atred for all the Volsung race was in his
heart.

But at the end of the feast she was wed to King Siggeir, and the next
day she left the Hall of the Branstock and went with him down to where
his great painted ship was drawn up on the beach. And when they were
parting from her, her father and her brothers, King Siggeir invited them
to come to his country, as friends visiting friends and kinsmen visiting
kinsmen, and look on Signy again. And he stood on the beach and would
not go on board his ship until each and all of the Volsungs gave their
word that they would visit Signy and him in his own land. "And when thou
comest," he said to Sigmund, "be sure thou dost bring with thee the
mighty sword that thou didst win."

All this was thought of by Sigurd, the son of Sigmund, as he rode toward
the fringe of the forest.

The time came for Volsung and his sons to redeem the promise they made
to King Siggeir. They made ready their ship and they sailed from the
land where stood the Hall of the Branstock. And they landed on the coast
of King Siggeir's country, and they drew their ship up on the beach and
they made their camp there, intending to come to the King's Hall in the
broad light of the day.

But in the half light of the dawn one came to the Volsung ship. A cloak
and hood covered the figure, but Sigmund, who was the watcher, knew who
it was. "Signy!" he said, and Signy asked that her father and her
brothers be awakened until she would speak to them of a treason that was
brewed against them.

"King Siggeir has made ready a great army against your coming," she told
them. "He hates the Volsungs, the branch as well as the root, and it is
his plan to fall upon you, my father and my brothers, with his great
army and slay you all. And he would possess himself of Gram, Sigmund's
wonder-sword. Therefore, I say to you, O Volsungs, draw your ship into
the sea and sail from the land where such treachery can be."

But Volsung, her father, would not listen. "The Volsungs do not depart
like broken men from a land they have brought their ship to," he said.
"We gave, each and all, the word that we would visit King Siggeir and
visit him we will. And if he is a dastard and would fall upon us, why we
are the unbeaten Volsungs, and we will fight against him and his army
and slay him, and bear you back with us to the Hall of the Branstock.
The day widens now, and we shall go to the Hall."

Signy would have spoken of the great army King Sig