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

BOOK I.-5

That dead in the dust lies Volsung, while the last of his seed dies out.

Therewith from out the thicket the grey wolves drew anigh,

And the he-wolf fell on Sigi, but he gave forth never a cry,

And I saw his lips that they smiled, and his steady eyes for a space;

And therewith was the she-wolf’s muzzle thrust into my very face.

The Gods helped not, but I helped; and I too grew wolfish then;

Yea I, who have borne the sword-hilt high mid the kings of men,

I, lord of the golden harness, the flame of the Glittering Heath,

Must snarl to the she-wolf’s snarling, and snap with greedy teeth,

While my hands with the hand-bonds struggled; my teeth took hold the first

And amid her mighty writhing the bonds that bound me burst,

As with Fenrir’s Wolf it shall be: then the beast with the hopples I smote,

When my left hand stiff with the bonds had got her by the throat.

But I turned when I had slain her, and there lay Sigi dead,

And once more to the night of the forest the fretting wolf had fled.

In the thicket I hid till the dawning, and thence I saw the men,

E’en Siggeir’s heart-rejoicers, come back to the place again

To gather the well-loved tidings: I looked and I knew for sooth

How hate had grown in my bosom and the death of my days of ruth:

Though unslain they departed from me, lest Siggeir come to doubt.

But hereafter, yea hereafter, they that turned the world about,

And raised Hell’s abode o’er God-home, and mocked all men-folk’s worth—

Shall my hand turn back or falter, while these abide on earth,

Because I once was a child, and sat on my father’s knees;

But long methinks shall Siggeir bide merrily at ease

In the high-built house of the Goths, with his shielded earls around,

His warders of day and of night-tide, and his world of peopled ground,

While his foe is a swordless outcast, a hunted beast of the wood,

A wolf of the holy places, where men-folk gather for good.

And didst thou think, my sister, when we sat in our summer bliss

Beneath the boughs of the Branstock, that the world was like to this?”

As the moon and the twilight mingled, she stood with kindling eyes,

And answered and said: “My brother, thou art strong, and thou shalt be wise:

I am nothing so wroth as thou art with the ways of death and hell,

For thereof had I a deeming when all things were seeming well.

In sooth overlong it may linger; the children of murder shall thrive,

While thy work is a weight for thine heart, and a toil for thy hand to drive;

But I wot that the King of the Goth-folk for his deeds shall surely pay,

And that I shall live to see it: but thy wrath shall pass away,

And long shalt thou live on the earth an exceeding glorious king,

And thy words shall be told in the market, and all men of thy deeds shall sing:

Fresh shall thy memory be, and thine eyes like mine shall gaze

On the day unborn in the darkness, the last of all earthly days,

The last of the days of battle, when the host of the Gods is arrayed

And there is an end for ever of all who were once afraid.

There as thou drawest thy sword, thou shalt think of the days that were,

And the foul shall still seem foul, and the fair shall still seem fair;

But thy wit shall then be awakened, and thou shalt know indeed

Why the brave man’s spear is broken, and his war-shield fails at need;

Why the loving is unbelovèd; why the just man falls from his state;

Why the liar gains in a day what the soothfast strives for late.

Yea, and thy deeds shalt thou know, and great shall thy gladness be;

As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see,

And know that thou too wert a God to abide through the hurry and haste;

A God in the golden hall, a God on the rain-swept waste,

A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain:

And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened again:

And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill;

Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen to fill;

By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told

In the hall of the happy Baldur: nor there shall the tale grow old

Of the days before the changing, e’en those that over us pass.

So harden thine heart, O brother, and set thy brow as the brass!

Thou shalt do, and thy deeds shall be goodly, and the day’s work shall be done

Though nought but the wild deer see it. Nor yet shalt thou be alone

For ever-more in thy waiting; for belike a fearful friend

The long days for thee may fashion, to help thee ere the end.

But now shalt thou bide in the wild-wood, and make thee a lair therein:

Thou art here in the midst of thy foemen, and from them thou well mayst win

Whatso thine heart desireth; yet be thou not too bold,

Lest the tale of the wood-abider too oft to the king be told.

Ere many days are departed again shall I see thy face,

That I may wot full surely of thine abiding-place

To send thee help and comfort; but when that hour is o’er

It were good, O last of the Volsungs, that I see thy face no more,

If so indeed it may be: but the Norns must fashion all,

And what the dawn hath fated on the hour of noon shall fall.”

Then she kissed him and departed, for the day was nigh at hand,

And by then she had left the woodways green lay the horse-fed land

Beneath the new-born daylight, and as she brushed the dew

Betwixt the yellowing acres, all heaven o’erhead was blue.

