Then the Burgundians sat and rested, and laid down their weapons and their shields. The bold gleeman went out before the house, and waited, lest any more should come to fight.
The king and his wife wailed loud. Maids and wives beat their breasts. I ween that Death had sworn an oath against them, for many a knight was yet to die by the hands of the strangers.
Thirty-Sixth Adventure
How the Queen Bad Them Burn Down the Hall
“Now do off your helmets,” said Hagen the knight. “I and my comrade will keep watch. And if Etzel’s men try it again, I will warn my masters straightway.”
Then many a good warrior unlaced his helmet. They sat down on the bodies that had fallen in the blood by their hands. With bitter hate the guests were spied at by the Huns.
Before nightfall the king and queen had prevailed on the men of Hungary to dare the combat anew. Twenty thousand or more stood before them ready for battle. These hasted to fall on the strangers.
Dankwart, Hagen’s brother, sprang from his masters to the foemen at the door. They thought he was slain, but he came forth alive.
The strife endured till the night. The guests, as beseemed good warriors, had defended them against Etzel’s men all through the long summer day. Ha! what doughty heroes lay dead before them. It was on a midsummer that the great slaughter fell, when Kriemhild avenged her heart’s dole on her nearest kinsmen, and on many another man, and all King Etzel’s joy was ended. Yet she purposed not at the first to bring it to such a bloody encounter, but only to kill Hagen; but the Devil contrived it so, that they must all perish.
The day was done; they were in sore straits. They deemed a quick death had been better than long anguish. The proud knights would fain have had a truce. They asked that the king might be brought to them.
The heroes, red with blood, and blackened with the soil of their harness, stepped out of the hall with the three kings. They knew not whom to bewail their bitter woe to.