When Volsung and his ten sons arrived in Gothland, Signy again bade them beware of coming treachery, but all in vain.  The brave Volsungs, drawn into an ambush by their wily foe, were seized and bound fast to a fallen tree in a lonely forest, where every night a wild beast devoured one of these helpless men.  Closely watched by her cruel husband, Signy could lend no aid to the prisoners, but when none but Sigmund, the youngest, was left, she directed a slave to smear his face with honey.  The wild beast, attracted by the sweet odor, licked the face of the last prisoner, who, thus enabled to catch its tongue between his teeth, struggled with the beast until his bonds broke and he was free!

When Siggier sent to investigate as usual the next morning, his messenger reported no prisoners were left bound to the tree and that only a heap of bones was visible.  Sure his foes were all dead, Siggier ceased to watch his wife, who, stealing out into the forest to bury the remains of her kin, discovered Sigmund in a thicket, and promised to aid him to obtain his revenge.  To redeem this promise she sent to her brother, one after another, two of her sons to be trained as avengers, but, as both of these children proved deficient in courage, she came to the conclusion none but a pure-blooded Volsung would meet their requirements.  To secure an offspring of this strain, Signy, disguised as a gypsy, secretly visited her brother’s hut, and when their child, Sinfiotli, was older, sent him to Sigmund to foster and train.

With a youthful helper whom nothing could daunt, Sigmund, after achieving sundry adventures, lay in wait in Siggier’s cellar, but, warned by two of his young children that murderers were hiding behind his casks, Siggier had them seized and cast into separate cells.  There he decreed they should starve to death.  But, before their prison was closed, Signy cast into it a bundle of straw, wherein she had concealed Balmung, the magic sword.  Thanks to this weapon, Sigmund and Sinfiotli not only hewed their way out of their separate prisons, but slew all the Goths who attempted to escape from Siggier’s dwelling, which they set aflame.  But, although both proposed to save Signy, she merely stepped out of the house long enough to reveal Sinfiotli’s origin and bade them farewell, ere she plunged back into the flames!

  And then King Siggier’s roof-tree upheaved for its utmost fall,
  And its huge walls clashed together, and its mean and lowly things
  The fire of death confounded with the tokens of the kings. 
  A sign for many people on the land of the Goths it lay,
  A lamp of the earth none needed, for the bright sun brought the day.