Kriemhild confided to him
her husband's secret. When Siegfried was bathing in the dragon's blood, a
leaf fell between his shoulders, and that spot was vulnerable. There she
would embroider a cross on his vesture that Hagan might protect him in the
shock of battle.
The war was now abandoned and a great hunt undertaken. Gernot and
Giselher, though they did not see fit to warn Siegfried, refused to take
part in the plot and go to the hunt. Many a lion, elk, and boar fell by
Siegfried's hand that day before the hunters were called together to the
royal breakfast; when they at last sat down in the flowery meadow the wine
was wanting, and the warriors were compelled to quench their thirst at a
brooklet near by.
"A race!" cried the hero; and he, Hagan, and Guenther ran for the brook,
Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst,
Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up
his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in
the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom he had
served so faithfully.
To add cruelty to cruelty, the vindictive Hagan placed the body of
Siegfried outside Kriemhild's chamber door, where she would stumble over
it as she went out to early mass next morning. Down she fell fainting when
she recognized her husband, and reviving, shrieked in her anguish,
"Brunhild planned it; Hagan struck the blow!"
Her grief was terrible to see.
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