He said:  “Meseemeth, mother, thou speaketh not in haste,
    But hast sought and found beforehand, lest thy fair words fall to
      waste.”

    She said:  “Thou sayest the sooth; I have found the thing I sought: 
    A Maid for thee is shapen, and a Queen for thee is wrought: 
    In the waste land hard by Lymdale a marvellous hall is built,
    With its roof of the red gold beaten, and its wall-stones over-gilt: 
    Afar o’er the heath men see it, but no man draweth nigher,
    For the garth that goeth about it is nought but the roaring fire,
    A white wall waving aloft; and no window nor wicket is there,
    Whereby the shielded earl-folk or the sons of the merchants may fare: 
    But few things from me are hidden, and I know in that hall of gold
    Sits Brynhild, white as a wild-swan where the foamless seas are rolled;
    And the daughter of Kings of the world, and the sister of Queens is
      she,
    And wise, and Odin’s Chooser, and the Breath of Victory: 
    But for this cause sitteth she thus in the ring of the Wavering Flame,
    That no son of the Kings will she wed save the mightiest master of
      fame,
    And the man who knoweth not fear, and the man foredoomed of fate
    To ride through her Wavering Fire to the door of her golden gate: 
    And for him she sitteth and waiteth, and him shall she cherish and
      love,
    Though the Kings of the world should withstand it, and the Gods that
      sit above. 
    Speak thou, O mighty Gunnar!—­nay rather, Sigurd my son,
    Say who but the lord of the Niblungs should wed with this glorious
      one?”

    Long Sigurd gazeth upon her, and slow he sayeth again: 
    “I know thy will, my mother; of all the sons of men,
    Of all the Kings unwedded, and the kindred of the great,
    It is meet that my brother Gunnar should ride to her golden gate.”

    Then laughed Gunnar and answered:  “May a king of the people fear? 
    May a king of the harp and the hall-glee hold such a maid but dear? 
    Yet nought have I and my kindred to do with fateful deeds;
    Lo, how the fair earth bloometh, and the field fulfilleth our needs,
    And our swords rust not in our scabbards, and our steeds bide not in
      the stall,
    And oft are the shields of the Niblungs drawn clanking down from the
      wall;
    And I sit by my brother Sigurd, and no ill there is in our life,
    And the harp and the sword is beside me, and I joy in the peace and
      the strife. 
    So I live, till at last in the sword-play midst the uttermost longing
      of fame
    I shall change my life and be merry, and leave no hated name. 
    Yet nevertheless, my mother, since the word has thus gone forth,
    And I wot of thy great desire, I will reach at this garland of worth;
    And I bid you, Kings and Brethren, with the wooer of Queens to ride,
    That ye tell of the thing hereafter, and the deeds that shall betide.”