The Maiden said:
[a]50]. “Mad thou wouldst seem | alone to seek,
Daughter of heroes, | the house of the dead;
For mightier now | at night are all
The ghosts of the dead | than when day is bright.”
Sigrun was early dead of sorrow and grief. It was believed in olden times that people were born again, but that is now called old wives’ folly. Of Helgi and Sigrun it is said that they were born again; he became Helgi Haddingjaskati, and she Kara the daughter of Halfdan, as is told in the Lay of Kara, and she was a Valkyrie. [[309]]
NOTES
[[310]]
[Prose]. In the manuscript the poem is headed “Of the Volsungs,” but most editions give it the title used here. Sigmund: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 6 and note, which also mentions Volsung, Borghild and Bralund: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 1 and note. Helgi: the annotator’s explanation that the child [[311]]was named after Helgi Hjorvarthsson is a naive way of getting around the difficulties created by the two sets of Helgi stories. He might equally well have said that the new Helgi was the old one born again, as he accounts for Sigrun in this way (“she was Svava reborn”). Hagal: not elsewhere mentioned; it was a common custom to have boys brought up by foster-parents. Hunding and Hundland: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 10 and note. Volsungs and Ylfings: regarding this confusion of family names cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 5 and note. Hæming: his name does not appear in the list of Hunding’s sons. It is quite possible that these opening stanzas (1–4) do not refer to Hunding at all.