Page:The Nibelungenlied - tr. Shumway - 1909.pdf/327

Rh When Sir Rüdeger voided the hall, there followed him, all told, five hundred men or more, kinsmen and vassals of the lord of Bechelaren, from whom King Gunther later gained great scathe. Then a Hunnish champion spied Etzel walking close by Dietrich. He, too, would take this chance, but the fiddler dealt him such a blow that his head felt soon before King Etzel’s feet. When the lord of the land was come outside the house, he turned him about and gazed on Folker. “Woe is me of these guests. This is a direful need, that all my warriors should lie low in death before them. Alas for the feasting,” quoth the noble king. “Like a savage boar there fighteth one within, hight Folker, who is a gleeman. I thank my stars that I escaped this fiend. His glees have an evil sound, the strokes of his bow draw blood; forsooth his measures fell many a hero dead. I wot not, with what this minstrel twitteth us, for I have never had such baleful guest.”

They had permitted whom they would to leave the hall. Then there arose within a mighty uproar; sorely the guests avenged what there had happed them. Ho, what helmets bold Folker broke! The noble King Gunther turned him toward the sound. “Hear ye the measures, Hagen, which Folker yonder fiddleth with the Huns, when any draweth near the towers? ’Tis a blood-red stroke he useth with the bow.”

“It rueth me beyond all measure,” quoth Hagen, “that in this hall I sate me down to rest before the hero did. I was his comrade and he was mine; and come we ever home again, we shall still be so, in loyal wise. Now behold, most noble king, Folker is thy friend, he earneth gladly thy silver and thy gold. His fiddle bow