They swam swiftly away, leaving Siegfried laughing on the shore. For he thought nothing of their words, believing their prophecies to have been threats because he would not give them what they wished.
Laughing still, he blew a long call on his horn, which was answered on all sides by the other hunters, who soon made their appearance, most of them carrying game of some sort—bear or deer; and Hagen, who was one of the first to come into the little glen down by the Rhine, made sport of Siegfried, because he, the best hunter of them all, had no booty to show for his day’s sport.
Siegfried laughingly told them about the three Rhine Maidens who had warned him of his approaching death; and Gunther, moving apart from the others with a curious shadow and sadness on his face, started terribly, while Hagen merely laughed a harsh, revengeful laugh.
Gunther did not forget his Oath of Brotherhood; and, though he believed that Siegfried had deceived him, he hated to harm him, or allow him to be harmed, without better cause. He shuddered and shook his head when the young hero brought him the horn of wine. The rest of the hunters flung themselves down under the trees, and drank merrily and rested in the deepening golden light of the afternoon, but Gunther sat apart from them, gloomy and silent, like one who dreamed sad dreams, and could not arouse himself.
At last, Siegfried, noticing his depression, said that he would tell him the story of his boyhood, if it would amuse and cheer him.
And sitting down on the stump of a great tree, with his shield and weapons at his feet, and on all sides the warriors listening eagerly to his words, the young Volsung began his tale, and Hagen stood near, leaning on his spear, a look of grim expectation on his dark face.
It was of Mime that Siegfried spoke first, Mime and the life in the cave; the forging of Nothung, and finally the journey to Hate Hole, and the slaying of the monster worm, Fafner.
He told how the Dragon’s blood had given him power to understand the language of birds; and, as he spoke, memories of the soft woodland voices and the rustling of the trees passed tenderly across his mind. He told of the winning of the Rhinegold Ring and the Tarnhelm, of the treachery of Mime, and of how he had killed him with Nothung.
Then he paused, for Hagen came up to him with a drinking-horn filled with wine, which he bade him swallow, saying it would help to clear his memory. Siegfried raised it to his lips and drank, and Hagen stood near, leaning on his spear, and smiling grimly. For the wine had in it something that would, indeed, bring back the young hero’s memory, and Hagen knew that, when he remembered Brünnhilde, he would be as one deaf and blind to all else, and would so prove an easy victim.
