THIRTY-EIGHTH ADVENTURE
HOW SIR DIETRICH'S MEN WERE ALL SLAIN
I
The cry of lamentation now spread so far around
That tower and hall and palace rang with the rueful sound.
A certain Berner heard it, the noble Dietrich's man.
To tell the bloody tidings, how swift away he ran!
Then thus the prince bespake he, "Sir Dietrich, hear my tale;
Surely heard I never such wild and woful wail,
As in my ears is ringing, through all the life I've past.
The king himself, I doubt not, has join'd the feast at last.
III
"Why else should such loud sorrow through all the people spread?
The king, or Lady Kriemhild, or both of them are dead,
By those redoubted strangers laid low through fell despite;
So weeping and so wailing is many a courtly knight."
IV