On a broad meadow fringing the greenwood they camped, near to the place where they were to begin the hunt, and watchers were sent round the camp, so that no one with a message of warning on his lips might win to the ears of Siegfried.
Siegfried waxed restless, for he had come not to feast but to hunt, and he desired to be home again with Kriemhild. “Ha, comrades,” he cried; “who will into the forest with me and rouse the game?”
“Then,” said the crafty Hagen, “let us find who is the best sportsman. Let us divide the huntsmen and the hounds so that each may ride alone where he chooses; and great praise shall be to him who hunts the best and bears off the palm.”
To this Siegfried agreed, and asked only for one hound that had been well broken to the chase to accompany him.
This was granted. Then there came an old huntsman with a limehound and led the sportsmen to where there was an abundance of game. Many beasts were started and hunted to the death, as is ever the way with good huntsmen.
Nothing that the limehound started could escape Siegfried. Swift was his steed as the tempest, and whether it was bear or boar he soon came up with it and slew it. Once he encountered a stark and mighty lion. Aiming an arrow at the monster, he shot it through the heart. The forest rang with acclaim at the deed.
Then there fell by his hand a buffalo, an elk, four grim aurochs, and a bear, nor could deer or hind escape him, so swift and wight was he. Anon he brought a wild boar to bay. The grisly beast charged him, but, drawing his sword, Siegfried transfixed it with the shining blade.
“I pray thee, lord,” said the huntsman, “leave to us something living, for in truth thy strong arm doth empty both mountain and forest.”
Merrily rang the noise of the chase in the greenwood that day. The hills and the leafy aisles of the forest resounded with the shouts of the hunters and the baying of dogs. In that hunting many a beast met its death-day and great was the rivalry. But when the hunting was over and the heroes met at the tryst-fire, they saw that Siegfried had proved himself the greatest huntsmen of them all.
One by one they returned from the forest to the trysting-place, carrying with them the shaggy fell of the bear, the bristly boar-skin, and the grey pelt of the wolf. Meat abounded in that place, and the blast of a horn announced to the hungry knights that the King was about to feast. Said Siegfried’s huntsman to him: “I hear the blast of a horn bidding us return to the trysting-place,” and raising his bugle to his lips, he answered it.