([St. XII.]) The Ballad of Lord Thomas and Fair Annet has something similar of the lady's horse:
Four and twenty siller bells
Wer a' tyed till his mane,
And yae tift of the norland wind,
They tinkled ane by ane.
([St. XVI.]) This description of a castle (burc) does not materially differ from those which occur elsewhere in the poem. The castle was not one building, however large and complex, but included in the same ample circuit of its walls several extensive buildings, and afforded sufficient accommodation for a very great number of persons. The most conspicuous of the buildings within the castle seem to have been large detached erections, to which in this poem are applied the words hûs (house), palas (palace), sal (hall), and gadem (room). In the passage before us, palas and sal are distinguished from one another; the same is the case at St. LXXXIV, Twenty-fourth Adventure (palas unde sal), and at St. XXXVII, Ninth Adventure, where Etzel's and Gunther's dwellings are respectively spoken of. On the other hand, the hall where the Burgundians feast with Etzel, and where the repeated conflicts take place, is called palas at St. XIX, Thirty-sixth Adventure, sal at St. XX, same Adventure, hûs at St. IX, same Adventure, and gadem at St. XX, Thirty-ninth Adventure, not to mention other passages; and the large building in Etzel's castle, where Gunther and his knights sleep, is called sal at stanzas VII and XVI, hûs at stanzas XV and XVII, and gadem at St. XIX, of the Thirtieth Adventure. These terms therefore seem nearly synonymous, or at least equally applicable to the large detached buildings in question, which resembled our public halls, such as Westminster hall and Guild-hall, and the halls of colleges and Inns of Court. Some of the halls in this poem seem to have been of truly poetical dimensions. Gunther (St. XXVI, of the Thirteenth Adventure) entertains in his hall twelve hundred knights of Siegfried's, besides his own Burgundians. Etzel's circle was still more numerous. The Burgundian knights were more than a thousand in number; Rudeger's five hundred or more: Dietrich had many a stately man, no doubt the six hundred mentioned at St. IV, of the Thirty-second Adventure, and we learn from stanza V, of the Thirty-fourth Adventure, that 7,000 Huns were massacred by the Burgundians; all these made up a dinner party of about 9,000 guests. The less aristocratic followers of Gunther, 9,000 in number, seem also to have been feasting in one immense room, when the Huns took advantage of their unarmed condition to massacre them. The term, indeed, applied to the building is hûs, but this, we have seen, is one of the words used to designate great public halls. The hall, where Gunther and his knights lay so splendidly (St. IX, Thirtieth Adventure), seems to have been an Eton Long Chamber on a gigantic scale. After allowing for the twelve knights with Dankwart and the yeomen, he must have had more than a thousand warriors in his train. Treachery and violence were so common in the Middle Ages, that a great man was not safe except with a multitude of dependents about him, and the peculiar circumstances of Gunther's case required peculiar precaution. Yet even Siegfried took a thousand warriors of his own, and a hundred of Siegmund's, when they went together to visit his brother-in-law. These large halls were used for feasting, dancing, conversation, and sleeping, but there were other smaller separate buildings (kemenaten) for the residence of people of consequence, which no doubt contained several rooms. These also formed the bowers, or private apartments, of high-born ladies. The kamere (chamber) seems to have been a room used for all sorts of purposes, among others for keeping stores and treasure as well as for living and sleeping. There seem to have been no private chapels within the walls of the castles described in this poem, none, for instance, such as St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, or the chapels in our Inns of Court and Colleges. Everybody went for his divinity to the minster. Kriemhild, who was in the habit of going to matins before daybreak, took her way to the minster, though it was so far from the castle at Worms that the ladies (St. XXXIV, Thirteenth Adventure) rode on horseback from one to the other. Gunther's castle was connected with the city of Worms, but seems to have communicated with the surrounding country, like the citadels of our present fortified towns. At stanzas XXXII, XXXIII, Thirteenth Adventure, the ladies view from the castle windows a tournament held in the country outside the walls. Etzel's castle, as far as I remember, is not represented as connected with any town.
([St. XXII.]) All this description of the adventurers bears a resemblance to the passage in the Iliad where Helen points out the Greek chiefs to Priam; it reminds us also of the imitation of Homer in the "Jerusalem Delivered."
([St. XXXIV.]) Siegfried here seems to apologize to Brunhild for presenting himself before her.
([St. XLIII.]) Compare stanzas LXXXIV, Seventh Adventure—LXXXV, Tenth Adventure—XXXI, Nineteenth Adventure, and the observations.
([St. XLVI.]) I cannot understand how the skin could be seen under a silken surcoat, which was so strong as never to have been cut by weapon, and which was moreover worn over a breastplate. Lachmann has reason to say "die Brunne ist vergessen."
So did Sir Artegal upon her lay,
As if she had an iron anvil been,
That flakes of fire, bright as the sunny ray,
Out of her steely arms were flashing seen,
That all on fire you would her surely ween.