With this climax Wagner very properly concludes his drama. But the epic poet likes to follow the course of events to their ultimate consequences, and Morris, in accordance with the Volsunga Saga, proceeds to relate how, after many years of mournful widowhood, Gudrun is married to Atli, a mighty king, the brother of Brynhild. Eager to become possessed of Sigurd's treasure he invites the Niblungs, its actual owners, to his country, and there the kingly brothers and all their followers are killed by base treachery and after the most heroic resistance. They refuse sternly to ransom their lives by a discovery of the hoard which previous to their departure they have hidden at the bottom of a lake, and which thus is irrecoverably lost to mankind. Gudrun has incited her husband to the deed and has looked on calmly while her kinsmen were slain one after the other. But when all are dead and the murder of Sigurd has been revenged, the feeling of blood relationship so powerful among Northern nations is reawakened in her. While Atli and his earls are asleep she sets fire to the kingly hall, and her wretched husband falls by her own hand. It is characteristic of the Icelandic epic that after all these fates and horrors Gudrun lives for a number of years and is yet again married to a third husband. But to this length even Morris refuses to accompany the tale. In accordance with the Volsunga Saga his Gudrun throws herself into the sea; but the waves do not carry her "to the burg of king Imakr, a mighty king and lord of many folk."