Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/377

XXVIII.]

Then one of Kriemhild’s liegemen to answer him began:

He is by birth of Tronjé, his sire was Aldrian.

How blithe so e’er he bears him, he hath a spirit grim.

You shall yourself discover I tell no lies of him.”

“How shall I have occasion to know he is so stern?”

(The many sly devices as yet he had to learn,

Wherewith, to catch her kinsmen, the queen sought to contrive

That none of them from Hunsland again might come alive.)

“Well knew I that same Aldrian, a liegeman of mine own,

And here with me he won him  much honour and renown,

’Twas I a knight who dubb’d him, and gave him of my gold;

My faithful Helka bore him much kindness, too, of old.

“And all, by that same token, of Hagen know I well.

Into my hands for hostage two goodly children fell,

He and the Spanish Walther; who being to manhood bred,

I sent back Hagen; Walther with Hildegunda fled.”

He thought of the old stories and all that happ’d of yore,

His olden friend of Tronjé he gladly saw once more,

Who in his youth good service to him ne’er fail’d to lend.

Soon he in age repaid him by death of many a friend.