[14] Sigrun sought
the glad king, she sought
the king’s hand in her own.
She kissed that helmeted king
{208} and greeted him,
and Helgi
took a liking to her.
[15] She said
that she’d loved Helgi
with all her heart
before she had even seen him.
[16] “I was promised,” she said,
“to Hothbrodd, but there is
another king
I would rather have.
Warrior, I fear
my father’s anger,
but I have disobeyed him
regardless.”
[17] Sigrun did not speak
of her own love,
but she said she wanted
Helgi’s love.
[18] Helgi said, “Pay no mind
to your father’s anger,
nor to the ill will
of your kinsmen.
Young lady, you will
live with me!
Good lady, I do not fear
your family.”
Then Helgi gathered a great navy and sailed to Frekastein, and on this journey they encountered very dangerous weather. There was continual lightning, and it even glowed on the ships. Helgi and his men saw nine Valkyries riding in the air, and they recognized Sigrun. Then the storm abated, and they came safely to land. The sons of Granmar were sitting on a certain hill when the ships sailed up to land. Guthmund leapt up on his horse and rode up to the top of a hill near the harbor. Then the Volsungs took their sails down.
{209} Guthmund, son of Granmar, said:
[19] “Who is the leader
of this navy?
Who lowers the golden sail
upon the prow?
I don’t think
we can expect peace
from this navy; I see
a red battle-flag and Vikings.”
Sinfjotli said:
[20] “I think Hothbrodd
will recognize Helgi here,
in the middle of the fleet—
he hates to retreat.
He has taken
the ancestral lands
of your people the Fjorsungs,
he’s stolen your inheritance.”
[21] Guthmund said, “First,
we should settle
our differences
at Frekastein.
Hothbrodd! It’s time
to get vengeance.
For a long time
we’ve been losing battles.”
[22] Sinfjotli said, “First,
Guthmund, you’ll need
to watch your goats
and climb the steep cliffs.
Keep a wooden club
in your hand,
you’ll do better
as a shepherd than a fighter.”
[23] Helgi said, “Sinfjotli,
it would be more honorable
to make war,
{210} to cheer the eagles,
than to exchange
pointless words,
even if you
hate one another.
[24] “I have no love
for Granmar’s sons,
but it’s better
for noble men not to lie.
We have seen
at Moinsheimar
that they have the courage
to draw swords;
these warriors
are wise and brave.”
Guthmund rode home and reported on the hostilities. Then the sons of Granmar assembled an army; many kings came to them. Hogni, the father of Sigrun, was there, along with his sons, Bragi and Dag. There was a great battle, and all the sons of Granmar fell as well as all the other chieftains, except Dag, who was granted mercy and who swore an oath to the Volsungs. Sigrun went out on the battlefield afterwards and found Hothbrodd dying. She said:
[25] “King Hothbrodd,
I, Sigrun from Sefafjoll,
will not kneel
to embrace you in my arms.
Your life is over,
the wolves
will get plenty of
your and your brothers’ flesh.”
Then she found Helgi, and she was glad. Helgi said:
[26] “Wise woman,
not everything
has gone as you’d wish.
Bragi and Hogni
fell today
{211} at Frekastein,
and I was their killer.
[27] “And I killed Starkath
at Styrkleif
and the sons of Hrollaug
at Hlebjargir.
I saw the most warlike
of all kings
fighting without his arms,
and soon without his head.
[28] “Most of your family
lies on the battlefield,
they’ve become
cold corpses.
You could not stop
that battle;
you were destined
to cause kings to clash.”
Then Sigrun wept. Helgi spoke once more:
[29] “Be comforted, Sigrun.
You’ve been like Hild to us;
and not even kings can fight fate.”
Sigrun said, “Let all my family
fall in battle, if that means
I can sleep in your arms.”
Helgi married Sigrun, and they had sons. Helgi was not an old man.
Dag, son of Hogni, sacrified to Odin for vengeance for his father. Odin loaned Dag his own spear. Dag encountered Helgi, his brother-in-law, at the place called Fjoturlund. Dag ran Helgi through with the spear. Helgi fell there, and then Dag rode to the mountains and told Sigrun the news:
[30] “Sister, I regret
to tell you this hard news.
I have been forced
to make my own sister weep.
That king who was
{212} the best in all the world,
who stood on the necks
of many fallen enemies,
fell today in battle
at Fjoturlund.”
[31] Sigrun said, “All your oaths,
the oaths you swore
to Helgi,
the oaths you swore
by the sea,
and by the cool stone
of Unn,
will come back to bite you.
