When on the next day, after the long bridal night, the vassals of Attila break the heavy oaken entrance, they find their master dead on the floor, in a pool of blood. A loud, boisterous, barbaric mourning and lamentation arises in the Hunnish camp over the death of the greatest hero and ruler of their race. The fate of Ildico and her relatives seems sealed. But at the most critical moment help appears in the person of Ardarich, King of the Gepidae, and his retinue, who at the last moment save the Germans from the revenge of the exasperated Huns. The German tribes rise in masses and, after a few months, the liberation from the Hunnish yoke is accomplished. The fame and glory of fair Ildico as the liberator of her people from the yoke of Attila rings from tribe to tribe in epic sagas and lyric lays. The song of Daghar, her bridegroom, in honor of the heroine, immortalizes her thus: "Hail to you, heroes in golden hair, Good Goths, Gepidae, sprightly with spears; Greetings to you, glorious Germans! Exult rejoicing to sounding harps: He failed and fell, terror of holiness, Scourge of God, Etzel the Evil! Sword struck him not, nor shaft of the spear. No: in darkness of night, vicious viper Had crushed its hideous head. Woman of woe, Ildico, the mighty maid, Avenged with awe the races of men And holy honor with heroic deed. Sing to the harp the wailing song, Raise it rousing to Daghar's bride, The shimmering, shining savior, Guarding German men prison-bound: Ildico, idol of fame, Hail to thee, lofty one, hail!" (H. S.) The extensive Hunnish circle of lays throws light on the life and love of German womanhood during the centuries of wanderings; and so powerful is the influence and impression made by the Asiatic onslaught, that there is hardly a German saga of any importance that does not stand in some kind of relation to the Hunnish conquerors. To "sing and say" was an ancient talent of the Teutonic race, whose warlike life, with its bravery and heroism, inspired mightily to music and song. But the migrations, with their powerful changes, the contact with formerly unknown peoples, altered considerably the trend of the ancient traditions and the sagas of a world which they had abandoned. Indeed, many of the ancient racial sagas vanished from the memory of the Germanic tribes. Christianization and Romanization instilled into the souls of the race the germs of romanticism which rapidly overspread the old Germanic paganism with a luxuriant growth of new ideas founded on new ideals, and, great as that poetry is, it shows everywhere a contrast and a conflict between two different states of existence.