Unlace ye now your helmets," spake Hagen Troneg's lord

"Unlace ye now your helmets," spake Hagen Troneg's lord. "I and my comrade Volker will again keep watch and ward; And if yon vassals of Etzel once more the onset essay, Straightway will I warn my masters with all the speed I may." Then loosed was the band of his helmet by many a warrior good; And they sat them down on the corpses that lay there in their blood, Which had come by the hands Burgundian to their death, and cumbered the floor, The while with bitter hatred the Hunfolk scowled at the door.

Ere the evening shadows had fallen, the King by hest and prayer, With Kriemhild the Queen, had persuaded that with hope of fortune fair The Huns should essay the onset again: in huge array They stood, full twenty thousand in ordered ranks for the fray. Then a wilder battle-tempest against the King's guests swept. Dankwart, the brother of Hagen, the mighty warrior, leapt From beside his lords to the foemen to meet them afront of the hall. They deemed him verily death-doomed, yet scatheless he won through all. Long lasted that stubborn conflict till the shadows darkened down; And the guests still stood unflinching like heroes of renown Against the hosts of Etzel through that long summer day. Ha, what unnumbered heroes in death before them lay!

In the fair midsummer season was that mighty murder wrought, When Kriemhild for her heart's anguish revenge so dearly bought On her own nearest kinsfolk and on many guiltless men, By reason whereof King Etzel knew never joy again. (C) But so grim and great a murder had she purposed not at the first: Nay, in the strife's beginning one thought in her breast she nursed,