61 pages • 2-hour read
Nibelungenlied
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Chapters 23-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “How Kriemhild Invited Her Brothers to the Festival”
Etzel and Kriemhild live “together in great splendor […] until the seventh year” (177) of their marriage. Kriemhild gives birth to another son, Ortlieb, and insists on having him baptized. Both foreigners and subjects hold the queen in high regard for 13 years. Kriemhild continues to “[brood] on the many wrongs that had been done to her at home and all the honours that had been hers in Nibelungland, but of which Hagen had stripped her by murdering Siegfried” (177). She decides to finally avenge her husband.
Kriemhild goes to Etzel and tells him that their subjects think of her as “a friendless foreigner” (178). She wishes her brothers would visit. Etzel agrees to invite them to a summer festival and calls on his minstrels Werbel and Swemmel to relay the message.
Without Etzel knowing, Kriemhild requests Werbel and Swemmel’s company. She promises to lavish them with clothes and riches if they deliver her version of the message. Kriemhild wants her kinsmen to think that she is no longer in mourning and insists that Hagen come along.
Chapter 24 Summary: “How Werbel and Swemmel Accomplished Their Sovereign’s Embassy”
Werbel and Swemmel arrive in Worms within 12 days. Hagen recognizes them and insists they be welcomed; the minstrels deliver Etzel’s invitation. Gunther summons his closest companions and “[asks] them how the matter appealed to them” (184). Believing that Kriemhild still detests him, Hagen asserts, “You are bent on your own destruction” (184). Gunther believes going to Hungary will be safe, and Giselher tells Hagen to stay behind and “let those that dare” venture (185). Giselher’s jab wounds Hagen’s pride, and he decides to go in order to prove his honor. He suggests that all who plan on going venture out heavily armed.
Gunther summons his finest vassals while Hagen picks 1,000 worthy knights. Fearing that Kriemhild will have more time to plot if Werbel and Swemmel return right away, Hagen refuses to let them leave. Gunther offers the envoys precious riches, but they decline to take them. Gunther becomes enraged, and Werbel and Swemmel have no choice but to take the offerings.
The minstrels eventually return to Hungary to tell Kriemhild that her relatives and Hagen are coming, and she is pleased.
Chapter 25 Summary: “How the Nibelungs Journeyed to Hungary”
The Burgundians prepare to embark for Hungary. Uote dreams “that all the birds of [the Rhenish lands] were dead” (190) and begs her sons not to go. Hagen declares, “Those who set store by dreams cannot rightly know where their whole honour lies” (190). Gunther entrusts the vassal Rumold with the kingdom and his son, Siegfried. Gunther’s party departs.
On the 12th morning, the Burgundians reach the Danube River, but the banks are overflowing. Hagen sets out to find another route when he comes across naked nixies (water-fairies) endowed with second sight swimming in the river. He steals their clothes, and a nixie named Hadeburg promises to tell him the future if he returns them. When Hagen does so, she tells him that the Burgundians will be safe in Hungary; however, another nixie, Sieglind, warns him that everyone in the party “apart from the King’s chaplain” (193) will die. They inform Hagen of a ferryman who can be bribed should he assume the identity of Amelrich, the vassal of the Bavarian margrave Else.
Hagen does as the nixies say, but the ferryman sees through the lie and refuses to help. The two men fight, with Hagen severing the other’s head before sailing his boat down the river to the other Burgundians. Hagen safely transports his party across the Danube but attempts to drown the chaplain upon remembering the nixies’ prediction. The chaplain survives. Hagen makes a second attempt at stopping the prophecy by smashing the ferryman’s boat.
Chapter 26 Summary: “How Gelpfrat Was Slain by Dancwart”
Hagen relays the nixies’ prediction to the other Burgundians and explains his recent behavior. The Burgundians reach the spot where Hagen killed the ferryman, and he admits to it. The minstrel Volker guides the party through the territory ahead.