[32] “A ship will not sail
if you are on it,
even if it has
the most favorable of winds.
A horse will not run
if you are on it,
even if it could save you
from pursuing enemies.
[33] “No sword you draw
will cut,
unless it cuts
your own head off.
I would only
be avenged for Helgi’s death
if you were an outlaw
living in the woods,
deprived of all your property
and all joy.
You wouldn’t even eat—
unless you caught your own raw meat.”
Dag said:
[34] “You are mad, sister,
you are out of your wits,
when you speak such curses
{213} against your own brother.
Odin alone
causes all evil,
he’s the one
who causes war between kin.
[35] “I will offer you
golden rings,
I will offer you the lands of
Vandilsve and Vigdalir.
You and your children,
well-dressed lady,
will own half my home
in compensation for your loss.”
[36] Sigrun said, “I will never
be so happy at my home
in the day or in the night
that I will love life,
&nbs
p; unless I see that king
and his army,
unless I see Helgi
riding his horse Vigblaer
with a golden bridle—
I would greet him gladly.
[37] “My husband Helgi
has frightened
all his enemies so much
and all his kinsmen,
that they are like
trembling goats
fleeing a wolf
on a mountainside.
[38] “Helgi is as high
above other kings
as a noble ash tree
above a thorn,
he is like a young stag
coated in morning dew,
{214} higher than
all other beasts,
with his horns glowing
against the heavens.”
A burial mound was made for Helgi. And when he came to Valhalla, Odin asked him to help him rule everything. Helgi said:
[39] “Hunding, you will be
a foot-washer
and fire-starter,
a dog-walker
and a horse’s groom
for every man in Valhalla.
And don’t forget to feed the pigs
before you go to sleep.”
One of Sigrun’s serving-women walked during the evening near Helgi’s burial mound, and she saw Helgi riding toward the mound with a large following of men. The serving-woman said:
[40] “Is this an illusion
that I see before me,
or has Ragnarok come?
I see dead men riding,
I see them driving
their horses with spurs.
Have dead kings been given leave
to come home from Valhalla?”
[41] Helgi said, “True,
you see us here,
driving
our horses with spurs,
and it is no illusion,
nor is it Ragnarok,
and neither do we have leave
to come home from Valhalla.”
The serving-woman went home and said to Sigrun:
[42] “Go out from your home,
Sigrun, if you want
to see your
{215} king again!
His burial mound is open,
Helgi has come back,
his wounds are bleeding.
That lord of men
asks that you come
and see to his injuries.”
Sigrun went inside Helgi’s burial mound and she said:
[43] “Now I am as happy
to see you, husband,
as Odin’s eager
ravens are
when they see
fresh, warm corpses,
or when, dew-covered,
they greet the morning.
[44] “I want to kiss you,
my unliving king,
before you take your
bloody armor off.
There’s frost frozen
in your hair, Helgi,
there’s blood all over
your body, my king.
Your hands are wet with
the cold blood of Hogni’s kin.
My lord, how shall I
heal you of these things?”
[45] Helgi said, “You alone,
Sigrun from Sefafjoll,
caused the sad death
of your father Hogni.
Gold-adorned southern woman,
fairer than the sun,
you wept bitter tears
before you went to sleep;
each tear fell bloody
over your fierce heart,
{216} cold, wet, bloody, burning,
twisted with sorrow.
[46] “But I can drink
happily of Odin’s good mead
even if I have lost
my lands and my love.
No one will sing
a sorrowful song for me,
even if I have
wounds on my chest—
for my wife Sigrun
is in my mound,
the Valkyrie lies
by me, though I am dead.”
Sigrun climbed into his bed in the mound.
[47] Sigrun said, “Helgi,
of Ylfing kin, I offer you
untroubled rest
in this place.
I want to sleep
in your embrace,
as I would in the arms
of a living husband.”
[48] Helgi said, “Now
I can foresee everything.
You will sleep,
lovely lady,
daughter of Hogni,
tonight and tomorrow morning
in the arms of a dead man
in his mound—
and yet you are alive,
noble lady.
[49] “Yet still I must
ride the warpath,
take my pale horse
back to Valhalla.
{217} I have to be
west of Bifrost
before the rooster
wakes the men in Odin’s hall.”
Helgi and his men rode their way, and Sigrun and her serving-women returned to her home. The next evening Sigrun had a serving-woman keep watch on Helgi’s burial mound. And when Sigrun returned to the mound at sunset, she said:
[50] “My husband,
the son of Sigmund,
would have come back
from Odin’s hall, if he could.
