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it after Guttorm as he fled, and the magic weapon cut him in two ere he reached the door. Then Sigurd fell back into the arms of Gudrun and died. Then did great grief fall upon the land of the Niblungs; and a mighty funeral pyre was built for Sigurd, and his body was laid thereon. Gudrun, his wife, sat silent and apart, her heart breaking for her hero-husband; but Brunhild, when she saw what she had done, was filled with grief and despair beyond endurance, and snatching a dagger from her handmaidens, she stabbed herself and so died. In such wise had the doom of the Magic Gold descended upon Regin and Fafnir, and upon Sigurd and Brunhild. Nor was this the end of the misery it was to work. Loathing the thought of life in her brother's palace, Gudrun now fled to the court of Alf, the foster-father of Sigurd, where for some years she remained, busying herself in working a vast piece of tapestry on which she embroidered the heroic deeds of Sigurd. But after a time Atli, King of the Huns, the brother of Brunhild, sent to Gunnar to demand that compensation should be made to him for his sister's death; and to him Gunnar promised that, in satisfaction for this, he should receive the hand of his sister Gudrun in marriage. So the Niblung princes sent and fetched her from the court of Alf, and forced her to marry Atli, much against her will. Now at Atli's court her talk was ever of Sigurd and of the wondrous gold-hoard he had brought to the Niblungs' land. And so it came to pass that the greed of Atli was kindled when he heard of that treasure, and he determined to make it his own. So he sent a messenger to invite all the Niblung princes to visit his court, intending, when he had them in his power, to put an end to them. Now Gudrun guessed what was in Atli's mind, and therefore she took off the gold ring from Andvari's hoard, and twined about it a wolf's hair as a sign of warning; and this she sent by the same messenger to her brothers. But this messenger untwined the wolf's hair and gave only the ring to Gunnar, who took it as a signal of good faith and gladly accepted the invitation. Hoegni alone was unwilling to accept the invitation, but when he found that Gunnar would pay no heed to him, he prepared to go along with him. First, however, he persuaded his brother to take that great treasure-hoard and to cast it into a deep hole at the bottom of a mighty river, where none might find it save themselves.
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