And at last on that dwelling of Kings the golden sunlight lay,

And the morn and the noon and the even built up another day.

Of the birth and fostering of Sinfiotli, Signy’s Son.

So wrought is the will of King Siggeir, and he weareth Odin’s sword

And it lies on his knees in the council and hath no other lord:

And he sendeth earls o’er the sea-flood to take King Volsung’s land,

And those scattered and shepherdless sheep must come beneath his hand.

And he holdeth the milk-white Signy as his handmaid and his wife.

And nought but his will she doeth, nor raiseth a word of strife;

So his heart is praising his wisdom, and he deems him of most avail

Of all the lords of the cunning that teacheth how to prevail.

Now again in a half-month’s wearing goes Signy into the wild,

And findeth her way by her wisdom to the dwelling of Volsung’s child.

It was e’en as a house of the Dwarfs, a rock, and a stony cave.

In the heart of the midmost thicket by the hidden river’s wave.

There Signy found him watching how the white-head waters ran,

And she said in her heart as she saw him that once more she had seen a man.

His words were few and heavy, for seldom his sorrow slept,

Yet ever his love went with them; and men say that Signy wept

When she left that last of her kindred: yet wept she never more

Amid the earls of Siggeir, and as lovely as before

Was her face to all men’s deeming: nor aught it changed for ruth,

Nor for fear nor any longing; and no man said for sooth

That she ever laughed thereafter till the day of her death was come.

So is Volsung’s seed abiding in a rough and narrow home;

And wargear he gat him enough from the slaying of earls of men,

And gold as much as he would; though indeed but now and again

He fell on the men of the merchants, lest, wax he overbold,

The tale of the wood-abider too oft to the king should be told.

Alone in the woods he abided, and a master of masters was he

In the craft of the smithying folk; and whiles would the hunter see,

Belated amid the thicket, his forge’s glimmering light,

And the boldest of all the fishers would hear his hammer benight.

Then dim waxed the tale of the Volsungs, and the word mid the wood-folk rose

That a King of the Giants had wakened from amidst the stone-hedged close,

Where they slept in the heart of the mountains, and had come adown to dwell

In the cave whence the Dwarfs were departed, and they said: It is aught but well

To come anigh to his house-door, or wander wide in his woods?

For a tyrannous lord he is, and a lover of gold and of goods.

So win the long years over, and still sitteth Signy there

Beside the King of the Goth-folk, and is waxen no less fair,

And men and maids hath she gotten who are ready to work her will,

For the worship of her fairness, and remembrance of her ill.

So it fell on a morn of springtide, as Sigmund sat on the sward

By that ancient house of the Dwarf-kind and fashioned a golden sword?

By the side of the hidden river he saw a damsel stand,

And a manchild of ten summers was holding by her hand.

And she cried:

“O Forest-dweller! harm not the child nor me,

For I bear a word of Signy’s, and thus she saith to thee:

‘I send thee a man to foster; if his heart be good at need

Then may he help thy workday; but hearken my words and heed;

If thou deem that his heart shall avail not, thy work is over-great

That thou weary thy heart with such-like: let him wend the ways of his fate.’”

And no more word spake the maiden, but turned and gat her gone,

And there by the side of the river the child abode alone:

But Sigmund stood on his feet, and across the river he went.

For he knew how the child was Siggeir’s, and of Signy’s fell intent.

So he took the lad on his shoulder, and bade him hold his sword,

And waded back to his dwelling across the rushing ford:

But the youngling fell a prattling, and asked of this and that,

As above the rattle of waters on Sigmund’s shoulder he sat!

And Sigmund deemed in his heart that the boy would be bold enough.

So he fostered him there in the woodland in life full hard and rough

For the space of three months’ wearing; and the lad was deft and strong,

Yet his sight was a grief to Sigmund because of his father’s wrong.

On a morn to the son of King Siggeir Sigmund the Volsung said:

“I go to the hunting of deer, bide thou and bake our bread

Against I bring the venison.”

So forth he fared on his way,

And came again with the quarry about the noon of day;

Quoth he: “Is the morn’s work done?” But the boy said nought for a space,

And all white he was and quaking as he looked on Sigmund’s face.

“Tell me, O Son of the Goth-king,” quoth Sigmund, “how thou hast fared?

Forsooth, is the baking of bread so mighty a thing to be dared?”

Quoth the lad: “I went to the meal-sack, and therein was something quick,

And it moved, and I feared for the serpent, like a winter ashen stick

That I saw on the stone last even: so I durst not deal with the thing.”