Her rival and lifelong enemy Brunehild, who had vied with her in crimes and vices, met with a far more terrible end. After many years of further struggle she fell into the hands of Chlotar II., a son of Fredegond, who inflicted upon her a terrible punishment. Having charged her with the murder of at least ten Merovingian princes, he caused her, though a matron of seventy, to be frightfully tortured for several days; then she was placed on a camel and led for shame through the camp. Finally, she was tied to the tail of a wild horse and dragged to death: the hoofs of the horse crushed the limbs of the sinful queen into a shapeless mass. I know of no poem in the whole range of German literature which gives a more ghastly picture of that realistic scene of atrocity than one in which Ferdinand Freiligrath relates:
"How once in the fields of the river Marne near Chalons
Chlotar, the son of Chilperic, had the sinful Brunehild
Tied by her silver hair to a wild stallion;
To drag her galloping through the Prankish camp.
The neighing stallion started, and the hind hoofs struck
The aged form, breaking and wrenching limb from limb.
Dishevelled flew her whitened hair about her bloody brow.
The pointed pebbles drank her royal blood; and shuddering
Beheld the blood-accustomed Franks the horror of the judgment