ther and his brothers
called their guests and vassals around them, and loaded them with costly
gifts, and bade them God-speed. And tears stood in the eyes of all at
parting.

The captive kings, Leudiger and Leudigast, were not forgotten.

"What will ye give me for your freedom?" asked King Gunther, half in
jest.

They answered,--

"If you will allow us without further hinderance to go back to our
people, we pledge our lives and our honor that we will straightway send
you gold, as much as half a thousand horses can carry."

Then Gunther turned to Siegfried, and said,--

"What think you, friend Siegfried, of such princely ransom?"

"Noble lord," said Siegfried, "I think you are in need of no such
ransom. Friendship is worth much more than gold. If your kingly captives
will promise, on their honor, never more to come towards Burgundy as
enemies, let them go. We have no need of gold."

"'Tis well said," cried Gunther highly pleased.

And Leudiger and Leudigast, with tears of thankfulness, gladly made
the asked-for promise, and on the morrow, with light hearts and costly
gifts, they set out on their journey homewards.

When all the guests had gone, and the daily routine of idle palace-life
set in again, Siegfried began to talk of going back to Nibelungen
Land. But young Giselher, and the peerless Kriemhild, and King Gunther,
besought him to stay yet a little longer. And he yielded to their kind
wishes. And autumn passed away with its fruits and its vintage, and grim
old winter came howling down from the north, and Siegfried was still
in Burgundy. And then old Hoder, the king of the winter months,
came blustering through the Rhine valley; and with him were the
Reifriesen,--the thieves that steal the daylight from the earth and
the warmth from the sun. And they nipped the flowers, and withered the
grass, and stripped the trees, and sealed up the rivers, and covered the
earth with a white mantle of sorrow.

But within King Gunther's wide halls there was joy and good cheer.
And the season of the Yule-feast came, and still Siegfried tarried in
Burgundy-land.

Adventure XIII. The Story of Balder.

There was mirth in King Gunther's dwelling, for the time of the
Yule-feast had come. The broad banquet hall was gayly decked with cedar
and spruce and sprigs of the mistletoe; and the fires roared in the
great chimneys, throwing warmth and a ruddy glow of light into every
corner of the room. The long table fa