To cool in the dimpling river each summer-fevered limb.
Then Hagen was ware of the wise-wives, and stealthily nearer he crept.
They saw him, and swiftly flashing far off through the ripples leapt.
Laughed they for glee, as fleers that mark a pursuer outrun.
Then seized he their raiment, but further scathe unto them did he none.
Then cried unto him a mermaiden, and Hadburg had she to name:
“Behold, we will tell thee, Hagen, thou knight of peerless fame,—
So thou wilt restore our apparel in guerdon for our rede,—
How thou and thy friends in thy journey to the land of the Huns shall speed.”
They swayed on the swaying water as birds that rock on the sea: