(82)
“When my manhood was matched in embraces
With the might of yon horror, the strangler,
Far other I found it than folding
That fair one ye know in my arms!
On the high-seat of heroes with Odin
From the horn of the gods I were drinking
O'er soon—let me speak it to warriors—
If Skrymir had failed of his aid.”
Then his wounds were looked to; they found that his ribs were broken on both sides. He said it was no use trying to heal him, and lay there in his wounds for a time, while his men grieved that he should have been so unwary of his life.
He answered them in song:—
(83)
“Of yore never once did I ween it,
When I wielded the cleaver of targets,
That sickness was fated to foil me—
A fighter so hardy as I.
But I shrink not, for others must share it,
Stout shafts of the spear though they deem them,
—O hard at my heart is the death-pang,—
Thus hopeless the bravest may die.”
And this song also:—
(84)
“He came not with me in the morning,
Thy mate, O thou fairest of women,
When we reddened for booty the broadsword,
So brave to the hand-grip, in Ireland:
When the sword from its scabbard was loosened
And sang round my cheeks in the battle
For the feast of the Fury, and blood-drops
Fell hot on the neb of the raven.”
And then he began to fail.
This was his last song:—
(85)
“There was dew from the wound smitten deeply
That drained from the stroke of the sword-edge;
There was red on the weapon I wielded
In the war with the glorious and gallant:
Yet not where the broadsword,—the blood wand,—
Was borne by the lords of the falchion,
But low in the straw like a laggard,
O my lady, dishonoured I die!”
He said that his will was to give Thorgils his brother all he had,—the goods he owned and the host he led; for he would like best, he said, that his brother should have the use of them.