eive love without sorrow, as often
before, from beloved glances." The young margravine has a foreboding of
evil at seeing the messengers so few--only seven. Then her mother tells
her of an evil dream which she has had, and she in turn has to tell of
another which has come to herself. Meanwhile the messengers are at
hand, and are observed to be sad. They give to Ruediger's wife the false
tidings of peace which they have been instructed to relate, and the
younger lady wonders that her father should have sent no message to
herself specially. The ladies continue to question the messengers about
Kriemhild: how has she received her brother? what did she say to Hagen?
what to Gunther? How is it, asks the younger one, that Giselher has sent
her never a message? Each lying answer costs the speaker more and
more sorrow, and at last his tears begin to flow. The young margravine
exclaims that there must be ill news, that evil has befallen them, and
that the guests and her father must be dead. As she speaks one of the
messengers can contain himself no longer, and a cry breaks with blood
from his mouth. All his companions burst into tears at the same time.
The margravine conjures them by their troth to tell how they parted
from her husband, saying that the lie must have an end. "Then spake the
fiddler, Swemmelin the messenger: 'Lady, we wished to deny to you that
which we yet must say, since no man could conceal it; after this
hour, ye see Margrave Ruediger no more alive.'" The margravine, we are
afterward told, dies of grief at the news, as does old Queen Ute at her
abbey of Lors. Brunhild survives, and is prevailed upon by her vassals
to have her son crowned. Etzel, after parting with Dietrich, loses
his mind; according to another version, his fate remains altogether
uncertain. Dietelint, the young margravine, is taken under Dietrich's
protection, who promises to find her a husband. Bishop Pilgrin has the
story written out in Latin letters, "that men should deem it true." A
writer, Master Konrad, then began to set it down in writing; since then
it has been often set to verse in Teuton tongues; old and young know
well the tale. "Of their joy and of their sorrow I now say to you no
more; this lay is called Ein Klage."

Walthar of Aquitaine

One of the grandest and most heroic epics of the great age of romance
is that of Walthar of Aquitaine. It is indissolubly connected with the
Rhine and with the city of Worms because in the vicini