“Yea,” quoth Sigmund the Volsung, “hast thou kneaded the meal that
      was yonder?”
    “Yea, and what other?” he said; “though therein forsooth was a wonder: 
    For when I would handle the meal-sack therein was something quick,
    As if the life of an eel-grig were set in an ashen stick: 
    But the meal must into the oven, since we were lacking bread,
    And all that is kneaded together, and the wonder is baked and dead.”

    Then Sigmund laughed and answered:  “Thou hast kneaded up therein
    The deadliest of all adders that is of the creeping kin: 
    So tonight from the bread refrain thee, lest thy bane should come
      of it.”

    For here, the tale of the elders doth men a marvel to wit,
    That such was the shaping of Sigmund among all earthly kings,
    That unhurt he handled adders and other deadly things,
    And might drink unscathed of venom:  but Sinfiotli so was wrought,
    That no sting of creeping creatures would harm his body aught.

    But now full glad was Sigmund, and he let his love arise
    For the huge-limbed son of Signy with the fierce and eager eyes;
    And all deeds of the sword he learned him, and showed him feats of war
    Where sea and forest mingle, and up from the ocean’s shore
    The highway leads to the market, and men go up and down,
    And the spear-hedged wains of the merchants fare oft to the
      Goth-folk’s town. 
    Sweet then Sinfiotli deemed it to look on the bale-fires’ light,
    And the bickering blood-reeds’ tangle, and the fallow blades of fight. 
    And in three years’ space were his war-deeds far more than the deeds
      of a man: 
    But dread was his face to behold ere the battle-play began,
    And grey and dreadful his face when the last of the battle sank. 
    And so the years won over, and the joy of the woods they drank,
    And they gathered gold and silver, and plenteous outland goods.

    But they came to a house on a day in the uttermost part of the woods
    And smote on the door and entered, when a long while no man bade;
    And lo, a gold-hung hall, and two men on the benches laid
    In slumber as deep as the death; and gold rings great and fair
    Those sleepers bore on their bodies, and broidered southland gear,
    And over the head of each there hung a wolf-skin grey.

    Then the drift of a cloudy dream wrapt Sigmund’s soul away,
    And his eyes were set on the wolf-skin, and long he gazed thereat,
    And remembered the words he uttered when erst on the beam he sat,
    That the Gods should miss a man in the utmost Day of Doom,
    And win a wolf in his stead; and unto his heart came home
    That thought, as he gazed on the wolf-skin and the other days waxed
      dim,
    And he gathered the thing in his hand, and did it over him;