The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs

by William Morris

No word spake the earls of the Goth-folk, but the hall rang out with a sound,
With the wail and the cry of Signy, as she stood upright on her feet,
And thrust all people from her, and fled to her bower as fleet
As the hind when she first is smitten; and her maidens fled away,
Fearing her face and her eyen: no less at the death of the day
She rose up amid the silence, and went her ways alone,
And no man watched her or hindered, for they deemed the story done.
So she went 'twixt the yellow acres, and the green meads of the sheep,
And or ever she reached the wild-wood the night was waxen deep
No man she had to lead her, but the path was trodden well
By those messengers of murder, the men with the tale to tell;
And 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 ever of all who were once afraid.
There as thou drawest thy sword, thou shalt think of the days that were,
And the foul shall still seem foul, and the fair shall still seem fair;
But thy wit shall then be awakened, and thou shalt know indeed
Why the brave man's spear is broken, and his war-shield fails at need;
Why the loving is unbelovèd; why the just man falls from his state;
Why the liar gains in a day what the soothfast strives for late.
Yea, and thy deeds shalt thou know, and great shall thy gladness be;
As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see,
And know that thou too wert a God to abide through the hurry and haste;
A God in the golden hall, a God on the rain-swept waste,
A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain:
And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened again:
And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill;
Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen to fill;
By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told
In the hall of the happy Baldur: nor there shall the tale grow old
Of the days before the changing, e'en those that over us pass.
So harden thine heart, O brother, and set thy brow as the brass!
Thou shalt do, and thy deeds shall be goodly, and the day's work shall be done
Though nought but the wild deer see it. Nor yet shalt thou be alone
For ever-more in thy waiting; for belike a fearful friend
The long days for thee may fashion, to help thee ere the end.
But now shalt thou bide in the wild-wood, and make thee a lair therein:
Thou art here in the midst of thy foemen, and from them thou well mayst win
Whatso thine heart desireth; yet be thou not too bold,
Lest the tale of the wood-abider too oft to the king be told.
Ere many days are departed again shall I see thy face,
That I may wot full surely of thine abiding-place
To send thee help and comfort; but when that hour is o'er
It were good, O last of the Volsungs, that I see thy face no more,
If so indeed it may be: but the Norns must fashion all,
And what the dawn hath fated on the hour of noon shall fall."

Then she kissed him and departed, for the day was nigh at hand,
And by then she had left the woodways green lay the horse-fed land
Beneath the new-born daylight, and as she brushed the dew
Betwixt the yellowing acres, all heaven o'erhead was blue.
And at last on that dwelling of Kings the golden sunlight lay,
And the morn and the noon and the even built up another day.

Of the birth and fostering of Sinfiotli, Signy's Son.

So wrought is the will of King Siggeir, and he weareth Odin's sword
And it lies on his knees in the council and hath no other lord:
And he sendeth earls o'er the sea-flood to take King Volsung's land,
And those scattered and shepherdless sheep must come beneath his hand.
And he holdeth the milk-white Signy as his handmaid and his wife.
And nought but his will she doeth, nor raiseth a word of strife;
So his heart is praising his wisdom, and he deems him of most avail
Of all the lords of the cunning that teacheth how to prevail.