36. Laughing Volund rose in air, but Nidud sad remained sitting.
37. "Rise up Thakrad, my best of thralls! bid Bodvild, my fair-browed daughter, in bright attire come, with her sire to speak.
38. Is it, Bodvild! true what has been told to me, that thou and Volund in the isle together sat?"
39. "True it is, Nidud! what has been told to thee, that Volund and I in the isle together sat, in an unlucky hour: would it had never been! I could not against him strive, I might not against him prevail."
FOOTNOTES:
[45] On snow-shoes.
[46] The designation of Alfars' chief, or prince, applied to Volund, who, as we learn from the prose introduction, was a son of a king of the Finns, may perhaps be accounted for by the circumstance that the poem itself hardly belongs to the Odinic Mythology, and was probably composed when that system was in its decline and giving place to the heroic or romantic.
[47] The translation of this line is founded solely on a conjectural emendation of the text. The wrong alluded to may be the hamstringing.