The dead are removed, the blood-stained walls are cleaned so that Gudrun may dwell in the castle, and the Hegelings begin "to inspect Hartmut's inheritance." After the hostile fortresses are broken and justice is satisfied, the conquerors depart with Gudrun and rich treasures: Hartmut is carried away with the other prisoners. Queen Hilde receives her heroes on the shore, but, at first, does not recognize her daughter Gudrun when she is led up to her. Mother and daughter hold one another in a tender embrace: sorrow and pain quickly turn to joy and delight. Ortrun, too, is received graciously for the noble friendship bestowed by her upon Gudrun during the long years of captivity. Hartmut and his men, having pledged themselves not to escape, are freed from their fetters. Now the preparations for the festivities of love and marriage are begun. The epic rings out in a sweet chant of love and reconciliation. Gudrun's faithfulness is blessed by Herwig's marital love. But Gudrun is unwilling to be blessed alone. The hate between the Normans and the Hegelings must be wiped out: the Norman princess Ortrun is married to King Ortwin. Hartmut, who for so long had cherished a hopeless love for Gudrun, transfers his affections to noble Hildeburg, who had shared Gudrun's sorrowful captivity. The bridals are celebrated on one day, mourning and woe are changed to joy, the hostile races are reconciled and reunited by the ties of blood and love in an alliance for defence and offence. The end of the _Gudrun saga_ stands thus, in direct contrast to the end of the _Nibelungenlied_. The type of Kriemhilde has revealed to us one-half of the possibilities of the German woman's soul; the type of Gudrun, its other half, in its sweetness, its endurance, its martyrdom for all that is great and good and noble; its patriotism, love, and virtue. Within the range of those two natures we can differentiate all the souls of the millions of German women that lived and loved, hated and struggled, suffered and died in the dim ages of the foundation of Germanic social order and institutions. CHAPTER IV THE CENTURIES OF SUBMERGENCE AND OF NATIONALIZATION