“Now, Damsel fair, I’ve rescued thee
From thraldom drear and secret care;
Now tell me of thy ancestry,
Thy parents and thy race declare.”
“My father he was England’s King,
My mother was his lovely Queen;
My brother once a grey wolf was,
And trotted o’er the wold so green.”
“If England’s King thy father was,
And thy dear mother England’s Queen,
Thou art my sister’s daughter then,
Who long a Nightingale has been.”
O there was joy throughout the land,
And all the court was filled with glee;
The Knight has caught the Nightingale,
That dwelt within the linden tree.
THE VALKYRIE AND RAVEN
Ye men wearing bracelets
Be mute whilst I sing
Of Harald the hero—
High Norroway’s king;
I’ll duly declare
A discourse which I heard,
Betwixt a bright maiden
And black raven bird.
The Valkyrie’s vext
No war-field to find;
The speech she knew well
Of the wild feather’d kind,
And thus she bespake him
Who bears the brown bill,
So proud as he perch’d on
The peak of the hill.
“What do you here, ravens,
And whence come ye, say,
Your heads turn’d direct to
The dying sun’s ray?
Bits of flesh hold your claws—
There’s blood flowing free
From your beaks, surely nigh
Dead bodies there be.”
Then wiping his beak,
Bloody red, on the rock,
The eagle’s sworn brother
Thus answer’d and spoke:
“Harald we’ve follow’d,
Of Halfdan the son,
Ever since from the egg
That we egress have won.”
“Then ye know, bird, the king,
Whose keep is in Kvine,
The young king—the Norse king—
Whose keels cut the brine;