Gudrun shook her head. “We may take no gifts from ye, fair sirs,” she answered, “yet put your questions quickly, for we must not stay. If it were known at the castle that we had talked with you, we should pay dearly for it.”
“First tell us, then,” said Herwig, “to whom may all these rich lands and castles belong?”
“King Ludwig is lord of this land, and in yonder castle holds his court,” replied Gudrun.
Herwig asked if Hartmut was then at home, and Gudrun answered: “He is even now within the castle, and with him full four thousand of his knights.”
The maidens would fain have departed, yet they were loath to leave the strangers, whose speech reminded them so much of home.
“We would learn further,” said Ortwin, “wherefore Hartmut hath so many knights assembled at the castle. Is he perchance at feud with some neighboring country and seeking to guard himself against attack?”
“Of that I know naught,” replied Gudrun; but after a pause she added: “Yet there is one, a far distant land whose power Hartmut well might fear. It is called Hegelingen.” As the name of the fatherland passed her lips tears streamed down the maiden’s cheeks and she turned away to hide them.
When the heroes saw how the damsels shook with cold they hastily offered their cloaks, but Gudrun refused them, saying: “May God reward your kindness, gentle sirs, but none shall ever see me in man’s attire.”
Thereupon Herwig looked more closely at her, and a sigh escaped him as he seemed to see a likeness to the fair betrothed whom he supposed to have been forced to become Hartmut’s wife, little thinking that she now stood before him.
Again Ortwin questioned her: “Were not some noble damsels once brought hither from a distant land? One of them was called Gudrun.”