Hagan of Trony

or Haco of Norway, son of Aldrian, liegeman of Günther, King of Burgundy. Günther invited Siegfried to a hunt of wild beasts, but while the king of Netherland stooped to drink from a brook, Hagan stabbed him between the shoulders, the only vulnerable point in his whole body. He then deposited the dead body at the door of Kriemhild’s chamber, that she might stumble on it when she went to matins, and suppose that he had been murdered by assassins. When Kriemhild sent to Worms for the “Nibelung Hoard,” Hagan seized it, and buried it secretly somewhere beneath the Rhine, intending himself to enjoy it. Kriemhild, with a view of vengeance, married Etzel, King of the Huns, and after the lapse of seven years, invited the king of Burgundy, with Hagan and many others, to the court of her husband, but the invitation was a mere snare. A terrible broil was stirred up in the banquet hall, which ended in the slaughter of all the Burgundians but two (Günther and Hagan), who were taken prisoners and given to Kriemhild, who cut off both their heads. Hagan lost an eye when he fell upon Walter of Spain. He was dining on the chine of a wild boar when Walter pelted him with the bones, one of which struck him in the eye. Hagan’s person is thus described in the great German epic:—