High on his sword he uplifted the armlet full in his sight-- Fair-wrought and golden-ruddy, and flashed therefrom the light-- {P. 212} To tempt him to ferry him over into Gelfrat's land. Then gripped that haughty boatman himself the oar in hand. Now this same ferry-boatman was a churlish wight and dour, Yet greedy of gain; and ofttimes is greed destruction's lure. He weened he should earn full lightly Hagen's gold for reward-- Ha, but he earned from the hero grim death by the edge of the sword! With mighty strokes that boatman from bank to bank rowed o'er; But him who was named he found not abiding him on the shore. Then brake he forth into fury when Hagen alone he espied: In the fierceness of his anger unto the hero he cried: "Haply the name that thou bearest Amelrich may be; But nothing thou hast of the favour of him I had looked to see. My brother was he: one father begat us, one mother bare. Since thou by a lie hast lured me across, e'en bide thou there!" "Nay, in God's name I charge thee!" Hagen answering cried. "A knight am I, and a stranger, and to other thanes am I guide. Take thou the gold that I proffer unto thee for thine hire as a friend, And ferry us over the river: no hurt unto thee I intend." Swiftly the ferryman answered: "Never shall this be done! My well-belovèd masters have enemies many an one; Therefore I bear no strangers from this to the farther shore. Thou then, if thy life thou lovest, step forth on the bank once more." "That will I not," said Hagen, "for now am I bitter-souled. Accept thou then as a friend's gift the jewel of precious gold, And bear us, a thousand horses and men, across the river," But that grim ferryman answered, "That will I do never!" A mighty oar upswung he, massy and broad of blade, And on Hagen's head down dashed it--for the deed right dearly he paid!-- Back in the boat he staggered, and sank upon one knee. So grim a ferryman never it befell to the hero to see! To enkindle yet hotter the anger of the valiant stranger, he strake With a huge boat-pole--so starkly, that wholly asunder it brake-- {P. 213} On the head of Hagen the hero. A giant was he in might; But thereof came his own destruction on Elsè's ferry-wight. In sternness of fury Hagen caught with sudden hand At his side where hung the sword-sheath, and he flashed thereout the brand; He smote his head from his shoulders, that adown the bank it rolled. Soon mid the proud Burgundians the tale thereof was told.