Painfully he writhed as they watched him, and as he became weaker he spake prophetically.
“Greatly shall ye rue this deed in the days to come,” he groaned, “for know, all of ye, that in slaying me ye have slain yourselves.”
Wet were the flowers with his blood. He struggled grimly with death, but too deep had been the blow, and at last he spake no more.
They laid his body on a shield of ruddy gold and took counsel with one another how they should hide that the deed had been done by Hagen.
“Sure have we fallen on evil days,” said many; “but let us all hide this thing, and hold to one tale: that is, that as Siegfried rode alone in the forest he was slain by robbers.”
“But,” said Hagen of Trony, “I will myself bear him back to Burgundy. It is little concern of mine if Kriemhild weep.”
Kriemhild’s Grief
Great was the grief of Kriemhild when she learned of the murder of her husband, whose body had been placed at her very door by the remorseless Hagen. He and the rest of the Burgundians pretended that Siegfried had been slain by bandits, but on their approach the wounds of Siegfried commenced to bleed afresh in mute witness of treachery. Kriemhild secretly vowed a terrible revenge and would not quit the land where her beloved spouse was buried. For four years she spake never a word to Gunther or Hagen, but sat silent and sad in a chamber near the minster where Siegfried was buried. Gunther sent for the Nibelungen treasure for the purpose of propitiating her, but she distributed it so freely among Gunther’s dependents that Hagen conceived the suspicion that her intention was to suborn them to her cause and foment rebellion within the Burgundian dominions; therefore he seized it and sank it in the Rhine, forcing Kriemhild’s brethren never to divulge its whereabouts.
It is a circumstance of some importance that when this treasure enters the land of the Burgundians they take the name of Nibelungs, as Siegfried was called Lord of the Nibelungs on first possessing the hoard, and for this reason that part of the poem which commences with the Burgundian acquirement of the treasure was formerly known as the Nibelungen Not.
The confiscation of the treasure was another sharp wound to Kriemhild, who appears to have bitterly cherished every hostile act committed against her by her uncle Hagen and her brothers, and to have secretly nursed her grievances throughout the remainder of her saddened existence.