'Nay,' cried Brunhild angrily, 'nay, thou dost forget thy brother, King Gunther. None, I trow, is mightier than he.'
Then the gentle Kriemhild forgot her gentle ways, and bitter to Queen Brunhild's ears were the words she spoke.
'My royal brother is neither strong nor brave as is my lord,' she cried. 'Dost thou not know that Siegfried it was, not Gunther, who vanquished thee in the contests held at thy castle in Isenland? Dost thou not know that it was Siegfried, clad in his Coat of Darkness, who wrested from thee both thy girdle and thy ring?' And Kriemhild pointed to the girdle which she was wearing round her waist, to the ring which she was wearing on her finger.
Brunhild, when she saw her girdle and her ring, wept, and her tears were tears of anger. Never would she forgive Siegfried for treating her thus; never would she forgive Kriemhild for telling her the truth.
'Alas! alas!' cried the angry Queen, 'no hero have I wed, but a feeble-hearted knave.'
Meanwhile, Kriemhild, already grieved that she had spoken thus foolishly, had left the angry Queen and gone down to the Minster to vespers.
That evening Brunhild had no smiles, no gentle words, for her lord.
'It was Siegfried, not thou, my lord, who vanquished me in the contests at Isenland,' she said in a cold voice to the startled King.
Had Siegfried then dared to boast to the Queen of the wonderful feats he had done in the land across the sea? Nay, King Gunther could not quite believe that the hero would thus boast of his great strength.
But the Queen was still scolding him, so Gunther, in his dismay, stammered, 'We will summon the King to our presence, and he shall tell us why he has dared to boast of his might as though he were stronger than I.'