The Nibelungenlied: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

The warriors wait for nightfall before crossing over the Rhine with Siegfried’s body. Then, Hagen commits a deed of “overweening pride and grisly vengeance.” He orders that the corpse be placed on the threshold of Kriemhild’s apartment so that she will discover it at dawn.

When the church bells ring the next morning, Kriemhild wakes and begins dressing for the early service. Her chamberlain discovers the bloody corpse on the threshold but doesn’t realize it is Siegfried. He warns Kriemhild to stay where she is. Suspecting the truth, Kriemhild bursts into lament, and her thoughts go immediately to her conversation with Hagen before the hunt. She swoons in her grief, having already become “the sworn enemy of her own happiness.”

When her attendants suggest that the dead man might be a stranger, Kriemhild replies, in anguish, that it is Siegfried. She adds, “It is Brunhild who urged it, Hagen did the deed!” When she sees her husband’s body, she notices that his shield is unhacked by any sword, suggesting he has been murdered. If she could prove who had done it, she says, she would ceaselessly plot his death.

When Siegmund is awakened with news of his son’s death, he and his men are so shocked that some begin running toward the wailing women even before getting dressed. He soon cradles Siegfried’s body, and the combined mourning of women and vassals causes the city to echo with weeping. Siegfried’s Nibelung vassals stand ready to avenge their lord, but don’t know where to turn. Kriemhild warns them that sudden action would be suicidal. She persuades them to grieve with her for the time being.

The next morning, Siegfried’s body is carried to the cathedral. There Kriemhild meets Gunther and Hagen. Gunther expresses his sorrow, but Kriemhild says that if he truly regretted this death, it would never have happened. Both men try to take oaths of innocence, but Kriemhild cuts them short, demanding that guilt or innocence be proven another way—they should stand next to the corpse, and if the murderer is among them, the corpse’s wounds will bleed anew. When Hagen stands next to the bier, this is exactly what happens. Gunther continues to insist that robbers did the deed, but Kriemhild retorts that those “robbers” are well known to her. She publicly accuses the two of murder.

After mass, many people bring monetary offerings for Siegfried’s soul. So much is brought that a hundred masses are sung in a day. The townsfolk go home, but Kriemhild asks all the priests and monks and all Siegfried’s followers to keep vigil with her over his body for three days and nights. In the meantime, even the poor are told to draw money from Siegfried’s treasury in order to make offerings for his soul, and Kriemhild distributes revenues to hospitals, convents, and to the poor.

On the third morning, the funeral mass is held, and as they accompany the body to the grave, Kriemhild is repeatedly overcome with emotion. She begs Siegfried’s men to break open his sarcophagus so that she can gaze on him a final time. She weeps tears of blood in her sorrow and finally has to be carried away from the grave, nearly dying from grief.