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

by William Morris

Then abroad went the King in the wind, and leaned on his naked sword
And stood there many an hour, and mused on Signy's word.
But at last when the moon was arisen, and the undark night begun,
He sheathed the sword and cried: "Come forth, King Siggeir's son,
Thou shalt wend from out of the wild-wood and no more will I foster thee."

Forth came the son of Siggeir, and quaked his face to see,
But thereof nought Sigmund noted, but bade him wend with him.
So they went through the summer night-tide by many a wood-way dim,
Till they came to a certain wood-lawn, and Sigmund lingered there,
And spake as his feet brushed o'er it: "The June flowers blossom fair."
So they came to the skirts of the forest, and the meadows of the neat,
And the earliest wind of dawning blew over them soft and sweet:
There stayed Sigmund the Volsung, and said:
"King Siggeir's son,
Bide here till the birds are singing, and the day is well begun;
Then go to the house of the Goth-king, and find thou Signy the Queen,
And tell unto no man else the things thou hast heard and seen:
But to her shalt thou tell what thou wilt, and say this word withal:
'Mother, I come from the wild-wood, and he saith, whatever befal
Alone will I abide there, nor have such fosterlings;
For the sons of the Gods may help me, but never the sons of Kings.'
Go, then, with this word in thy mouth—or do thou after thy fate,
And, if thou wilt, betray me!—and repent it early and late."

Then he turned his back on the acres, and away to the woodland strode;
But the boy scarce bided the sunrise ere he went the homeward road;
So he came to the house of the Goth-kings, and spake with Signy the Queen,
Nor told he to any other the things he had heard and seen,
For the heart of a king's son had he.
But Signy hearkened his word;
And long she pondered and said: "What is it my heart hath feared?
And how shall it be with earth's people if the kin of the Volsungs die,
And King Volsung unavenged in his mound by the sea-strand lie?
I have given my best and bravest, as my heart's blood I would give,
And my heart and my fame and my body, that the name of Volsung might live.
Lo the first gift cast aback: and how shall it be with the last,—
—If I find out the gift for the giving before the hour be passed?"

Long while she mused and pondered while day was thrust on day,
Till the king and the earls of the strangers seemed shades of the dreamtide grey
And gone seemed all earth's people, save that woman mid the gold
And that man in the depths of the forest in the cave of the Dwarfs of old.
And once in the dark she murmured: "Where then was the ancient song
That the Gods were but twin-born once, and deemed it nothing wrong
To mingle for the world's sake, whence had the Æsir birth,
And the Vanir and the Dwarf-kind, and all the folk of earth?"

Now amidst those days that she pondered came a wife of the witch-folk there,
A woman young and lovesome, and shaped exceeding fair,
And she spake with Signy the Queen, and told her of deeds of her craft,
And how the might was with her her soul from her body to waft
And to take the shape of another and give her fashion in turn.
Fierce then in the heart of Signy a sudden flame 'gan burn,
And the eyes of her soul saw all things, like the blind, whom the world's last fire
Hath healed in one passing moment 'twixt his death and his desire.
And she thought: "Alone I will bear it; alone I will take the crime;
On me alone be the shaming, and the cry of the coming time.
Yea, and he for the life is fated and the help of many a folk,
And I for the death and the rest, and deliverance from the yoke."

Then wan as the midnight moon she answered the woman and spake:
"Thou art come to the Goth-queen's dwelling, wilt thou do so much for my sake,
And for many a pound of silver and for rings of the ruddy gold,
As to change thy body for mine ere the night is waxen old?"

Nought the witch-wife fair gainsaid it, and they went to the bower aloft
And hand in hand and alone they sung the spell-song soft:
Till Signy looked on her guest, and lo, the face of a queen
With the steadfast eyes of grey, that so many a grief had seen:
But the guest held forth a mirror, and Signy shrank aback
From the laughing lips and the eyes, and the hair of crispy black,
But though she shuddered and sickened, the false face changed no whit;
But ruddy and white it blossomed and the smiles played over it;
And the hands were ready to cling, and beckoning lamps were the eyes,
And the light feet longed for the dance, and the lips for laughter and lies.

So that eve in the mid-hall's high-seat was the shape of Signy the Queen,
While swiftly the feet of the witch-wife brushed over the moonlit green,
But the soul mid the gleam of the torches, her thought was of gain and of gold;
And the soul of the wind-driven woman, swift-foot in the moonlight cold,
Her thoughts were of men's lives' changing, and the uttermost ending of earth,
And the day when death should be dead, and the new sun's nightless birth.

Men say that about that midnight King Sigmund wakened and heard
The voice of a soft-speeched woman, shrill-sweet as a dawning bird;
So he rose, and a woman indeed he saw by the door of the cave
With her raiment wet to her midmost, as though with the river-wave:
And he cried: "What wilt thou, what wilt thou? be thou womankind or fay,
Here is no good abiding, wend forth upon thy way!"

She said: "I am nought but a woman, a maid of the earl-folk's kin:
And I went by the skirts of the woodland to the house of my sister to win,
And have strayed from the way benighted: and I fear the wolves and the wild
By the glimmering of thy torchlight from afar was I beguiled.
Ah, slay me not on thy threshold, nor send me back again
Through the rattling waves of thy ford, that I crossed in terror and pain;
Drive me not to the night and the darkness, for the wolves of the wood to devour.
I am weak and thou art mighty: I will go at the dawning hour."