If you shall strike one lady, I give you now this warning,
Your life shall quick be ended; your kinsmen too shall hang, this very morning.”
[1477]
Back then sprang the rascal,— his anger he did fear;
For now the youthful Hartmut held his life not dear,
When to the homeless maidens he his help was giving:
With care was he o’erladen, while from grim death to free them he was striving.
[1478]
Quickly then came Ortrun, she of Norman lands,
The fair and youthful princess; in woe she wrung her hands.