“O, what is the thing so mighty
that my weary sleep hath torn,
And rent the fallow bondage, and the wan
woe over-worn?”
He said: “The hand of Sigurd
and the Sword of Sigmund’s son,
And the heart that the Volsungs fashioned
this deed for thee have done.”
But she said: “Where then is
Odin that laid me here alow?
Long lasteth the grief of the world, and
manfolk’s tangled woe!”
“He dwelleth above,” said
Sigurd, “but I on the earth abide,
And I came from the Glittering Heath the
waves of thy fire to ride.”
* * * * *
Then Sigurd looketh upon her, and the
words from his heart arise:
“Thou art the fairest of earth,
and the wisest of the wise;
O who art thou that lovest? I am
Sigurd, e’en as I told;
I have slain the Foe of the Gods, and
gotten the Ancient Gold;
And great were the gain of thy love, and
the gift of mine earthly days,
If we twain should never sunder as we
wend on the changing ways.
O who art thou that lovest, thou fairest
of all things born?
And what meaneth thy sleep and thy slumber
in the wilderness forlorn?”
Then the maiden told him that she had been the handmaid of the All-father, but that she grew too proud, and Odin had sent her to Hindfell, where the sleep thorn pierced her that she might sleep till she found the fearless heart she would wed. Such a one had she found now, and many were the words of prophetic wisdom and warning that fell from her lips on the ears of Sigurd.
But many though they were they were not enough for him, who prayed her to speak with him more of Wisdom.
So together they sat on the side of Hindfell and talked of all that is and can be, and then together they climbed the mountain, till beneath them they saw the kingdoms of the earth stretching far away, and Brynhild bade him look down on her home, saying:
“Yet I bid thee look on the land
’twixt the wood and the silver sea
In the bight of the swirling river, and
the house that cherished me!
There dwelleth mine earthly sister and
the king that she hath wed;
There morn by morn aforetime I woke on
the golden bed;
There eve by eve I tarried mid the speech
and the lays of kings;
There noon by noon I wandered and plucked
the blossoming things;
The little land of Lymdale by the swirling
river’s side,
Where Brynhild once was I called in the
days ere my father died;
The little land of Lymdale ’twixt
the woodland and the sea,
Where on thee mine eyes shall brighten
and thine eyes shall beam on me.”
“I shall seek thee there,”
said Sigurd, “when the day-spring is begun,
Ere we wend the world together in the
season of the sun.”
“I shall bide thee there,”
said Brynhild, “till the fulness of the days,
And the time for the glory appointed,
and the springing-tide of praise.”