* * * * *

Now she stands on the floor of the high-seat, and for e'en so little a space
As men may note delaying, she looketh on Sigurd's face,
Ere she saith:
"I have greeted many in the Niblungs' house today,
And for thee is the last of my greetings ere the feast shall wear away:
Hail, Sigurd, son of the Volsungs! hail, lord of Odin's storm!
Hail, rider of the wasteland and slayer of the Worm!
If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth,
I pray that thou mayst win it, nor forget its might and worth."

All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew,
But gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall he answer thereto,
While the death that amendeth lingers? and they twain shall dwell for awhile
In the Niblung house together by the hearth that forged the guile.

* * * * *

So he spake as a King of the people in whom all fear is dead,
And his anguish no man noted, as the greeting-words he said:
"Hail, fairest of all things fashioned! hail, thou desire of eyes!
Hail, chooser of the mightiest, and teacher of the wise!
Hail, wife of my brother Gunnar! in might may thy days endure,
And in peace without a trouble that the world's weal may be sure!"

* * * * *

But the song sprang up in the hall, and the eagles cried from above
And forth to the freshness of May went the joyance of the feast:
And Sigurd sat with the Niblungs, and gave ear to most and to least.
And showed no sign to the people of the grief that on him lay;
Nor seemeth he worser to any than he was on the yesterday.

_Of the Contention betwixt the Queens._

So now must Sigurd and Brynhild abide together in the Burg of the
Niblungs, yet each must bear the burden of sorrow alone. Brynhild held
close converse with Gudrun, and behaved humbly towards her lest strife
should arise between them. But Gudrun, filled with pride that she was
the wife of so great a man as Sigurd, deemed it a little matter that
all others should give her honour, and knowing how Sigurd had ridden
the fire, she cherished great scorn of Gunnar and Brynhild in her
heart, and her pride waxed daily greater.

Of the heart-wise Hogni men tell how he grew wiser day by day and more
learned in the craft of his mother Grimhild.

As for Gunnar, he lived with Brynhild in great honour and praise fro