Thirty-Fourth Adventure — How They Threw Down the Dead
The knights sat down through weariness. Folker and Hagen went out before the hall. There the overweening men leaned on their shields and spake together.
Then said Giselher of Burgundy, “Rest not yet, dear friends. Ye must carry the dead out of the house. We shall be set upon again; trow my word. These cannot lie longer among our feet. Or the Huns overcome us, we will hew many wounds; to the which I am nothing loth.”
“Well for me that I have such a lord,” answered Hagen. “This counsel suiteth well such a knight as our young master hath approved him this day. Ye Burgundians have cause to rejoice.”
They did as he commanded, and bare the seven thousand dead bodies to the door, and threw them out. They fell down at the foot of the stair. Then arose a great wail from their kinsmen. Some of them were so little wounded that, with softer nursing, they had come to. Now, from the fall, these died also. Their friends wept and made bitter dole.
Then said bold Folker the fiddler, “Now I perceive they spake the truth that told me the Huns were cowards. They weep like women, when they might tend these wounded bodies.”
A Margrave that was there deemed he meant this truly. He saw one of his kinsmen lying in his blood, and put his arms round him to bear him away. Him the minstrel shot dead.
When the others saw this, they fled, and began to curse Folker. With that, he lifted a sharp spear and hard from the ground, that a Hun had shot at him, and hurled it strongly across the courtyard, over the heads of the folk. Etzel’s men took their stand further off, for they all feared his might.
Then came Etzel with his men before the hall. Folker and Hagen began to speak out their mind to the King of the Huns. They suffered for it or all was done.
“It is well for a people when its kings fight in the forefront of the strife as doeth each of my masters. They hew the helmets, and the blood spurteth out.”
Etzel was brave, and he grasped his shield. “Have a care,” cried Kriemhild, “and offer thy knights gold heaped upon the shield. If Hagen reach thee, thou hast death at thy hand.”
But the king was so bold he would not stop; the which is rare enow among great princes to-day. They had to pull him back by his shield-thong; whereat grim Hagen began to mock anew. “Siegfried’s darling and Etzel’s are near of kin. Siegfried had Kriemhild to wife or ever she saw thee. Coward king, thou, of all men, shouldst bear me no grudge.”
When Kriemhild heard him, she was bitterly wroth that he durst mock her before Etzel’s warriors, and she strove to work them woe. She said, “To him that will slay Hagen of Trony and bring me his head, I will fill Etzel’s shield with red gold. Thereto, he shall have, for his meed, goodly castles and land.”
“I know not why ye hang back,” said the minstrel. “I never yet saw heroes stand dismayed that had the offer of such pay. Etzel hath small cause to love you. I see many cowards standing here that eat the king’s bread, and fail him now in his sore need, and yet call themselves bold knights. Shame upon them!”
Great Etzel was grieved enow. He wept sore for his dead men and kinsmen. Valiant warriors of many lands stood round him, and bewailed his great loss with him.
Then bold Folker mocked them again. “I see many high-born knights weeping here, that help their king little in his need. Long have they eaten his bread with shame.”
The best among them thought, “He sayeth sooth.”
But none mourned so inly as Iring, the hero of Denmark; the which was proven or long by his deeds.