But I expect
there is little chance
of his return
when eagles sleep in the trees,
and all the people
are dreaming.”
[51] A serving-woman said,
“Do not be so foolish
that you go alone
to his burial mound.
All the dead
are more powerful
at night than they are
during bright day.”
Sigrun did not live long, because of her sorrow and indifference to life. It was generally believed in ancient times that people were reborn, though this is now called a superstition. Helgi and Sigrun are said to have been reborn. He was then called Helgi, the Sorrow of Hadding, and she was called Kara, Daughter of Halfdan, and she was a Valkyrie, as is told in the Song of Kara.
{218} Fra dautha Sinfjotla (The Death of Sinfjotli)
The poems in the Sigurth tradition begin with a prose piece called Fra dautha Sinfjotla, “Concerning the Death of Sinfjotli,” who is Sigurth’s half-brother by their father Sigmund. The ferryman who takes Sinfjotli’s body away is probably Odin, who takes a great interest in the fortune of Sigurth’s family, the Volsungs (also compare Odin’s appearance as a ferryman in Harbarthsljoth).
Fra dautha Sinfjotla
Sigmund, son of Volsung, was a king of the Franks. Sinfjotli was his oldest son, and the second was named Helgi, the third Hamund.
Borghild, Sigmund’s wife, had a brother. Her stepson Sinfjotli and her brother both wooed the same woman, and because of this, Sinfjotli killed her brother. When Sinfjotli came home, Borghild told him to leave, but Sigmund offered her compensation for her brother’s death, and she was forced to accept this.
At the funeral for her brother, Borghild was serving beer. She took a large horn full of poison and served it to Sinfjotli. When he looked inside the horn, he saw that there was poison in it and said to his father: “This drink is cloudy, father!” Sigmund took the horn and drank everything in it; it is said that Sigmund was so hardy that he was impervious to poison, whether by skin contact or by drinking it. But his sons were impervious only by skin, not internally.
Borghild brought another hornful to Sinfjotli and told him to drink from it, but it went exactly as before. And then she brought him the horn for a third time, and she mocked him for not wanting to drink from it. Sinfjotli spoke as he had before to his father, but Sigmund said: “Wet your mustache, son!” Sinfjotli drank and fell dead im
mediately.
Sigmund carried Sinfjotli’s body in his arms for a long time, till he came to a long, narrow fjord, where he saw a little boat and a man standing on it, who offered to ferry Sigmund over the fjord. But when Sigmund put the body of his son on the boat, the ferry was full, and the ferryman said that Sigmund would need to walk around the fjord. Then he shoved off from shore and disappeared.
King Sigmund remained for a long time in Denmark, in Borghild’s kingdom, after he was married to her. But then Sigmund {219} returned to the kingdom he had in France, and there he married Hjordis, daughter of King Eylimi, and their son was Sigurth. King Sigmund fell in a battle against Hunding’s sons, and after that Hjordis remarried to Alf, son of King Hjalprek. Sigurth grew up with him while still a boy.
Sigmund and all his sons were far better than other men in strength and height, in courage, and in all achievements, but Sigurth was the greatest of all, and in the old sagas people say that he was greater than all other men, and that he was the noblest of all warrior kings.
{220} Gripisspa (Gripir’s Prophecies to Sigurth)
The first poem about Sigurth is Gripisspa (“Gripir’s Prophecies”), in which Sigurth’s future is foretold to him by his uncle Gripir. Modern readers should be warned that the medieval attitude toward “spoilers” was more accepting than that of modern audiences; much of the action of Sigurth’s later life (as related in the following poems) is revealed here.
Gripisspa
Gripir was the brother of Hjordis, Sigurth’s mother; they were the children of Eylimi. Gripir was a wiser ruler than all others, and he could see the future. Sigurth rode to Gripir’s hall alone. Sigurth was easy to recognize. He met a man named Geitir outside the hall and spoke with him. Sigurth greeted him and said:
[1] “WHO IS IT WHO LIVES
in this place?
What name do men
give to their king here?
Geitir said:
“Gripir is the name
of the leader of men
who rules this strong land
and all its legions.”
Sigurth said:
[2] “Is the wise king
home right now?
Do you think he will
talk to me?
I’m a stranger
who wants to speak with him.
I must meet
with Gripir soon.”
{221} Geitir said:
[3] “But the noble king
will ask me what the name
of this stranger is
who wants to talk to him.”
Sigurth said:
“I am called Sigurth,
son of Sigmund,
and Hjordis
was my mother.”
[4] Then Geitir went
to Gripir and said:
“A stranger
has come here.