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Mass was sung to the glory of God, and at once there was a great press where, in accordance with chivalric custom, the squires were to be knighted amid such splendour as can scarcely be seen again.
They ran to where many chargers stood saddled, and the bohort in Siegmund's courtyard grew so tremendous that the palace thundered with the din which those spirited warriors made, while you could hear thrust on thrust by young and old, so that the shivering of shafts rang loud on the air and you could see all these knights send the splinters flying far and wide before the hall - so zestfully did they set to.
The Nibelungenlied, trans. by A.T. Hatto, Penguin Classics, Great Britain, 1965, p. 21.
PLACE: Xanten, Netherlands (today Xanten belongs to Germany)
TIME: Middle Ages (11th century?)
CIRCUMSTANCE: Ceremonies and festivities to the occasion of Siegfried's knighting. Bohort: an equestrian exercise, half pageant, half sport, with shields and lances, the latter generally blunted.
And now the men of Denmark tried their hands. You could hear the clang of countless shields under the impact of their charge, and of the sharp swords, too, that were swung there in plenty, while the valiant Saxons also wrought much havoc.
...And when the stalwarts from the Netherlands pressed after their lord into the closed ranks of the enemy, their keen swords rang loud and clear an they wielded them - they went in with Siegfried like the splendid young fighting-men they were.The Nibelungenlied, trans. by A.T. Hatto, Penguin Classics, Great Britain, 1965, p. 39.
PLACE: Saxony
TIME: Middle Ages (11th century?)
CIRCUMSTANCE: Siegfried's warriors from the Netherlands help the Burgundians fight against the Danes and Saxons.
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