to sleep with his violin,
and then stands guard with Hagen, thus preventing the surprise planned
by Kriemhild; further, the visit to the church on the following morning,
when the men of both parties clash; and lastly the tournament between
the Huns and the Burgundians, which gives the author an excellent chance
to show the prowess of the various heroes.

Let us pass now to the consideration of the strophic form of the
"Nibelungenlied". The two Danish ballads of "Grimhild's Revenge"
("Grimhild's Haevn"), which are based upon the first combination of
the Low German, i.e., Saxon, and the Rhenish traditions, prove that the
strophe is considerably older than the preserved redactions of our poem,
and that it was probably of Saxon origin. The metrical form goes back
most probably to the four-accented verse of the poet Otfrid of the ninth
century, although some have thought that Latin hymns, others that the
French epic verse, may have been of influence. The direct derivation
from Otfrid seems, however, the most plausible, as it accounts for the
importance of the caesura, which generally marks a pause in the
sense, as well as in the verse, and also for its masculine ending. The
"Nibelungen" strophe consists of four long lines separated by a caesura
into two distinct halves. The first half of each line contains four
accents, the fourth falling upon the last syllable. This last stress,
however, is not, as a rule as strong as the others, the effect being
somewhat like that of a feminine ending. On this account some speak of
three accents in the first half line, with a feminine ending. The fourth
stress is, however, too strong to be thus disregarded, but because of
its lighter character is best marked with a grave accent. The second
half of each line ends in a masculine rhyme. The first three lines have
each three stresses in the second half, while the second half of the
fourth line has four accents to mark the end of the strophe. This
longer fourth line is one of the most marked characteristics of the
"Nibelungen" strophe. The rhymes are arranged in the order of "a", "a",
"b", "b", though in a few isolated cases near the end of the poem but
one rhyme is used throughout the strophe.

The opening lines of the poem may serve to illustrate the strophic form
and scansion, and at the same time will give the reader an idea of the
Middle High German language in which the poem is written:

Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit