He said:  “We sat on the tree, and well ye may wot indeed
    That we had some hope from thy good-will amidst that bitter need. 
    Now none had ’scaped the sword-edge in the battle utterly,
    And so hurt were Agnar and Helgi, that, unhelped, they were like to
      die;
    Though for that we deemed them happier:  but now when the moon shone
      bright,
    And when by a doomed man’s deeming ’twas the midmost of the night,
    Lo, forth from yonder thicket were two mighty wood-wolves come,
    Far huger wrought to my deeming than the beasts I knew at home: 
    Forthright on Gylfi and Geirmund those dogs of the forest fell,
    And what of men so hoppled should be the tale to tell? 
    They tore them midst the irons, and slew them then and there,
    And long we heard them snarling o’er that abundant cheer. 
    Night after night, O my sister, the story was the same,
    And still from the dark and the thicket the wild-wood were-wolves came
    And slew two men of the Volsungs whom the sword edge might not end. 
    And every day in the dawning did the King’s own woodmen wend
    To behold those craftsmen’s carving and rejoice King Siggeir’s heart. 
    And so was come last midnight, when I must play my part: 
    Forsooth when those first were murdered my heart was as blood and fire;
    And I deemed that my bonds must burst with my uttermost desire
    To free my naked hands, that the vengeance might be wrought;
    But now was I wroth with the Gods, that had made the Volsungs for
      nought
    And I said:  in the Day of their Doom a man’s help shall they miss;
    I will be as a wolf of the forest, if their kings must come to this;
    Or if Siggeir indeed be their king, and their envy has brought it about
    That dead in the dust lies Volsung, while the last of his seed dies
      out. 
    Therewith from out the thicket the grey wolves drew anigh,
    And the he-wolf fell on Sigi, but he gave forth never a cry,
    And I saw his lips that they smiled, and his steady eyes for a space;
    And therewith was the she-wolf’s muzzle thrust into my very face. 
    The Gods helped not, but I helped; and I too grew wolfish then;
    Yea I, who have borne the sword-hilt high mid the kings of men,
    I, lord of the golden harness, the flame of the Glittering Heath,
    Must snarl to the she-wolf’s snarling, and snap with greedy teeth,
    While my hands with the hand-bonds struggled; my teeth took hold the
      first
    And amid her mighty writhing the bonds that bound me burst,
    As with Fenrir’s Wolf it shall be:  then the beast with the hopples I
      smote,
    When my left hand stiff with the bonds had got her by the throat. 
    But I turned when I had slain her, and there lay Sigi dead,
    And once more to the night of the forest the fretting wolf had fled.