The queen ordered one of her knights to cut off Gunther's head, and
she herself cut off the head of Hagen with "Balmung," Siegfried's
wonderful sword. A friend of Hagen then avenged his death by
killing Kriemhilda herself.
Of all the Nibelungs who entered the land of the Huns one only ever
returned to Burgundy.
Alaric the Visigoth
King from 394-410 A.D.
I
Long before the beginning of the period known as the Middle Ages
a tribe of barbarians called the Goths lived north of the River
Danube in the country which is now known as Roumania. It was
then a part of the great Roman Empire, which at that time had two
capitals, Constantinople--the new city of Constantine--and Rome.
The Goths had come from the shores of the Baltic Sea and settled
on this Roman territory, and the Romans had not driven them back.
During the reign of the Roman Emperor Valens some of the Goths
joined a conspiracy against him. Valens punished them for this by
crossing the Danube and laying waste their country. At last the
Goths had to beg for mercy. The Gothic chief was afraid to set foot
on Roman soil, so he and Valens met on their boats in the middle
of the Danube and made a treaty of peace.
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