Nibelungs to his court and attacks them in order to gain
possession of the treasure, while Gudrun (Kriemhild) first tries
to reconcile the warring parties, and, not succeeding in this,
snatches up a sword and fights on the side of her brothers and
later kills her husband as an act of revenge. In the
"Thidreksaga" and the "Nibelungenlied", however, she is the
instigator of the fight and the cause of her brothers' death, and
finally suffers death herself at the hands of Master Hildebrand,
who is furious that such noble heroes should fall at a woman's
hand. The second part of the poem is grewsome reading at best,
with its weltering corpses and torrents of blood. The horror is
relieved only by the grim humor of Hagen and by the charming
scene at Rudeger's court, where the young prince Giselher is
betrothed to Rudeger's daughter. Rudeger is without doubt the
most tragic figure of this part. He is bound on the one hand by
his oath of allegiance to Kriemhild and on the other by ties of
friendship to the Burgundians. His agony of mind at the dilemma
in which Kriemhild's command to attack the Burgundians places him
is pitiful. Divided between love and duty, the conviction that
he must fulfill his vow, cost what it may, gradually forces
itself upon him and he rushes to his death in combat with his
dearest friends.

Towering above all others in its gloomy grandeur stands the
figure of Hagen, the real hero of the second half of the poem.
Fully aware that he is going to his death, he nevertheless scorns
to desert his companions-in-arms, and awaits the fate in store
for him with a stoicism that would do honor to a Spartan. He
calmly accepts the consequences of his crime, and to the last
mocks and scoffs at Kriemhild, until her fury knows no bounds.