e named himself Gunnar, son of Giuki, and said--"Thou art awarded
to me as my wife, by the good will and word of thy father and thy
foster-father, and I have ridden through the flames of thy fire,
according to thy word that thou hast set forth."

"I wot not clearly," said she, "how I shall answer thee."

Now Sigurd stood upright on the hall floor, and leaned on the hilt of
his sword, and he spake to Brynhild--

"In reward thereof, shall I pay thee a great dower in gold and goodly
things?"

She answered in heavy mood from her seat, whereas she sat like unto swan
on billow, having a sword in her hand, and a helm on her head, and being
clad in a byrny, "O Gunnar," she says, "speak not to me of such things,
unless thou be the first and best of all men; for then shalt thou slay
those my wooers, if thou hast heart thereto; I have been in battles with
the king of the Greeks, and our weapons were stained with red blood, and for
such things still I yearn."

He answered, "Yea, certes many great deeds hast thou done; but yet call
thou to mind thine oath, concerning the riding through of this fire,
wherein thou didst swear that thou wouldst go with the man who should do
this deed."

So she found that he spoke but the sooth, and she paid heed to his
words, and arose, and greeted him meetly, and he abode there three
nights, and they lay in one bed together; but he took the sword Gram and
laid it betwixt them: then she asked him why he laid it there; and he
answered, that in that wise must he needs wed his wife or else get his
bane.

Then she took from off her the ring Andvari's-loom, which he had given
her aforetime, and gave it to him, but he gave her another ring out of
Fafnir's hoard.

Thereafter he rode away through the same fire unto his fellows, and he
and Gunnar changed semblances again, and rode unto Hlymdale, and told
how it had gone with them.

That same day went Brynhild home to her foster-father, and tells him
as one whom she trusted, how that there had come a king to her; "And he
rode through my flaming fire, and said he was come to woo me, and named
himself Gunnar; but I said that such a deed might Sigurd alone have
done, with whom I plighted troth on the mountain; and he is my first
troth-plight, and my well-beloved."

Heimir said that things must needs abide even as now they had now come
to pass.

Brynhild said, "Aslaug the daughter of me and Sigurd shall be nourished
here with thee."

Now the kings f