“Nay, for the love of God,” said Hagen. “I am a stranger knight that have the charge of other warriors. Take thy fee and row me over, for I am a friend.”
But the boatman answered, “I will not. My dear masters have foemen, wherefore I must bring no stranger across. If thou lovest thy life, step out on to the shore again.”
“Nay now,” said Hagen, “I am sore bested. Take, as a keepsake, this goodly gold, and ferry us over with our thousand horses and our many men.”
But the grim boatman answered, “Never!” He seized an oar, mickle and broad, and smote Hagen (soon he rued it), that he staggered and fell on his knees. Seldom had he of Trony encountered so grim a ferryman. Further, to anger the bold stranger, he brake a boat-pole over his head, for he was a strong man. But he did it to his own hurt.
Grimly wroth, Hagen drew a weapon from the sheath, and cut off his head, and threw it on the ground. The Burgundians were soon ware of the tidings.
In the same moment that he slew the ferryman, the boat was caught by the current, which irked him no little, for he was weary or he could bring her head round, albeit Gunther’s man rowed stoutly. With swift strokes he sought to turn it, till the oar brake in his hand. He strove to reach the knights on the strand, but had no other oar. Ha! how nimbly he bound it together with the thong of his shield, a narrow broidered band, and rowed to a wood down the river.
There he found his masters waiting on the beach. Many a valiant knight ran to meet him, and greeted him joyfully. But when they saw the boat full of blood from the grim wound he had given the ferryman, they began to question him.
When Gunther saw the hot blood heaving in the boat, he said quickly, “Tell me what thou hast done with the ferryman. I ween he hath fallen by thy strength.”
But he answered with a lie, “I found the boat by a waste meadow, and loosed it. I have seen no ferryman this day, nor hath any suffered hurt at my hand.”
Then said Sir Gernot of Burgundy, “I am heavy of my cheer because of the dear friends that must die or night, for boatmen we have none. Sorrowfully I stand, nor know how we shall win over.”