Pretended messengers came to announce to Günther that the Saxons again threatened war against him. Siegfried proposed to take part in the war, and preparations were at once begun. Hagan, with pretended tenderness, told Kriemhild of the coming danger, and asked her if her lord had a weak place, that he might know and guard it for him. Kriemhild confided to him her husband's secret. When Siegfried was bathing in the dragon's blood, a leaf fell between his shoulders, and that spot was vulnerable. There she would embroider a cross on his vesture that Hagan might protect him in the shock of battle.
The war was now abandoned and a great hunt undertaken. Gernot and Giselher, though they did not see fit to warn Siegfried, refused to take part in the plot and go to the hunt. Many a lion, elk, and boar fell by Siegfried's hand that day before the hunters were called together to the royal breakfast; when they at last sat down in the flowery meadow the wine was wanting, and the warriors were compelled to quench their thirst at a brooklet near by.
"A race!" cried the hero; and he, Hagan, and Günther ran for the brook, Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst, Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom he had served so faithfully.
To add cruelty to cruelty, the vindictive Hagan placed the body of Siegfried outside Kriemhild's chamber door, where she would stumble over it as she went out to early mass next morning. Down she fell fainting when she recognized her husband, and reviving, shrieked in her anguish, "Brunhild planned it; Hagan struck the blow!"
Her grief was terrible to see. One moment the unhappy queen was accusing herself for revealing her husband's secret; again she was vowing revenge against Hagan, and at another time she reviled the traitorous Günther.
When her father-in-law Siegmund returned home, she would not go with him, but remained near the body of her husband, under the protection of her brothers Gernot and Giselher and in the company of her mother.
Kriemhild, living in joyless state in her lonely palace, was at last induced to speak to Günther and pardon him. The pardon granted, Günther and Hagan at once plotted to have the Nibelungen hoard, Siegfried's morning-gift to Kriemhild, brought to Worms. Never before was such a treasure seen. Twelve huge wagons, journeying thrice a day, required four nights and days to carry it from the mountain to the bay. It consisted of nothing but precious stones and gold, and with it was the magic wishing-rod. It filled Kriemhild's towers and chambers to overflowing, and won many friends for the queen, who distributed it liberally.
When the envious Hagan could not induce Günther to take the treasure from Kriemhild, he selected a time when the king and his brothers were away from home, and seizing the treasure, cast it into the Rhine, hoping to get it again. In this he failed, so the great treasure was forever lost.
Thus ends the first part of the Lay of the Nibelungen. The second part is sometimes called the Need or Fall of the Nibelungen.
While Kriemhild was bewailing her loss and revolving plans for revenge, Etzel, King of the Huns, who had heard of the charms of Siegfried's widow, sent the noble Margrave Rüdeger into Burgundy with proposals for her hand.