* * * * *

Now again it happed on a day that he sat in Regin’s hall
And hearkened many tidings of what had chanced to fall,
And of kings that sought their kingdoms o’er many a waste and wild,
And at last saith the crafty master: 
“Thou art King Sigmund’s child: 
Wilt thou wait till these kings of the carles shall die in a little land,
Or wilt thou serve their sons and carry the cup to their hand;
Or abide in vain for the day that never shall come about,
When their banners shall dance in the wind and shake to the war-gods’
shout?”

Then Sigurd answered and said:  “Nought such do I look to be. 
But thou, a deedless man, too much thou eggest me: 
And these folk are good and trusty, and the land is lovely and sweet,
And in rest and in peace it lieth as the floor of Odin’s feet: 
Yet I know that the world is wide, and filled with deeds unwrought;
And for e’en such work was I fashioned, lest the songcraft come to nought.”

* * * * *

  Then answered Regin the guileful:  “The deed is ready to hand,
  Yet holding my peace is the best, for well thou lovest the land;
  And thou lovest thy life moreover, and the peace of thy youthful days,
  And why should the full-fed feaster his hand to the rye-bread raise? 
  Yet they say that Sigmund begat thee and he looked to fashion a man. 
  Fear nought; he lieth quiet in his mound by the sea-waves wan.”

  So shone the eyes of Sigurd, that the shield against him hung
  Cast back their light as the sunbeams; but his voice to the roof-tree rung: 
  “Tell me, thou Master of Masters, what deed is the deed I shall do? 
  Nor mock thou the son of Sigmund lest the day of his birth thou rue.”

  Then answered the Master of Sleight:  “The deed is the righting of wrong,
  And the quelling a bale and a sorrow that the world hath endured o’erlong,
  And the winning a treasure untold, that shall make thee more than the kings;
  Thereof is the Helm of Aweing, the wonder of earthly things,
  And thereof is its very fellow, the War-Coat all of gold,
  That has not its like in the heavens, nor has earth of its fellow told.”

  Then answered Sigurd the Volsung:  “How long hereof hast thou known? 
  And what unto thee is this treasure, that thou seemest to give as thine
       own?”

  “Alas!” quoth the smithying master, “it is mine, yet none of mine,
  Since my heart herein avails not, and my hand is frail and fine—­
  It is long since I first came hither to seek a man for my need;
  For I saw by a glimmering light that hence would spring the deed,
  And many a deed of the world:  but the generations passed,
  And the first of the days was as near to the end that I sought as the last;
  Till I looked on thine eyes in the cradle:  and now I deem through thee,
  That the end of my days of waiting, and the end of my woes shall be.”