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

by William Morris

Men tell how the heart-wise Hogni grew wiser day by day;
He knows of the craft of Grimhild, and how she looketh to sway
The very council of God-home and the Norns' unchanging mind;
And he saith that well-learned is his mother, but that e'en her feet are blind
Down the path that she cannot escape from: nay oft is she nothing, he saith,
Save a staff for the foredoomed staying, and a sword for the ordered death;
And that he will be wiser than this, nor thrust his desire aside,
Nor smother the flame of his hatred; but the steed of the Norns will he ride,
Till he see great marvels and wonders, and leave great tales to be told:
And measureless pride is in him, a stern heart, stubborn and cold.

But of Gunnar the Niblung they say it, that the bloom of his youth is o'er,
And many are manhood's troubles, and they burden him oft and sore.
He dwells with Brynhild his wife, with Grimhild his mother he dwells,
And noble things of his greatness, of his joy, the rumour tells;
Yet oft and oft of an even he thinks of that tale of the night,
And the shame springs fresh in his heart at his brother Sigurd's might;
And the wonder riseth within him, what deed did Sigurd there,
What gift to the King hath he given: and he looks on Brynhild the fair,
The fair face never smiling, and the eyes that know no change,
And he deems in the bed of the Niblungs she is but cold and strange;
And the Lie is laid between them, as the sword lay while agone.
He hearkens to Grimhild moreover, and he deems she is driving him on,
He knoweth not whither nor wherefore: but she tells of the measureless Gold,
And the Flame of the uttermost Waters, and the Hoard of the kings of old:
And she tells of kings' supplanters, and the leaders of the war,
Who take the crown of song-craft, and the tale when all is o'er:
She tells of kings' supplanters, and saith: Perchance 'twere well,
Might some tongue of the wise of the earth of those deeds of the night-tide tell:
She tells of kings' supplanters: I am wise, and the wise I know,
And for nought is the sword-edge whetted, save the smiting of the blow:
Old friends are last to sever, and twain are strong indeed,
When one the King's shame knoweth, and the other knoweth his need.

So Gunnar hearkens and hearkens, and he saith, It is idle and worse:
If the oath of my brother be broken, let the earth then see to the curse!
But again he hearkens and hearkens, and when none may hear his thought
He saith in the silent night-tide: Shall my brother bring me to nought?
Must my stroke be a stroke of the guilty, though on sackless folk it fall?
Shall a king sit joy-forsaken mid the riches of his hall?
And measureless pride is in Gunnar, and it blends with doubt and shame,
And the unseen blossom is envy and desire without a name.

But fair-faced, calm as a God who hath none to call his foes,
Betwixt the Kings and the people the golden Sigurd goes;
No knowledge of man he lacketh, and the lore he gained of old
From the ancient heart of the Serpent and the Wallower on the Gold
Springs fresh in the soul of Sigurd; the heart of Hogni he sees,
And the heart of his brother Gunnar, and he grieveth sore for these.
But he seeth the heart of Brynhild, and knoweth her lonely cry
When the waste is all about her, and none but the Gods are anigh:
And he knoweth her tale of the night-tide, when desire, that day doth dull,
Is stirred by hope undying, and fills her bosom full
Of the sighs she may not utter, and the prayers that none may heed;
Though the Gods were once so mighty the smiling world to speed.
And he knows of the day of her burden, and the measure of her toil,
And the peerless pride of her heart, and her scorn of the fall and the foil.
And the shadowy wings of the Lie, that with hand unwitting he led
To the Burg of the ancient people, brood over board and bed;
And the hand of the hero faileth, and seared is the sight of the wise,
And good is at one with evil till the new-born death shall arise.

In the hall sitteth Sigurd by Brynhild, in the council of the Kings,
And he hearkeneth her spoken wisdom, and her word of lovely things:
In the field they meet, and the wild-wood; on the acre and the heath;
And scarce may he tell if the meeting be worse than the coward's death,
Or better than life of the righteous: but his love is a flaming fire,
That hath burnt up all before it of the things that feed desire.

The heart of Gudrun he seeth, her heart of burning love,
That knoweth of nought but Sigurd on the earth, in the heavens above,
Save the foes that encompass his life, and the woman that wasteth away
'Neath the toil of a love like her love, and the unrewarded day:
For hate her eyes hath quickened, and no more is Gudrun blind,
And sure, though dim it may be, she seeth the days behind:
And the shadowy wings of the Lie, that the hand unwitting led
To the love and the heart of Gudrun, brood over board and bed;
And for all the hand of the hero and the foresight of the wise,
From the heart of a loving woman shall the death of men arise.

It was most in these latter days that his fame went far abroad,
The helper, the overcomer, the righteous sundering sword;
The loveliest King of the King-folk, the man of sweetest speech,
Whose ear is dull to no man that his helping shall beseech;
The eye-bright seer of all things, that wasteth every wrong,
The straightener of the crooked, the hammer of the strong:
Lo, such was the Son of Sigmund in the days whereof I tell,
The dread of the doom and the battle; and all children loved him well.

Now it happed on a summer season mid the blossom of the year,
When the clouds were high and little, and the sun exceeding clear,
That Queen Brynhild arose in the morning, and longed for the eddying pool,
And the Water of the Niblungs her summer sleep to cool:
So she set her face to the river, where the hawthorn and the rose
Hide the face of the sunlit water from the yellow-blossomed close
And the house-built Burg of the Niblungs; for there by a grassy strand
The shallow water floweth o'er white and stoneless sand
And deepeneth up and outward; and the bank on the further side
Goes high and shear and rocky the water's face to hide
From the plain and the horse-fed meadow: there the wives of the Niblungs oft
Would play in the wide-spread water when the summer days were soft;
And thither now goes Brynhild, and the flowery screen doth pass,
When lo, fair linen raiment falls before her on the grass,
And she looks, and there is Gudrun, the white-armed Niblung child,
All bare for the sunny river and the water undefiled.
Round she turned with her face yet dreamy with the love of yesternight,
Till the flush of anger changed it: but Brynhild's face grew white,
Though soft she spake and queenly:
"Hail, sister of my lord!
Thou art fair in the summer morning 'twixt the river and the sward!"

Then she disarrayed her shoulders and cast her golden girth,
And she said: "Thou art sister of Gunnar, and the kin of the best of the earth;
So shalt thou go before me to meet the water cold."

Then, smiling nowise kindly, doth Gudrun her behold,
And she saith: "Thou art wrong, Queen Brynhild, to give the place to me,
For she that is wife of the greatest more than sister-kin shall be.
—Nay, if here were the sister of Sigurd ne'er before me should she go,
Though sister were she surely of the best that the earth-folk know:
Yet I linger not, since thou biddest, for the courteous of women thou art;
And the love of the night and the morning is heavy at my heart;
For the best of the world was beside me, while thou layest with Gunnar the King."