The Nibelungenlied (Classics) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

How Dancwart slew Bloedelin

BLOEDELIN’s stalwarts were all in readiness and they set out with a thousand hauberks and came to where Dancwart sat at table with the squires, and there the bitterest of battles broke out among those warriors.

When lord Bloedelin went up to the board, Dancwart the Marshal received him with every attention. ‘Welcome to our quarters, my lord Bloedelin! I wonder what it is that brings you here?’

‘You have no cause to bid me welcome,’ replied Bloedelin. ‘My coming means the end of you – your brother Hagen murdered Siegfried! You and many other knights will have to pay for this in Hungary.’

‘Do not say so, lord Bloedelin,’ answered Dancwart, ‘otherwise we shall dearly regret our visit here. I myself was a little child when Siegfried lost his life,1 so I cannot imagine what King Etzel’s queen has to reproach me with.’

‘I can tell you no more than this: it was your kinsmen Gunther and Hagen that did the deed. Defend yourselves, you wretched foreigners – nothing can save you now. You must stand forfeit to Kriemhild with your lives!’

‘Then you mean to go through with it ?’ asked Dancwart. ‘In that case I am sorry I ever appealed to you. It would have been better had I refrained.’ And the valiant warrior leapt up from the table, drew his great sharp sword and struck Bloedelin such a violent blow that – in a trice! – his head lay at his feet. ‘Let that2 be your nuptial gift to Nuodung’s betrothed, whose loves you were hoping to enjoy! They can affiance her to another man tomorrow: if he wants the bridal gift1, the same will happen to him.’ (A loyal-hearted Hun had told him that the Queen was plotting great ills for them).

Seeing their lord dead on the ground, Bloedelin’s men would no longer stand it from the strangers. Raising their swords aloft, they sprang at the boys in a fury (though many were to rue it later).

‘You see for yourselves, noble squires, which way things are going,’ shouted Dancwart to his retinue. ‘Now defend yourselves here in this foreign land – I swear you have great need to do so, despite the sweet messages which noble Kriemhild sent us.’

Those who had no swords to hand groped below the benches and lifted from under their feet diverse long foot-rests – the squires of Burgundy were not going to take it lying down! – and wielding these heavy stools they inflicted scores of great bruises through the helmets. How fiercely those forlorn youngsters defended themselves! They eventually drove the armed men from the building, though not before five hundred or more of these had fallen, while the squires themselves ran red with blood.

The startling news that Bloedelin and many of his men had been skin by Hagen’s brother and the squires was then reported to Etzel’s warriors, and deeply did it grieve them. And before the King came to hear of it two thousand Huns or more armed

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