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Rh hild still mourneth sorely for the hero of the Nibelung land?”

“Let her weep long time,” quoth Hagen. “He hath lain these many years, done to death. Let her love now the Hunnish king. Siegfried cometh not again, he hath long been buried.”

“Let us not talk of Stegfried’s wounds, but if Kriemhild still live, scathe may hap again,” so spake Sir Dietrich, the lord of Berne. “Hope of the Nibelungs, guard thee well against this.”

“Why should I guard me?” spake the high-born king. “Etzel sent us envoys (why should I question more?) to say that we should ride to visit him, hither to this land. My sister Kriemhild sent us many a message, too.”

“Let me counsel you,’ quoth Hagen, “to beg Sir Dietrich and his good knights to tell you the tidings further, and to let you know the Lady Kriemhild’s mood.”

Then the three mighty kings, Gunther and Gernot and Sir Dietrich, too, went and spake apart. “Pray tell us, good and noble knight of Berne, what ye do know of the queen’s mood?”

Answered the lord of Berne: “What more shall I tell you? Every morning I hear King Etzel’s wife wail and weep with piteous mind to the mighty God of heaven over the stalwart Siegfried’s death.”

“That which we have heard,” spake bold Folker, the fiddler, “cannot be turned aside. We must ride to court and abide what may hap to us doughty knights among the Huns.”

The brave Burgundians now rode to court. In