“I had made shift to do without Folker,” said the king’s wife. “Hagen I esteem; he is a good knight. I am right glad that we shall see him here.”
Then Kriemhild went to the king, and spake to him right sweetly, “How doth the news please thee, dearest lord? All my heart’s desire shall now be satisfied.”
“Thy will is my pleasure,” answered the king. “I were less glad had it been mine own kinsmen. Through love of thy dear brethren all my cares have vanished.”
Etzel’s officers bade fit up palace and hall everywhere with seats for the welcome guests. They took much joy from the king.
Twenty-Fifth Adventure
How the Kings Journeyed to the Huns
But of their doings there we shall tell no further. High-hearted heroes never rode so proudly into any king’s land. All that they wanted they had, both of weapons and apparel. They say that the Prince of the Rhine equipped a thousand and three score of knights, and nine thousand squires for the hightide. They that tarried at home were soon to weep for them.
Whilst they carried their harness across the court at Worms, an old bishop from Spires said to fair Uta, “Our friends will ride to the hightide. God help them there.”
Then noble Uta said to her children, “Stay here, good heroes. Last night I dreamed an evil dream, that all the birds in this land were dead.”
“He that goeth by dreams,” said Hagen, “careth little for his honour. I would have my noble master take leave without delay, and ride forward merrily into Etzel’s land. There kings need heroes’ hands to serve them, and we must see Kriemhild’s hightide.”
Hagen counselled them now to the journey, but he rued it later. He had withstood them, but that Gernot had mocked him. He minded him on Siegfried, Kriemhild’s husband, and said, “It is for that, that Hagen durst not go.”