LITMIR.BIZ

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is the tree-bough blossomed that sprang from murder's seed;

       And the death-doomed and the buried are they that do the deed;

       Now when the dead shall ask thee by whom thy days were done,

       Thou shalt say by Sigmund the Volsung, and Sinfiotli, Signy's son."

      Then stark fear fell on the earl-folk, and silent they abide

       Amid the flaming penfold; and again the great voice cried,

       As the Goth-king's golden pillars grew red amidst the blaze:

       "Ye women of the Goth-folk, come forth upon your ways;

       And thou, Signy, O my sister, come forth from death and hell,

       That beneath the boughs of the Branstock once more we twain may dwell."

      Forth came the white-faced women and passed Sinfiotli's sword,

       Free by the glaive of Odin the trembling pale ones poured,

       But amid their hurrying terror came never Signy's feet;

       And the pearls of the throne of Siggeir shrunk in the fervent heat.

      Then the men of war surged outward to the twofold doors of bane,

       But there played the sword of Sigmund amidst the fiery lane

       Before the gable door-way, and by the woman's door

       Sinfiotli sang to the sword-edge amid the bale-fire's roar,

       And back again to the burning the earls of the Goth-folk shrank:

       And the light low licked the tables, and the wine of Siggeir drank.

      Lo now to the woman's doorway, the steel-watched bower of flame,

       Clad in her queenly raiment King Volsung's daughter came

       Before Sinfiotli's sword-point; and she said: "O mightiest son,

       Best now is our departing in the day my grief hath won,

       And the many days of toiling, and the travail of my womb,

       And the hate, and the fire of longing: thou, son, and this day of the doom

       Have long been as one to my heart; and now shall I leave you both,

       And well ye may wot of the slumber my heart is nothing loth;

       And all the more, as, meseemeth, thy day shall not be long

       To weary thee with labour and mingle wrong with wrong.

       Yea, and I wot that the daylight thine eyes had never seen

       Save for a great king's murder and the shame of a mighty queen.

       But let thy soul, I charge thee, o'er all these things prevail

       To make thy short day glorious and leave a goodly tale."

      She kissed him and departed, and unto Sigmund went

       As now against the dawning grey grew the winter bent:

       As the night and the morning mingled he saw her face once more,

       And he deemed it fair and ruddy as in the days of yore;

       Yet fast the tears fell from her, and the sobs upheaved her breast:

       And she said: "My youth was happy; but this hour belike is best

       Of all the days of my life-tide, that soon shall have an end.

       I have come to greet thee, Sigmund, then back again must I wend,

       For his bed the Goth-king dighteth: I have lain therein, time was,

       And loathed the sleep I won there: but lo, how all things pass,

       And hearts are changed and softened, for lovely now it seems.

       Yet fear not my forgetting: I shall see thee in my dreams

       A mighty king of the world 'neath the boughs of the Branstock green,

       With thine earls and thy lords about thee as the Volsung fashion hath been.

       And there shall all ye remember how I loved the Volsung name,

       Nor spared to spend for its blooming my joy, and my life, and my fame.

       For hear thou: that Sinfiotli, who hath wrought out our desire,

       Who hath compassed about King Siggeir with this sea of a deadly fire,

       Who brake thy grave asunder—my child and thine he is,

       Begot in that house of the Dwarf-kind for no other end than this;

       The son of Volsung's daughter, the son of Volsung's son.

       Look, look! might another helper this deed with thee have done?"

      And indeed as the word she uttereth, high up the red flames flare

       To the nether floor of the heavens: and yet men see them there,

       The golden roofs of Siggeir, the hall of the silver door

       That the Goths and the Gods had builded to last for evermore.

      She said: "Farewell, my brother, for the earls my candles light,

       And I must wend me bedward lest I lose the flower of night."

      And soft and sweet she kissed him, ere she turned about again,

       And a little while was Signy beheld of the eyes of men;

       And as she crossed the threshold day brightened at her back,

       Nor once did she turn her earthward from the reek and the whirling wrack,

But fair in the fashion of Queens passed on to the heart of the hall.

      And then King Siggeir's roof-tree upheaved for its utmost fall,

       And its huge walls clashed together, and its mean and lowly things

       The fire of death confounded with the tokens of the kings.

       A sign for many people on the land of the Goths it lay,

       A lamp of the earth none needed, for the bright sun brought the day.

      How Sigmund cometh to the Land of the Volsungs again, and of the death of Sinfiotli his Son.

      Now Sigmund the king bestirs him, and Sinfiotli, Sigmund's son,

       And they gather a host together, and many a mighty one;

       Then they set the ships in the sea-flood and sail from the stranger's shore,

       And the beaks of the golden dragons see the Volsungs' land once more:

       And men's hearts are fulfilled of joyance; and they cry, The sun shines now

       With never a curse to hide it, and they shall reap that sow!

       Then for many a day sits Sigmund 'neath the boughs of the Branstock green,

       With his earls and lords about him as the Volsung wont hath been.

       And oft he thinketh on Signy and oft he nameth her name,

       And tells how she spent her joyance and her lifedays and her fame

       That the Volsung kin might blossom and bear the fruit of worth

       For the hope of unborn people and the harvest of the earth.

       And again he thinks of the word that he spake that other day,

       How he should abide there lonely when his kin was passed away,

       Their glory and sole avenger, their after-summer seed.

      And now for their fame's advancement, and the latter days to speed,

       He weddeth a wife of the King-folk; Borghild she had to name;

       And the woman was fair and lovely and bore him sons of fame;

       Men call them Hamond and Helgi, and when Helgi first saw light,

       There came the Norns to his cradle and gave him life full bright,

      

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