, though I fell into the wiles from whence
our lives may not escape; for whenso my own heart and mind availed me,
then I sorrowed sore that thou wert not my wife; but as I might I put my
trouble from me, for in a king's dwelling was I; and withal and in spite
of all I was well content that we were all together. Well may it be,
that that shall come to pass which is foretold; neither shall I fear the
fulfilment thereof." (_Voelunga Saga_, Chap. XXIX.) These words are
spoken to Brynhild after she has discovered what she regards as Sigurd's
treachery. His words are dictated by a noble resignation to fate, but
his very next remark shows a moral meanness not at all in keeping with
Morris's conception. Sigurd said: "This my heart would, that thou and I
should go into one bed together; even so wouldst thou be my wife."

There have been many griefs depicted in this poem, but surely here are
set forth the most pitiless of them all. The guile-won Brynhild travels
in state to the Cloudy Hall of the Niblungs, and the whole people come
out to meet her. They are astonished at her beauty, and give her cordial
greeting and welcome to her husband's house. Proud and majestic, the
marvelous woman steps from her golden wain, and gives friendly but
passionless greeting to Gunnar as she places her hand in his. For each
of Gunnar's brothers she has a kindly word, as she has for Grimhild,
too. She asks to see the foster-brother of whom such wondrous tales are
told, and whose name she heard from Gunnar's lips with never a
tremor--"Sigurd, the Volsung, the best man ever born." Grimhild stands
between them for a time, but the meeting has to come. Then Brynhild
remembers, and Sigurd sees the unveiled past:

Her heart ran back through the years, and yet her lips did move
With the words she spake on Hindfell, when they plighted troth of love.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

His face is exceeding glorious and awful to behold;
For of all his sorrow he knoweth and his hope smit dead and cold:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For the will of the Norns is accomplished, and outworn is Grimhild's
spell
And nought now shall blind or help him, and the tale shall be to tell.

(P. 226.)

There's the note of the whole history--the will of the Norns and the
note of a whole Northern literature, as it is of a whole Southern
literature. Man,