University of Virginia Library

So they led the Niblung away from the light and the joy of the feast,
In the chamber of death they cast him, and the pit of the Lord of the East:
And thralls were the high King's warders; yet sons of the wise withal
Came down to sit with Hogni in the doomed man's darkling hall;
For they looked in his face and feared, lest Atli smite too nigh
The kin of the Gods of Heaven, and more than a man's child die.