t thou ride to Lymdale and tonight shalt thou bide in
my hall:
For I am the ancient Heimir, and my cunning is of the harp,
Though erst have I dealt in the sword-play while the edge of war was
sharp."

Then Sigurd joyed to behold him, for a god-like King he was,
And amid the men of Lymdale did the Son of Sigmund pass;
And their hearts are high uplifted, for across the air there came
A breath of his tale half-spoken and the tidings of his fame;
And their eyes are all unsatiate of gazing on his face,
For his like have they never looked on for goodliness and grace.

So they bear him the wine of welcome, and then to the saddle they leap
And get them forth from the wood-ways to the lea-land of the sheep,
And the bull-fed Lymdale meadows; and thereover Sigurd sees
The long white walls of Heimir amidst the blossomed trees:
Then the slim moon rises in heaven, and the stars in the tree-tops
shine,
But the golden roof of Heimir looks down on the torch-lit wine,
And the song of men goes roofward in praise of Sigmund's Son,
And a joy to the Lymdale people is his glory new-begun.

_How Sigurd met Brynhild in Lymdale._

So there abideth Sigurd with the Lymdale forest-lords
In mighty honour holden, and in love beyond all words,
And thence abroad through the people there goeth a rumour and breath
Of the great Gold-wallower's slaying, and the tale of the Glittering
Heath,
And a word of the ancient Treasure and Greyfell's gleaming Load;
And the hearts of men grew eager, and the coming deeds abode.
But warily dealeth Sigurd, and he wends in the woodland fray
As one whose heart is ready and abides a better day:
In the woodland fray he fareth, and oft on a day doth ride
Where the mighty forest wild-bulls and the lonely wolves abide;
For as then no other warfare do the lords of Lymdale know,
And the axe-age and the sword-age seem dead a while ago,
And the age of the cleaving of shields, and of brother by brother
slain,
And the bitter days of the whoredom, and the hardened lust of gain;
But man to man may hearken, and he that soweth reaps,
And hushed is the heart of Fenrir in the wolf-den of the deeps.

Now is it the summer-season, and Sigurd rideth the land,
And his hound runs light before him, and his hawk sits light on his
hand,
And all alone on a morn