sel, and win thee a goodly queen:
Speak ye to the twain unwary, and the truth shall soon be seen,
And again shall they shift their raiment, if I am aught but a fool."

He said: "Thou sayst well, mother, and settest me well to school."
So he spake on a day to the women, and said to the gold-clad one:
"How wottest thou in the winter of the coming of the sun
When yet the world is darkling?"
She said: "In the days of my youth
I dwelt in the house of my father, and fair was the tide forsooth,
And ever I woke at the dawning, for folk betimes must stir,
Be the meadows bright or darksome; and I drank of the whey-tub there
As much as the heart desired; and now, though changed be the days,
I wake athirst in the dawning, because of my wonted ways."

Then laughed King Elf and answered: "A fashion strange enow,
That the feet of the fair queen's-daughter must forth to follow the
plough,
Be the acres bright or darkling! But thou with the eyes of grey.
What sign hast thou to tell thee, that the night wears into day
When the heavens are mirk as the midnight?"
Said she, "In the days that were
My father gave me this gold-ring ye see on my finger here.
And a marvel goeth with it: for when night waxeth old
I feel it on my finger grown most exceeding cold,
And I know day comes through the darkness; and such is my dawning
sign."

Then laughed King Elf and answered: "Thy father's house was fine;
There was gold enough meseemeth--But come now, say the word
And tell me the speech thou spakest awrong mine ears have heard,
And that thou wert the wife of Sigmund the wife of the mightiest King."

No whit she smiled, but answered. "Indeed thou sayst the thing:
Such a wealth I had in my storehouse that I feared the Kings of men."

He said: "Yet for nought didst thou hide thee; had I known of the
matter then,
As the daughter of my father had I held thee in good sooth,
For dear to mine eyes wert thou waxen, and my heart of thy woe was
ruth.
But now shall I deal with thee better than thy dealings to me have
been:
For my wife I will bid thee to be, and the people's very queen."

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 n