LITMIR.BIZ

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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

       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

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