen's answer is that he cannot say where the hoard is as long as any of his masters remain alive. Kriemhild now takes to him the head of Gunther, the last of his liege lords, and Hagen prepares to die triumphantly. She has slain the last man who knew the secret besides himself, and from Hagen she shall never learn it. Frantic in her sorrow, Kriemhild cries that she will at least have the sword which her sweet love bore when the murderer smote him treacherously. She grasps it in her hand, she draws the blade from its sheath, she whirls it in the air, and the victory of Achilleus is accomplished. Hagen is slain like Hektor. Her heart's desire is attained. What matters it, if death is to follow her act of dread revenge, as Thetis told the chieftain of Phthia that his death must follow soon when he has slain Hektor? The night is not far off when the sun appears like a conqueror near the horizon after his long battle with the clouds. The sight of the dead Hagen rouses the grief of Etzel and the fury of Hildebrand who smites Kriemhild and hews her in pieces.

If we put aside the two or three names which may belong to persons of whose existence we have other evidence, the idea that this story of ferocious and impossible vengeance represents in any degree the history of the age of Attila becomes one of the wildest of dreams. Etzel himself is no more like the real Attila than the Alexandres of the Iliad is like the great son of the Macedonian Philip. The tale is, throughout, the story told, in every Aryan land, of the death of the short-lived sun, or the stealing of the dawn and her treasures, and of the vengeance which is taken for these deeds. It is but one of the many narratives of the great drama enacted before our eyes every year and every day, one of the many versions of the discomfiture of the thieves who seek to deceive the beautiful Saramâ. But if this great epic poem contains no history, it is remarkable as showing the