From the queen he went, and called his followers round : Five hundred men and twelve brave knights were in his service found.

They buckled on their armour soon, and on to battle pressed;

But Rudiger before them walked with sorrow in his breast.

When Geiselher beheld the band, he smiled with joy and cried,

'A friend is coming! Rudiger is surely on our side.'

But Volker turned to Geiselher, and bade his triumph

cease; 'These men with swords and shields,' said he, come not to talk of peace!'

Now Rudiger came slowly on, and halted, with his band Before the hall, and bade his men prepare for battle stand. 'I come,' said he, 'to Gunther's friends no words of peace to bring:

Defend yourselves, Burgundians! I must obey my king!'

'But Heaven forbid,' said Gunther then, 'that I should lift my hand

Against the friend who welcomed me into this foreign land!'

'Ah! that I ever welcomed you I bitterly repent,' Said Rudiger; but Etzel's wife refuses to relent.'

Then said Gernot to Rudiger, I loved you as a friend; But if you fight against my king, our friendship has an

end;

And with the sword you gave me I must take away your

life,

However I may sorrow for your daughter and your wife!'

'Heaven pity us!' said Rudiger; then turning to his band, Who lifted up their swords and shields, he gave the stern command

To rush on the Burgundians within the castle-hall ;

But Haco stayed the onset with a loud and sudden call.

'One moment wait!' said Haco; 'you see this battered shield

Has stopped the blows of many swords, but now begins to

yield.

I brought it to this country as the present of your wife— Had I the shield you carry, I could well defend my life!'

'Then I give it you,' said Rudiger; and yet, if this is known,

I fear that I shall seem unfaithful to the throne;

But here at once, brave Haco, I place it in your hand,
And may you live to carry it to Burgundy's fair land!'

Rudiger falls and many of the Huns with him; and at length all the Burgundians are slain save Gunther and Haco, who now stood at the entrance of the hall guarding the bodies of their companions who had fallen in their heroic resistance. Dietrich, who had joined in the strife when Rudiger fell, called on the two heroes to yield, but they scornfully refused; Dietrich then challenged them to single combat, and overcame them both. He carried them to the queen and besought her to spare their lives, but Kriemhilt ordered them to be confined separately; she then visited Haco, urged him to give up

the Nibelungen treasure, and promised to free both him and Gunther on that condition, but Haco would not consent to reveal where the treasure was hid.

Then spoke the fearless Haco, ‘Your talking is in vain ; For I have sworn that buried deep your treasure shall

remain,

While one of Gunther's family still lives to claim the

throne;

So cease to ask-do what you will-my secret is my own.' Then turning to a follower, Queen Kriemhilt bade him go To the cell where Gunther lay, and strike the fatal blow; And Haco cried with sorrow when he saw the servant bring The head of Kriemhilt's brother, the brave Burgundian king.

Still this had no effect upon the stubborn hero-he would not betray the secret even yet, and he further infuriated the insensate queen by saying that since Gunther was now dead the knowledge of the spot where the treasure was hidden was only known to himself, and that knowledge he would take to the grave with him.

Then be it so!' said Kriemhilt; 'you have at least restored

To me one costly treasure, my noble Siegfried's sword.' She drew it from its scabbard, struck off the hero's head, And Etzel cried aloud to see the mighty Haco dead.

'Without revenge he shall not die !' said ancient Hildebrand;

'I will not see a hero fall beneath a woman's hand!'

He drew his sword against the queen, and smote her in the side;

So Kriemhilt fell beneath the blow, and 'mid her kinsmen

died.

Thus vainly was the life-blood of many heroes shed;
Dietrich and Etzel, left alone, lamented o'er the dead;
And in dismal wailings ended the banquet of the king :
Thus love doth evermore its dole and sorrow bring.

I cannot tell you more: how, when the news was spread,
Fair ladies, knights, and squires, were weeping for the

dead:

What afterwards befell 'tis not my task to say,

For here my story ends-the Nibelungen lay.

Thus tragically ends the story of the Nibelungen, and it cannot but be observed how the various heroes throughout the poem take delight in war and bloodshed, how reckless they are in the taking away of life, and how unswerving the loyalty of their followers-thousands sacrificing themselves in a trivial quarrel. The poem has, however, in spite of its unpleasant nature in these respects, kept a firm hold on the imaginations of the German people; and the work has also, in recent times, acquired an importance among German scholars in a historical and philological point of view, as affording glimpses of the manners and customs of those old times and lands in which the scene is laid. Several of the

characters have been identified with historical persons, -as, for instance, Etzel with Attila, king of the Huns, and Dietrich with Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. With regard to the poem as a whole, it is difficult to give a critical analysis,-the incongruities which exist in it, the mixture of the fabulous with that which is really historical fact, render this almost impossible; but it has served an important purpose in creating a love for and search into treasures of folk-lore which might otherwise have been lost sight of and forgotten. It may be said, in conclusion, that much of the rude energy shown in the 'Lay of the Nibelungen' still remains in the Norse land, but happily, through the ameliorating influence of more enlightened days, it has been beneficially directed into better channels.

'To the Germans this Nibelungen Song is naturally an object of no common love; neither, if they sometimes overvalue it, and vague antiquarian wonder is more common than just criticism, should the fault be too heavily visited. After long ages of concealment, they have found it in the remote wilderness, still standing like the trunk of some almost antediluvian oak; nay, with boughs on it still green, after all the wind and weather of twelve hundred years. To many a patriotic feeling,