After the strangers had been refreshed with wine, her liegemen sent to the Queen to tell her that strange guests had arrived.
"Who are the strangers who come thus unheralded to my land?" haughtily demanded Brunhild.
But no one could tell her who the warriors were, though some murmured that the tallest and fairest might be the great hero Siegfried.
It may be that the Queen thought that if the knight were indeed Siegfried she would revenge herself on him now for the mischievous pranks he had played the last time he was in her kingdom. In any case she said, "If the hero is here he shall enter into contest with me, and he shall pay for his boldness with his life, for I shall be the victor."
Then with five hundred warriors, each with his sword in hand, Brunhild came down to the knights from Burgundy.
"Be welcome, Siegfried," she cried, "yet wherefore hast thou come again to Isenland?"
"I thank thee for thy greeting, lady," said the Prince, "but thou hast welcomed me before my lord. He, King Gunther, ruler over the fair realms of Burgundy, hath come hither to wed with thee."
Brunhild was displeased that the mighty hero should not himself seek to win her as a bride, yet since for all his prowess he seemed but a vassal of the King, she answered, "If thy master can vanquish me in the contests to which I bid him, then I will be his wife, but if I conquer thy master, his life, and the lives of his followers will be forfeited."
"What dost thou demand of my master?" asked Hagen.