men. In our poem she has no reason for wishing his death except
her wounded pride. In the "Nibelungenlied", too, she disappears
from view after Siegfried's death, whereas in the Norse tradition
she ascends his funeral pyre and dies at his side.

The circumstances of Siegfried's death are likewise totally
different in the two versions. In the Norse, as we have seen, he
is murdered while asleep in bed, by Gunnar's younger brother
Gutthorm. In our poem he is killed by Hagen, while bending over
a spring to drink. This is preceded by a scene in which Hagen
treacherously induces Kriemhild to mark the one vulnerable spot
on Siegfried's body, on the plea of protecting him. This deepens
the tragedy, and renders Kriemhild's misery and self-reproaches
the greater. After Siegfried's burial his father, who had also
come to Worms with his son, vainly endeavors to persuade
Kriemhild to return with him to the Netherlands. Her refusal is
unnatural in the extreme, for she had reigned there ten years or
more with Siegfried, and had left her little son behind, and yet
she relinquishes all this and remains with her brothers, whom she
knows to be the murderers of her husband. This is evidently a
reminiscence of an earlier form in which Siegfried was a homeless
adventurer, as in the "Thidreksaga".

The second half of the tale, the destruction of the Nibelungs, is
treated of very briefly in the early Norse versions, but the
"Nibelungenlied", which knows so little of Siegfried's youth, has
developed and enlarged upon the story, until it overshadows the
first part in length and importance and gives the name to the
whole poem. The main difference between the two versions is that
in the older Norse tradition it is Attila who invites the