No man would have slain him, had Hagen the wicked deed not done.
Not long thereafter the plotters brought to pass their intent
That Kriemhild the Daughter of Princes for the Hoard of the Treasure sent
To the land of the Niblungs: to Rhineland she caused them to bring the same.
’Twas her morning-gift, nor its warders might hold it against her claim.
So Giselher and Gernot to bring that Hoard must wend;
And armed men eighty hundred did the Lady Kriemhild send
To bring that hidden treasure from the caverns wherein it lay,
And Alberich the Dwarf-knight and his stout friends warded it aye.
When they saw these men from the Rhineland which had come for the Treasure’s sake,