Rüdiger's wife Gotelind and his daughter Dietlind quickly realize that something has happened to Rüdiger, and so Swemmel tells them the story. In Passau, the messenger informs Bishop Pilgrim, who is related to the Burgundian kings. Pilgrim orders a requiem mass sung and asks the messengers to return to Passau so that he can have everything that's happened written down. Pilgrim also asks other eyewitnesses at Etzel's court for information. Swemmel finally reaches Worms and reports to Brünhild and the court, where the lamentations are very great. The mother of the Burgundians, Ute, dies of grief. After a time of mourning Brünhild's son Siegfried is crowned the new king of the Burgundians. Meanwhile, Dietrich and Hildebrand decide to return to Dietrich's kingdom in northern Italy. Etzel remains alone in his despair, and the narrator asserts that he does not know what happened to the Hunnish king. The narrator asserts that there are several rumors about Etzel's fate. Dietrich arrives in Bechelaren to discover that Rüdiger's widow Gotelind has died of grief, but Dietrich promises to find Dietlind a new husband once he has returned to Italy. In an epilogue, it is explained that Bishop Pilgrim ordered the events of the "Nibelungenlied" and the "Klage" to be written down in Latin by a "meister Konrad", from which it has since been translated to German. The "Klage" is transmitted together with the "Nibelungenlied" in all but two manuscripts and is appended to the end as if it were a final episode. The poem may have likely composed in the same context as the "Nibelungenlied", according to the prevailing theory by Joachim Bumke this was in a sort of "Nibelungen workshop" ("Nibelungenwerkstatt") in Passau around 1200, under the auspices of Bishop Wolfger von Erla). This theory is complicated by the fact that the end of the "Nibelungenlied" clearly does not envision the "Klage", meaning it cannot have been planned from the beginning of that epic's composition. According to Jan-Dirk Müller, the only thing that can be said for certain about the "Klage's" composition relative to the "Nibelungenlied" is that it took place before very early in the manuscript transmission of the latter work.