Thus far well. But his probation was not yet finished. Before finally joining hand and heart with the peerless sister of King Gunther, Siegfried must assist her brother in a yet more difficult work than anything that he had hitherto achieved--in gaining the love of Brunhild, a doughty princess of Iceland, "far beyond the sea," who, being of a masculine temper and strength, had determined to submit herself to no male lord who had not proved himself worthy to wield the marital sceptre, by actually mastering his spouse in strong physical conflict. "There was a queen high-seated afar beyond the sea, None wielded sceptre a mightier than she; For beauty she was matchless, for strength without a peer; Her love to him she offered who could pass her at the spear. She threw the stone, and bounded behind it to the mark; At three games each suitor, with sinews stiff and stark, Must conquer the fierce maiden whom he sought to wed, Or, if in one successless, straight must lose his head. E'en thus for the stern virgin had many a suitor died. This heard a noble warrior, who dwelt the Rhine beside, And forthwith resolved he to win her for his wife; Thereby full many a hero thereafter lost his life." Doubtful of his single strength to subdue so mettlesome a maid, Gunther enters into a compact with Siegfried to assist him in his enterprise--_by fair means or foul_, as it appears; and in this evil compact, and the underhand work to which it gives rise, lies already visible before the unveiled eye of the reader, the little black spot on the fair blue of the epic sky, which is destined (and the bard is ever forward to hint this catastrophe,) at a day though distant yet sure, to dilate into a wide-spreading cloud, and to burst in a fearful deluge that shall sweep hundreds and thousands of the guilty and the guiltless into destruction. This is neither more nor less than the dark old doctrine of retribution, which in the Greek tragedians, and especially Æschylus, plays so awful a part; only with this difference, that in the Niebelungen, as in the Odyssey, the punishment overtakes the offending parties, and not, as in the tragedians, their sons and grandsons. But to proceed: Siegfried, like Jack the Giant-killer, though commencing his career as a single mortal with no miraculous power, had in the course of his chivalrous exploits, and as the reward of his extraordinary prowess, got possession of certain wonder-working instruments, that rendered him, when he chose to use them, sure of victory against mere mortal strength. With the aid of these, Siegfried, for the sake of the love of Kriemhild, had determined (secretly and unfairly) to assist Gunther in subduing the stout Brunhild. "I have heard strange stories of wild dwarfs, how they fare: They dwell in hollow mountains; and for protection wear A vesture, that hight cloud-cloak, marvellous to tell; Whoever has it on him, may keep him safe and well