But now spake Volsung the King:  “Why sit ye silent and still? 
  Is the Battle-Father’s visage a token of terror and ill? 
  Arise O Volsung Children, Earls of the Goths arise,
  And set your hands to the hilts as mighty men and wise! 
  Yet deem it not too easy; for belike a fateful blade
  Lies there in the heart of the Branstock for a fated warrior made.”

  Now therewith spake King Siggeir:  “King Volsung give me a grace
  To try it the first of all men, lest another win my place
  And mere chance-hap steal my glory and the gain that I might win.”

  Then somewhat laughed King Volsung, and he said:  “O Guest, begin;
  Though herein is the first as the last, for the Gods have long to live,
  Nor hath Odin yet forgotten unto whom the gift he would give.”

  Then forth to the tree went Siggeir, the Goth-folk’s mighty lord,
  And laid his hand on the gemstones, and strained at the glorious sword
  Till his heart grew black with anger; and never a word he said
  As he wended back to the high-seat:  but Signy waxed blood-red
  When he sat him adown beside her; and her heart was nigh to break
  For the shame and the fateful boding:  and therewith King Volsung spake: 

  “Thus comes back empty-handed the mightiest King of Earth,
  And how shall the feeble venture? yet each man knows his worth;
  And today may a great beginning from a little seed upspring
  To o’erpass many a great one that hath the name of King: 
  So stand forth free and unfree; stand forth both most and least: 
  But first ye Earls of the Goth-folk, ye lovely lords we feast.”

  Upstood the Earls of Siggeir, and each man drew anigh
  And deemed his time was coming for a glorious gain and high;
  But for all their mighty shaping and their deeds in the battle-wood,
  No looser in the Branstock that gift of Odin stood. 
  Then uprose Volsung’s homemen, and the fell-abiding folk;
  And the yellow-headed shepherds came gathering round the Oak,
  And the searchers of the thicket and the dealers with the oar: 
  And the least and the worst of them all was a mighty man of war. 
  But for all their mighty shaping, and the struggle and the strain
  Of their hands, the deft in labour, they tugged thereat in vain;
  And still as the shouting and jeers, and the names of men and the laughter
  Beat backward from gable to gable, and rattled o’er roof-tree and rafter,
  Moody and still sat Siggeir; for he said:  “They have trained me here
  As a mock for their woodland bondsmen; and yet shall they buy it dear.”

  Now the tumult sank a little, and men cried on Volsung the King
  And his sons, the hedge of battle, to try the fateful thing. 
  So Volsung laughed, and answered:  “I will set me to the toil,
  Lest these my guests of the Goth-folk should deem I fear the foil. 
  Yet nought am I ill-sworded, and the oldest friend is best;
  And this, my hand’s first fellow, will I bear to the grave-mound’s rest,
  Nor wield meanwhile another:  Yea, this shall I have in hand
  When mid the host of Odin in the Day of Doom I stand.”