d the name is Sigurd the Volsung, my love and thy brother sworn."

She turned and departed from him, and he knew not whither she went;
But he took his sword from the girdle and the peace-strings round it
rent,
And into the house he gat him, and the sunlit fair abode,
But his heart in the mid-mirk waded, as through the halls he strode,
Till he came to a chamber apart; and Grimhild his mother was there,
And there was his brother Hogni in the cloudy Niblung gear:
Him-seemed there was silence between them as of them that have spoken,
and wait
Till the words of their mouths be accomplished by slow unholpen Fate:
But they turned to the door, and beheld him, and he took his sheathed
sword
And cast it adown betwixt them, and it clashed half bare on the board,
And Grimhild spake as it clattered: "For whom are the peace-strings
rent?
For whom is the blood-point whetted and the edge of thine intent?"

He said: "For the heart of Sigurd; and thus all is rent away
Betwixt this word and his slaying, save a little hour of day."

Then spake Hogni and answered: "All lands beneath the sun
Shall know and hearken and wonder that such a deed must be done."

"Speak, brother of Kings," said Gunnar, "dost thou know deeds better
or worse
That shall wash us clean from shaming, and redeem our lives from the
curse?"

"I am none of the Norns," said Hogni, "nor the heart of Odin the Goth,
To avenge the foster-brethren, or broken love and troth:
Thy will is the story fated, nor shall I look on the deed
With uncursed hands unreddened, and edges dulled at need."

Again spake Grimhild the wise-wife: "Where then is Guttorm the brave?
For he blent not his blood with the Volsung's, nor his oath to Sigurd
gave,
Nor called on Earth to witness, nor went beneath the yoke;
And now is he Sigurd's foeman; and who may curse his stroke?"

Then Hogni laughed and answered: "His feet on the threshold stand:
Forged is thy sword, O Mother, and its hilts are come to hand,
And look that thou whet it duly; for the Norns are departed now;
From the blood of our foster-brother no branch of bale shall grow;
Hoodwinked are the Gods of heaven, their sleep-dazed eyes are blind;
They shall peer and grope through the darkness, and nought therein
shall find,
Save the red right hand of Guttorm, an