to herself, "It is woe for the Volsungs."

A feast was made and King Siggeir and his men came to the Hall of the
Branstock. Fires were lighted and tables were spread, and great horns of
mead went around the guests. In the middle of the feasting a stranger
entered the Hall. He was taller than the tallest there, and his bearing
made all do him reverence. One offered him a horn of mead and he drank
it. Then, from under the blue cloak that he wore, he drew a sword that
made the brightness of the Hall more bright.

He went to the tree that the Hall was built around, to the Branstock,
and he thrust the sword into it. All the company were hushed. Then they
heard the voice of the stranger, a voice that was like the trumpet's
call: "The sword is for the hand that can draw it out of the Branstock."
Then he went out of the Hall.

All looked to where the sword was placed and saw a hand's breadth of
wonderful brightness. This one and that one would have laid hands on the
hilt, only Volsung's voice bade them stand still. "It is meet," he said,
"that our guest and our son-in-law, King Siggeir, should be the first to
put hands on its hilt and try to draw the sword of the stranger out of
the Branstock."

King Siggeir went to the tree and laid his hands on the broad hilt. He
strove hard to draw out the sword, but all his might could not move it.
As he strained himself to draw it and failed, a dark look of anger came
into his face.

Then others tried to draw it, the captains who were with King Siggeir,
and they, too, failed to move the blade. Then Volsung tried and Volsung
could not move it. One after the other, his eleven sons strained to draw
out the stranger's sword. At last it came to the turn of the youngest,
to Sigmund, to try. And when Sigmund laid his hand on the broad hilt and
drew it, behold! The sword came with his hand, and once again the Hall
was brightened with its marvelous brightness.

It was a wondrous sword, a sword made out of better metal and by smiths
more cunning than any known. All envied Sigmund that he had won for
himself that wonder-weapon.

King Siggeir looked on it with greedy eyes. "I will give thee its weight
in gold for that sword, good brother," he said.

But Sigmund said to him proudly: "If the sword was for thy hand thou
shouldst have won it. The sword was not for thine, but for a Volsung's
hand."

And Signy, looking at King Siggeir, saw a look of deeper evil come into
his face. She knew that h