CHAP. II.
of Hagen and his men is altogether more dignified. The very weakening of the myth, which was too strong to allow the Homeric poet so to paint them, has enabled the Teutonic bard to ascribe to the slayers of Siegfried a character of real heroism. But here, as in the Odyssey, the scene of vengeance is the great hall; and we have to ask where the roof has ever been raised under which thousands have fought until scarcely one has been left to tell the tale of slaughter. In this hall the Burgundians are left to sleep on beds and couches covered with silks, ermine, and sable. But they are full of misgivings, and Hagen undertakes with Volker to keep watch before the door. Volker, the Phemios of the Odyssey, does more. With the soft and lulling tones of the harp of Hermes or of Pan, he lulls to sleep the sorrows of the men who are soon to die. Through all the house the sweet sounds find their way, until all the warriors are asleep; and then Volker takes his shield and goes out to guard his comrades against any sudden onslaught of the Huns. The tragedy begins on the morrow with the accidental slaying of a Hun by Volker at the jousts which follow the morning mass; and the fight grows hot when Dankwart smites off the head of Blodel, whom Kriemhild had sent to slay him because he was Hagen's brother. But Hagen survives to do the queen more mischief. Her son Ortlieb is being carried from table to table in the banqueting hall, and Hagen strikes off the boy's head which leaps into Kriemhild's lap. The hall runs with blood. Seven thousand bodies are flung down the steps; but Hagen is still unconquered, and Irinc who had charged himself with the office of Blödel, and succeeded in wounding him in the face, falls in his turn a victim to his zeal. A fresh thousand are poured in to avenge his death: the Burgundians slay them all, and then sit down to keep watch with the dead bodies as their seats. The tale goes on with increasing defiance of likelihood and possibility. Kriemhild and Etzel gather before the hall twenty-thousand men; but still the Burgundians maintain the strife deep into the night. When at length they ask for a truce, and Giselher tells his sister that he has never done her harm, her answer is that he is the brother of Siegfried's murderer, and therefore he and all must die unless they will yield up Hagen into her hands. This they refuse, and Kriemhild sets fire to the hall, an incident which occurs in other sagas, as those of Njal and Grettir. Drink there is none, unless it be human blood, which is gushing forth in rivers ; but with this they slake their thirst and nerve their arms, while the burning rafters fall crashing around them, until the fire is extinguished in the horrid streams which gush from human bodies. Thousands have been slain within this fated hall; six
