knoweth. If ye have ever seen them, I pray you, Hagen, tell me
now the truth."

"That will I," spake then Hagen. He hied him to a window and
over the guests he let his glances roam. Well liked him their
trappings and their array, but full strange were they to him in
the Burgundian land. He spake: "From wheresoever these warriors
be come unto the Rhine, they may well be princes or envoys of
kings, for their steeds are fair and their garments passing good.
Whencesoever they bear these, forsooth high-mettled warriors be
they."

"I dare well say," so spake Hagen, "though I never have seen
Siegfried, yet can I well believe, however this may be, that he
is the warrior that strideth yonder in such lordly wise. He
bringeth new tidings hither to this land. By this here's hand
were slain the bold Nibelungs, Schilbung and Nibelung, (5) sons
of a mighty king. Since then he hath wrought great marvels with
his huge strength. Once as the hero rode alone without all aid,
he found before a mountain, as I have in sooth been told, by
Nibelung's hoard full many a daring man. Strangers they were to
him, till he gained knowledge of them there.

"The hoard of Nibelung was borne entire from out a hollow hill.
Now hear a wondrous tale, of how the liegemen of Nibelung wished
to divide it there. This the hero Siegfried saw and much it gan
wonder him. So near was he now come to them, that he beheld the
heroes, and the knights espied him, too. One among them spake:
`Here cometh the mighty Siegfried, the hero of Netherland.'
Passing strange were the tidings that, he found among the