Gudrun, and is she delivered from death?
For nought hereof hast thou told me: but the wisest of women art thou,
And I deem that all things thou knowest, and thy cunning is timely now;
For King Atli wooeth my sister; and as wise as thou mayst be,
What thing mayst thou think of greater 'twixt the ice and the
uttermost sea
Than the might of the Niblung people, if this wedding come to pass?"

Then answered the mighty Grimhild, and glad of heart she was:
"It is sooth that Gudrun liveth; for that daughter of thy folk
Fled forth from the Burg of the Niblungs when the Volsung's might ye
broke:
She fled from all holy dwellings to the houses of the deer,
And the feet of the mountains deserted that few folk come anear:
There the wolves were about and around her, and no mind she had to
live;
Dull sleep she deemed was better than with turmoiled thought to strive:
But there rode a wife in the wood, a queen of the daughters of men,
And she came where Gudrun abided, whose might was minished as then,
Till she was as a child forgotten; nor that queen might she gainsay;
Who took the white-armed Gudrun, and bore my daughter away
To her burg o'er the hither mountains; there she cherished her soft
and sweet,
Till she rose, from death delivered, and went upon her feet:
She awoke and beheld those strangers, a trusty folk and a kind,
A goodly and simple people, that few lords of war shall find:
Glorious and mighty they deemed her, as an outcast wandering God,
And she loved their loving-kindness, and the fields of the tiller she
trod,
And went 'twixt the rose and the lily, and sat in the chamber of wool,
And smiled at the laughing maidens, and sang over shuttle and spool.
Seven seasons there hath she bided, and this have I wotted for long;
But I knew that her heart is as mine to remember the grief and the
wrong,
So the days of thy sister I told not, in her life would I have no part,
Lest a foe for thy life I should fashion, and sharpen a sword for thine
heart:
But now is the day of our deeds, and no longer durst I refrain,
Lest I put the Gods' hands from me, and make their gifts but vain.
Yea, the woman is of the Niblungs, and often I knew her of old,
How her heart would burn within her when the tale of their glory was
told.
With wisdom and craft shall I work, wi