who wrote many of the german epic poems and prose
Nibelungenlied Under the pretext of this threat of war, Hagen persuades Kriemhild, who still trusts Hagen, to mark Siegfried's single vulnerable point on his clothing with a cross under the premise of protecting him. Now knowing Siegfried's weakness, the fake campaign is called off and Hagen then uses the cross as a target on a hunting trip, killing Siegfried with a javelin as he is drinking from a brook (Chapter 16). Kriemhild becomes aware of Hagen's deed when, in Hagen's presence, the corpse of Siegfried bleeds at the site of the wound (an old Norse legend held that the corpse of a murdered person would bleed in the presence of the murderer, known as cruentation).[4] This perfidious murder is particularly dishonorable in medieval thought, as throwing a javelin is the manner in which one might slaughter a wild beast, not a knight. We see this in other literature of the period, such as with Parsifal's unwittingly dishonorable crime of combatting and slaying knights with a javelin (transformed into a swan in Wagner's opera).[5] Further dishonoring Siegfried, Hagen steals the hoard from Kriemhild and throws it into the Rhine (Rheingold), to prevent Kriemhild from using it to establish an army of her own.[6]