The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs

BOOK I.-4

As the best of the days of his life-tide; and well as he was loved

By his friends ere the time of his changing, so now are his foemen moved

With a love that may never be worsened, since all the strife is o’er,

And the warders look for his coming by Odin’s open door.

But his sons, the stay of battle, alive with many a wound,

Borne down to the earth by the shield-rush amid the dead lie bound,

And belike a wearier journey must those lords of battle bide

Ere once more in the Hall of Odin they sit by their father’s side.

Woe’s me for the boughs of the Branstock and the hawks that cried on the fight!

Woe’s me for the tireless hearthstones and the hangings of delight,

That the women dare not look on lest they see them sweat with blood!

Woe’s me for the carven pillars where the spears of the Volsungs stood!

And who next shall shake the locks, or the silver door-rings meet?

Who shall pace the floor beloved, worn down by the Volsung feet?

Who shall fill the gold with the wine, or cry for the triumphing?

Shall it be kindred or foes, or thief, or thrall, or king?

Of the ending of all Volsung’s Sons save Sigmund only, and of how he abideth in the wild wood.

So there the earls of the Goth-folk lay Volsung ‘neath the grass

On the last earth he had trodden; but his children bound must pass,

When the host is gathered together, amidst of their array

To the high-built dwelling of Siggeir; for sooth it is to say,

That he came not into the battle, nor faced the Volsung sword.

So now as he sat in his high-seat there came his chiefest lord,

And he said: “I bear thee tidings of the death of the best of the brave,

For thy foes are slain or bondsmen; and have thou Sigmund’s glaive,

If a token thou desirest; and that shall be surely enough.

And I do thee to wit, King Siggeir, that the road was exceeding rough,

And that many an earl there stumbled, who shall evermore lie down.

And indeed I deem King Volsung for all earthly kingship’s crown.”

Then never a word spake Siggeir, save: “Where be Volsung’s sons?”

And he said: “Without are they fettered, those battle-glorious ones:

And methinks ‘twere a deed for a king, and a noble deed for thee,

To break their bonds and heal them, and send them back o’er the sea,

And abide their wrath and the bloodfeud for this matter of Volsung’s slaying:”

“Witless thou waxest,” said Siggeir, “nor heedest the wise man’s saying;

‘Slay thou the wolf by the house-door, lest he slay thee in the wood.’

Yet since I am the overcomer, and my days henceforth shall be good,

I will quell them with no death-pains; let the young men smite them down,

But let me not behold them when my heart is angrier grown.”

E’en as he uttered the word was Signy at the door,

And with hurrying feet she gat her apace to the high-seat floor,

As wan as the dawning-hour, though never a tear she had:

And she cried: “I pray thee, Siggeir, now thine heart is merry and glad

With the death and the bonds of my kinsmen, to grant me this one prayer,

This one time and no other; let them breathe the earthly air

For a day, for a day or twain, ere they wend the way of death,

For ‘sweet to eye while seen,’ the elders’ saying saith.”

Quoth he: “Thou art mad with sorrow; wilt thou work thy friends this woe?

When swift and untormented e’en I would let them go:

Yet now shalt thou have thine asking, if it verily is thy will:

Nor forsooth do I begrudge them a longer tide of ill.”

She said: “I will it, I will it—O sweet to eye while seen!”

Then to his earl spake Siggeir: “There lies a wood-lawn green

In the first mile of the forest; there fetter these Volsung men

To the mightiest beam of the wild-wood, till Queen Signy come again

And pray me a boon for her brethren, the end of their latter life.”

So the Goth-folk led to the woodland those gleanings of the strife,

And smote down a great-boled oak-tree, the mightiest they might find,

And thereto with bonds of iron the Volsungs did they bind,

And left them there on the wood-lawn, mid the yew-trees’ compassing,

And went back by the light of the moon to the dwelling of the king.

But he sent on the morn of the morrow to see how his foemen fared,

For now as he thought thereover, o’ermuch he deemed it dared

That he saw not the last of the Volsungs laid dead before his feet,

Back came his men ere the noontide, and he deemed their tidings sweet;

For they said: “We tell thee, King Siggeir, that Geirmund and Gylfi are gone.

And we deem that a beast of the wild-wood this murder grim hath done,

For the bones yet lie in the fetters gnawed fleshless now and white;

But we deemed the eight abiding sore minished of their might.”

So wore the morn and the noontide, and the even ‘gan to fall,

And watchful eyes held Signy at home in bower and hall.

And again came the men in the morning, and spake: “The hopples hold

The bare white bones of Helgi, and the bones of Solar the bold:

And the six that abide seem feebler than they were awhile ago.”

Still all the day and the night-tide must Signy nurse her woe

About the house of King Siggeir, nor any might she send:

And again came the tale on the morrow: “Now are two more come to an end.

