No more spake Hagen to the swan-maidens, but searching up the river banks, he found an inn upon the farther shore.  Loudly he called across the flood.  “Come for me, ferryman,” he said, “and I will bestow upon thee an armlet of ruddy gold.”

Now the ferryman was a noble and did not care for service, and those who helped him were as proud as he.  They heard Hagen calling, but recked not of it.  Loudly did he call across the water, which resounded to his cries.  Then, his patience exhausted, he shouted: 

“Come hither, for I am Amelrich, liegeman to Else, who left these lands because of a great feud.”  As he spake he raised his spear, on which was an armlet of bright gold, cunningly fashioned.

The haughty ferryman took an oar and rowed across, but when he arrived at the farther bank he spied not him who had cried for passage.

At last he saw Hagen, and in great anger said:  “You may be called Amelrich, but you are not like him whom I thought to be here, for he was my brother.  You have lied to me and there you may stay.”

Hagen attempted to impress the ferryman by kindness, but he refused to listen to his words, telling the warrior that his lords had enemies, wherefore he never conveyed strangers across the river.  Hagen then offered him gold, and so angry did the ferryman become that he struck at the Nibelung with his rudder oar, which broke over Hagen’s head.  But the warrior smote him so fiercely with his sword that he struck his head off and cast it on the ground.  The skiff began to drift down the stream, and Hagen, wading into the water, had much ado to secure it and bring it back.  With might and main he pulled, and in turning it the oar snapped in his hand.  He then floated down stream, where he found his lords standing by the shore.  They came down to meet him with many questionings, but Gunther, espying the blood in the skiff, knew well what fate the ferryman had met with.

Hagen then called to the footmen to lead the horses into the river that they might swim across.  All the trappings and baggage were placed in the skiff, and Hagen, playing the steersman, ferried full many mighty warriors into the unknown land.  First went the knights, then the men-at-arms, then followed nine thousand footmen.  By no means was Hagen idle on that day.

On a sudden he espied the king’s chaplain close by the chapel baggage, leaning with his hands upon the relics, and recalling that the wise women had told him that only this priest would return and none other of the Nibelungs, he seized him by the middle and cast him from the skiff into the Danube.

“Hold, Sir Hagen, hold!” cried his comrades.  Giselher grew wroth; but Hagen only smiled.

Then said Sir Gernot of Burgundy:  “Hagen, what availeth you the chaplain’s death?  Wherefore have ye slain the priest?”

But the clerk struck out boldly, for he wished to save his life.  But this Hagen would not have and thrust him to the bottom.  Once more he came to the surface, and this time he was carried by the force of the waves to the sandy shore.  Then Hagen knew well that naught might avail against the tidings which the mermaids had told him, that not a Nibelung should return to Burgundy.