She turned and departed from him, and
he knew not whither she went;
But he took his sword from the girdle
and the peace-strings round it rent,
And into the house he gat him, and the
sunlit fair abode,
But his heart in the mid-mirk waded, as
through the halls he strode,
Till he came to a chamber apart; and Grimhild
his mother was there,
And there was his brother Hogni in the
cloudy Niblung gear:
Him-seemed there was silence between them
as of them that have spoken, and
wait
Till the words of their mouths be accomplished
by slow unholpen Fate:
But they turned to the door, and beheld
him, and he took his sheathed sword
And cast it adown betwixt them, and it
clashed half bare on the board,
And Grimhild spake as it clattered:
“For whom are the peace-strings rent?
For whom is the blood-point whetted and
the edge of thine intent?”
He said: “For the heart of
Sigurd; and thus all is rent away
Betwixt this word and his slaying, save
a little hour of day.”
* * * * *
Again spake Grimhild the wise-wife:
“Where then is Guttorm the brave?
For he blent not his blood with the Volsung’s,
nor his oath to Sigurd gave,
Nor called on Earth to witness, nor went
beneath the yoke;
And now is he Sigurd’s foeman; and
who may curse his stroke?”
Then Hogni laughed and answered:
“His feet on the threshold stand:
Forged is thy sword, O Mother, and its
hilts are come to hand.
* * * * *
“Ho, Guttorm, enter, and hearken
to the counsel of the wise!”
Then in through the door strode Guttorm
fair-clad in hunter’s guise,
With no steel save his wood-knife girded;
but his war-fain eyes stared wild,
As he spake: “What words are
ye hiding from the youngest Niblung child?
What work is to win, my brethren, that
ye sit in warrior’s weed,
And tell me nought of the glory, and cover
up the deed?”
Then uprose Grimhild the wise-wife, and
took the cup again;
Night-long had she brewed that witch-drink
and laboured not in vain.
For therein was the creeping venom, and
hearts of things that prey
On the hidden lives of ocean, and never
look on day;
And the heart of the ravening wood-wolf
and the hunger-blinded beast
And the spent slaked heart of the wild-fire
the guileful cup increased:
But huge words of ancient evil about its
rim were scored,
The curse and the eyeless craving of the
first that fashioned sword.
So the cup in her hand was gleaming, as
she turned unto Guttorm and spake:
“Be merry, King of the War-fain!
we hold counsel for thy sake:
The work is a God’s son’s
slaying, and thine is the hand that shall smite,
That thy name may be set in, glory and
thy deeds live on in light.”
Forth flashed the flame from his eyen,
and he cried: “Where then is the foe,
This dread of mine house and my brethren,
that my hand may lay him alow?”