For Hunthiof dead and Gunthiof, their bones lie side by side,

And the four that are left, us seemeth, no long while will abide.”

O woe for the well-watched Signy, how often on that day

Must she send her helpless eyen adown the woodland way!

Yet silent in her bosom she held her heart of flame.

And again on the morrow morning the tale was still the same:

“We tell thee now, King Siggeir, that all will soon be done;

For the two last men of the Volsungs, they sit there one by one,

And Sigi’s head is drooping, but somewhat Sigmund sings;

For the man was a mighty warrior, and a beater down of kings.

But for Rerir and for Agnar, the last of them is said,

Their bones in the bonds are abiding, but their souls and lives are sped.”

That day from the eyes of the watchers nought Signy strove to depart,

But ever she sat in the high-seat and nursed the flame in her heart.

In the sight of all people she sat, with unmoved face and wan,

And to no man gave she a word, nor looked on any man.

Then the dusk and the dark drew over, but stirred she never a whit,

And the word of Siggeir’s sending, she gave no heed to it.

And there on the morrow morning must he sit him down by her side,

When unto the council of elders folk came from far and wide.

And there came Siggeir’s woodmen, and their voice in the hall arose:

“There is no man left on the tree-beam: some beast hath devoured thy foes;

There is nought left there but the bones, and the bonds that the Volsungs bound.”

No word spake the earls of the Goth-folk, but the hall rang out with a sound,

With the wail and the cry of Signy, as she stood upright on her feet,

And thrust all people from her, and fled to her bower as fleet

As the hind when she first is smitten; and her maidens fled away,

Fearing her face and her eyen: no less at the death of the day

She rose up amid the silence, and went her ways alone,

And no man watched her or hindered, for they deemed the story done.

So she went ‘twixt the yellow acres, and the green meads of the sheep,

And or ever she reached the wild-wood the night was waxen deep

No man she had to lead her, but the path was trodden well

By those messengers of murder, the men with the tale to tell;

And the beams of the high white moon gave a glimmering day through night

Till she came where that lawn of the woods lay wide in the flood of light.

Then she looked, and lo, in its midmost a mighty man there stood,

And laboured the earth of the green-sward with a truncheon torn from the wood;

And behold, it was Sigmund the Volsung: but she cried and had no fear:

“If thou art living, Sigmund, what day’s work dost thou here

In the midnight and the forest? but if thou art nought but a ghost,

Then where are those Volsung brethren, of whom thou wert best and most?”

Then he turned about unto her, and his raiment was fouled and torn,

And his eyen were great and hollow, as a famished man forlorn;

But he cried: “Hail, Sister Signy! I looked for thee before,

Though what should a woman compass, she one alone and no more,

When all we shielded Volsungs did nought in Siggeir’s land?

O yea, I am living indeed, and this labour of mine hand

Is to bury the bones of the Volsungs; and lo, it is well-nigh done.

So draw near, Volsung’s daughter, and pile we many a stone

Where lie the grey wolf’s gleanings of what was once so good.”

So she set her hand to the labour, and they toiled, they twain in the wood

And when the work was over, dead night was beginning to fail:

Then spake the white-hand Signy: “Now shalt thou tell the tale

Of the death of the Volsung brethren ere the wood thy wrath shall hide,

Ere I wend me back sick-hearted in the dwelling of kings to abide.”

He said: “We sat on the tree, and well ye may wot indeed

That we had some hope from thy good-will amidst that bitter need.

Now none had ‘scaped the sword-edge in the battle utterly,

And so hurt were Agnar and Helgi, that, unhelped, they were like to die;

Though for that we deemed them happier: but now when the moon shone bright,

And when by a doomed man’s deeming ‘twas the midmost of the night,

Lo, forth from yonder thicket were two mighty wood-wolves come,

Far huger wrought to my deeming than the beasts I knew at home:

Forthright on Gylfi and Geirmund those dogs of the forest fell,

And what of men so hoppled should be the tale to tell?

They tore them midst the irons, and slew them then and there,

And long we heard them snarling o’er that abundant cheer.

Night after night, O my sister, the story was the same,

And still from the dark and the thicket the wild-wood were-wolves came

And slew two men of the Volsungs whom the sword edge might not end.

And every day in the dawning did the King’s own woodmen wend

To behold those craftsmen’s carving and rejoice King Siggeir’s heart.

And so was come last midnight, when I must play my part:

Forsooth when those first were murdered my heart was as blood and fire;

And I deemed that my bonds must burst with my uttermost desire

To free my naked hands, that the vengeance might be wrought;

But now was I wroth with the Gods, that had made the Volsungs for nought

And I said: in the Day of their Doom a man’s help shall they miss;

I will be as a wolf of the forest, if their kings must come to this;

Or if Siggeir indeed be their king, and their envy has brought it about