Huldbrand and Bertalda Remarry, and Huldbrand Dies is the final reversal of the marriage plot: Sir Huldbrand’s second wedding proceeds over warnings that his first wife, Undine, may still live, and the reopening of a sealed fountain brings her back to him. Her return turns a celebration into a deathbed encounter. After Sir Huldbrand dies in her embrace, Undine appears at his funeral and leaves a spring beside his grave, transforming the story’s unresolved grief into a lasting image of attachment.

From bereavement to a second marriage

After Undine’s disappearance, Sir Huldbrand and Bertalda spend a long time quietly together at Ringstetten Castle. Their former attachment has nearly fallen out of their thoughts amid grief for Undine. The old fisherman’s unexpected arrival unsettles this arrangement: having heard that Undine is gone, he insists that Bertalda return to him as his daughter. He argues that her honor is at stake, regardless of whether she loves him. The prospect of losing Bertalda to this departure revives Sir Huldbrand’s affection, which had been dormant during his mourning.

The fisherman resists their proposed marriage for reasons bound up with Undine’s place in the household and the uncertainty of her fate. He had loved her, cannot be certain that she is dead, and considers Bertalda partly responsible for the loss of the woman whose place she would take. He also regards Sir Huldbrand warmly. Bertalda’s entreaties, her tears for Undine, and the gentler, more submissive manner she has acquired eventually tip the balance: the fisherman remains at the castle without further objection. The proposed marriage is thus not presented as a simple return to the pair’s earlier courtship. It follows a period of mourning, a renewed separation threatened by the fisherman, and a reluctant decision that leaves Undine’s absence unresolved.

Father Heilmann’s warning

A messenger is sent to Father Heilmann, who had married Sir Huldbrand and Undine, to summon him for the second wedding. Father Heilmann hurries to Ringstetten Castle, hoping to prevent it. In his account, Undine has appeared in his dreams for a fortnight, wringing her hands and pleading that she is still alive and that he should save Sir Huldbrand’s life and soul. He does not claim certainty about the mysterious state in which she exists, but he regards the dream, the continuing grief on Sir Huldbrand’s face, and Undine’s fidelity as reasons not to proceed.

His warning identifies the marriage as more than a new union between two living people: if Undine remains alive, Sir Huldbrand still belongs to his first wife. Father Heilmann urges both Sir Huldbrand and Bertalda to abandon the match, predicting that Bertalda will never be happy if she does not leave him. The three hear the force of his words inwardly, yet refuse to accept them. The old fisherman, despite his earlier objections, is also swept into the decision they have already made. Father Heilmann leaves without accepting the offered shelter or refreshments. Sir Huldbrand dismisses his warning as fanciful and summons a monk from the nearest monastery, who agrees to perform the ceremony.

A wedding under the sign of absence

The wedding feast at Ringstetten Castle is marked by the sense that its most important person is missing. Guests turn toward every opening door, only to find a servant bringing dishes or wine; their brief expectation gives way again to sadness. No supernatural apparition interrupts the feast, and the castle has been secured against the threatening water spirits, but the company experiences Undine’s absence as the event’s governing fact. The festivities therefore carry an undertone of mourning rather than overcoming it.

Bertalda is the least troubled of the guests, yet even she is haunted by the fisherman’s earlier suggestion that Undine may be lying dead in the Danube or may have drifted into the ocean. The company disperses early, subdued by its forebodings. The contrast between the marriage ceremony and the prevailing sorrow makes the wedding feel precarious before Undine actually returns: the new union is celebrated in the very place where her prior marriage and memory still exert their claim.

The reopened fountain and Undine’s return

After the guests disperse, Bertalda prepares her clothes and veils for the morning. Looking in a mirror, she notices freckles at the side of her neck and remembers that the water she once used to remove them came from a fountain now sealed. She wishes she had a flask of its water. An alert waiting-maid takes this as an instruction and fetches workers to remove the stone covering the spring. Bertalda understands what is happening and approves, pleased that a wish from her can now accomplish what had once been refused.

The workmen raise the enormous stone more easily than expected. Some remember that they are undoing the work of their former beloved mistress, but the spring seems to help lift its own covering. A white column rises from the opening; what first looks like a renewed fountain resolves into a pale woman veiled in white, weeping and wringing her hands. The servants flee, while Bertalda watches, rigid with horror, and thinks she recognizes Undine’s face. The figure passes through the castle in tears, moving through halls where she had once wandered differently. The contrast is stark: Bertalda’s wish for water to cleanse a blemish has reopened the passage through which Undine returns, and the small act of vanity precipitates the deadly consequence Father Heilmann feared.

Death and the spring at the grave

Sir Huldbrand is alone in his chamber when a gentle tap at the door recalls Undine’s former playful visits. He tells himself it is only fancy, but sees the door open in the mirror and the veiled figure enter. Undine tells him that the spring has been opened and that he must die. He asks her not to unveil herself if she is hideous, preferring death without seeing her face. She answers that she is as beautiful as when he wooed her on the promontory. When she reveals herself, he asks to die in her loving embrace. Undine kisses him and holds him close; her tears rise through his breath until he ceases breathing and falls dead onto the bed. She tells the servants who encounter her that she has wept him to death, then walks back toward the fountain.

Father Heilmann returns as soon as Sir Huldbrand’s death becomes known. The monk who conducted the second marriage flees the castle in fear, while Father Heilmann takes up his duties and consoles Bertalda. She calls Undine a murderess and sorceress. The old fisherman, grieving but resigned, interprets the death as something that could not have been otherwise and insists that no one has suffered more from it than the forsaken Undine herself. His response preserves the tragic double perspective of the event: Undine is the agent of Sir Huldbrand’s death, but also the abandoned wife whose grief makes the fatal embrace possible.

Sir Huldbrand is buried in the village churchyard among his ancestors. His shield and helmet are placed on the coffin, and the funeral procession proceeds beneath a calm sky, led by Father Heilmann bearing a crucifix. Bertalda, now a widow, follows supported by her father. A white, veiled figure appears among the mourners, wringing her hands. When attendants try to remove her, she seems to vanish from their grasp, only to reappear farther along the procession. At the open grave, Bertalda recognizes the figure’s appeal and remembers Undine’s earlier kindness toward her, including the offer of a coral necklace on the Danube. After the burial prayers, the stranger has disappeared. A little silver spring wells up where she knelt, runs almost entirely around the grave, and flows toward a nearby lake. The wedding that was meant to establish a new household ends instead with Sir Huldbrand’s burial and an enduring sign of Undine’s embrace.