The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs. William Morris

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      She said: "When the son of King Sigmund is brought forth to the light of day

       And the world a man hath gotten, thy will shall I nought gainsay.

       And I thank thee for thy goodness, and I know the love of thine heart;

       And I see thy goodly kingdom, thy country set apart,

       With the day of peace begirdled from the change and the battle's wrack:

       'Tis enough, and more than enough since none prayeth the past aback."

      Then the King is fain and merry, and he deems his errand sped,

       And that night she sits on the high-seat with the crown on her shapely head:

       And amidst the song and the joyance, and the sound of the people's praise,

       She thinks of the days that have been, and she dreams of the coming days.

      So passeth the summer season, and the harvest of the year,

       And the latter days of the winter on toward the springtide wear.

BOOK II.

       Table of Contents

REGIN.

       Table of Contents

      now this is the first book of the life and death of sigurd the volsung, and therein is told of the birth of him, and of his dealings with regin the master of masters, and of his deeds in the waste places of the earth.

      Of the birth of Sigurd the son of Sigmund.

      Peace lay on the land of the Helper and the house of Elf his son;

       There merry men went bedward when their tide of toil was done,

       And glad was the dawn's awakening, and the noon-tide fair and glad:

       There no great store had the franklin, and enough the hireling had;

       And a child might go unguarded the length and breadth of the land

       With a purse of gold at his girdle and gold rings on his hand.

       'Twas a country of cunning craftsmen, and many a thing they wrought,

       That the lands of storm desired, and the homes of warfare sought.

       But men deemed it o'er-well warded by more than its stems of fight,

       And told how its earth-born watchers yet lived of plenteous might.

       So hidden was that country, and few men sailed its sea,

       And none came o'er its mountains of men-folk's company.

       But fair-fruited, many-peopled, it lies a goodly strip,

       'Twixt the mountains cloudy-headed and the sea-flood's surging lip,

       And a perilous flood is its ocean, and its mountains, who shall tell

       What things in their dales deserted and their wind-swept heaths may dwell.

      Now a man of the Kings, called Gripir, in this land of peace abode:

       The son of the Helper's father, though never lay his load

       In the womb of the mother of Kings that the Helper's brethren bore;

       But of Giant kin was his mother, of the folk that are seen no more;

       Though whiles as ye ride some fell-road across the heath there comes

       The voice of their lone lamenting o'er their changed and conquered homes.

       A long way off from the sea-strand and beneath the mountains' feet

       Is the high-built hall of Gripir, where the waste and the tillage meet;

       A noble and plentiful house, that a little men-folk fear.

       But beloved of the crag-dwelling eagles and the kin of the woodland deer.

       A man of few words was Gripir, but he knew of all deeds that had been,

       And times there came upon him, when the deeds to be were seen:

       No sword had he held in his hand since his father fell to field,

       And against the life of the slayer he bore undinted shield:

       Yet no fear in his heart abided, nor desired he aught at all,

       But he noted the deeds that had been, and looked for what should befall.

      Again, in the house of the Helper there dwelt a certain man

       Beardless and low of stature, of visage pinched and wan:

       So exceeding old was Regin, that no son of man could tell

       In what year of the days passed over he came to that land to dwell:

       But the youth of King Elf had he fostered, and the Helper's youth thereto,

       Yea and his father's father's: the lore of all men he knew,

       And was deft in every cunning, save the dealings of the sword:

       So sweet was his tongue-speech fashioned, that men trowed his every word;

       His hand with the harp-strings blended was the mingler of delight

       With the latter days of sorrow; all tales he told aright;

       The Master of the Masters in the smithying craft was he;

       And he dealt with the wind and the weather and the stilling of the sea;

       Nor might any learn him leech-craft, for before that race was made,

       And that man-folk's generation, all their life-days had he weighed.

      In this land abideth Hiordis amid all people's praise

       Till cometh the time appointed: in the fulness of the days

       Through the dark and the dusk she travailed, till at last in the dawning hour

       Have the deeds of the Volsungs blossomed, and born their latest flower;

       In the bed there lieth a man-child, and his eyes look straight on the sun,

       And lo, the hope of the people, and the days of a king are begun.

      Men say of the serving-women, when they cried on the joy of the morn,

       When they handled the linen raiment, and washed the king new-born,

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