For all that beside ye have proffered I am ever beholden to you.”
Then answered the Lady Kriemhild: “Though lightly thou reck of my land,
As touching the thanes Burgundian not so doth the matter stand:
For the escort-royal homeward these may no king disdain.
Let my loving brethren give me of these for my princely train.”
Answered and spake Lord Gernot: “Whomsoever thou wilt, take thou.
Thou shalt find here many that gladly will ride with thee, I trow.
There be good knights thirty hundred; take thee a thousand of these
For thy palace-retainers.” Kriemhild ’gan send forth messages
Unto Hagen of Troneg and Ortwein, and asked that mighty twain