ls and secret brews (she was of the race of Borghild
whose brew had destroyed Sinfiotli's life) and she knew that she could
make a potion that would destroy the memory Sigurd held.

She mixed the potion. Then one night when there was feasting in the hall
of the Nibelungs, she gave the cup that held the potion into the hands
of Gudrun and bade her carry it to Sigurd.

Sigurd took the cup out of the hands of the fair Nibelung maiden and he
drank the potion. When he had drunk it he put the cup down and he stood
amongst the feasters like a man in a dream. And like a man in a dream he
went into his chamber, and for a day and a night afterwards he was
silent and his mind was astray. When he rode out with Gunnar and Hoegni
they would say to him, "What is it thou hast lost, brother?" Sigurd
could not tell them. But what he had lost was all memory of Brynhild the
Valkyrie in the House of Flame.

He saw Gudrun and it was as though he looked upon her for the first
time. Soft were the long tresses of her hair; soft were her hands. Her
eyes were like woodflowers, and her ways and her speech were gentle. Yet
was she noble in her bearing as became a Princess who would come into a
kingdom. And from the first time she had seen him upon Grani, his proud
horse, and with his golden helmet above his golden hair, Gudrun had
loved Sigurd.

At the season when the wild swans came to the lake Gudrun went down to
watch them build their nests. And while she was there Sigurd rode
through the pines. He saw her, and her beauty made the whole place
change. He stopped his horse and listened to her voice as she sang to
the wild swans, sang the song that Voelund made for Alvit, his
swan-bride.

No more was Sigurd's heart empty of memory: it was filled with the
memory of Gudrun as he saw her by the lake when the wild swans were
building their nests. And now he watched her in the hall, sitting with
her mother embroidering, or serving her father or her brothers, and
tenderness for the maiden kept growing in his heart.

A day came when he asked Gunnar and Hoegni, his sworn brethren, for
Gudrun. They were glad as though a great fortune had befallen them. And
they brought him before Giuki the King, and Grimhild the Queen. It
seemed as if they had cast off all trouble and care and entered into the
prime of their life and power, so greatly did the King and the Queen
rejoice at Sigurd's becoming one with the Nibelungs through his marriage
with Gudrun.

W