The Bavarian lord Gelpfrat and margrave Else learn of Hagen’s crime and send their warriors after the Burgundians. Once Gelpfrat reaches Gunther’s party, he explains that he is in search of his ferryman’s killer. Hagen admits to doing so in self-defense. He attempts to make amends—only to be attacked by Gelpfrat. Hagen calls for Dancwart, who vows to be his “umpire” (201); Dancwart slays Gelpfrat. The Bavarians retreat, and Dancwart, Hagen, and their men return to formation. Gunther, riding ahead of them, only discovers what happened between Dancwart and Gelpfrat the next morning.
The Burgundians ride through Passau and enter Rüdiger’s domain. They find a sleeping knight named Eckewart, and Hagen steals his sword. Eckewart laments, and a sympathetic Hagen returns it. Eckewart warns Hagen that the Hungarians hate him for killing their queen’s former husband.
Gunther sends Eckewart to ask Rüdiger of lodging. Eckewart delivers the message, and Rüdiger expresses joy at being “visited by such noble warriors whom [he] has never yet served in any way” (205).
Chapter 27 Summary: “How They Came to Pöchlarn”
Rüdiger and his men ride out to welcome the Burgundians, who “thanked him from their hearts” (206). The men of Pöchlarn give Hagen and Volker a more intimate welcome since the two warriors are renowned in the region. Rüdiger lodges the Burgundians, and—according to the poet—“no host had ever welcomed them like this, and they were very pleased” (206). Giselher and other knights take interest in Rüdiger’s daughter. Rüdiger agrees to let Giselher marry his daughter and bring her back to Burgundy after they attend the festival in Hungary.
Rüdiger insists that the Burgundians stay with him for four days. However, they run out of time and must leave, so Rüdiger and Gotelind lavish them with gifts. Rüdiger gives Gunther a strong suit of armor and Gernot a magnificent sword while Gotelind gives Hagen an expensive gem-studded shield.
Rüdiger leads the Burgundians to Etzel’s court, and messengers alert Etzel and Kriemhild of their arrival. Kriemhild exclaims, “Whoever is willing to take gold, let him remember my grief and I shall always show myself grateful!” (212).
Chapters 23-27 Analysis
Chapters 23 marks the start of Kriemhild’s vengeance. After years of brooding and waiting, Kriemhild finally decides to exact her revenge by inviting her kinsmen and Hagen to a midsummer festival. In Chapter 23, she implores Etzel to invite those who wronged her—her pleading mirroring how Brunhild, who played a role in Siegfried’s death, implored Gunther to invite Siegfried and Kriemhild to pay homage in Chapter 11. This parallel suggests that Kriemhild now resembles Brunhild prior to her “taming.”
When Kriemhild’s brothers and Hagen receive her invitation, the former are eager to go. Hagen initially refuses to go because he knows Kriemhild will always bear a grudge against Gunther and him. He is only persuaded to go once his honor is at stake. Honor is of the utmost importance to Hagen, and he sees it as synonymous with courage. He does not want others to think he is too frightened to go to Hungary and therefore without honor, so he proclaims that there is no one who can go on the journey with “greater courage” than himself (185). He lets his pride and concerns about honor get the best of him as he is destined to die in Hungary.
Hagen’s fixation on honor reappears in Chapter 25, when he responds to Uote’s recount of a seemingly prophetic dream. He tells Uote, “Those who set store by dreams cannot rightly know where their whole honour lies” (190). By this, he means that when a person treats dreams as though they will come true and chooses to act in accordance with them, they miss out on proving themselves honorable. Hagen does not want to yield to Uote’s dream of destruction because he knows that not going to Hungary means not getting a chance to be a hero by being brave in the face of danger.
The idea of fate irks Hagen, and he rages against it by attempting to keep destined things from occurring. When the nixies tell him that everyone in his company besides the chaplain will die, he fights against their prophecy by trying to kill the man. In his mind, the chaplain is the key part of the prophecy. He believes that if the chaplain never makes it to Hungary, then the prophecy will not come true. When the chaplain survives the attempted drowning and crosses the Danube, Hagen smashes the Burgundians’ boat so that he cannot be reunited with them. Without a way to cross the river, the chaplain returns home. Thus, the prophecy is fulfilled since the chaplain survives the eventual massacre by not being present for it in the first place. Hagen’s struggle against fate is futile.
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