The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 600 pages of information about The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs.
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The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 600 pages of information about The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs.
    And in likewise did Sinfiotli as he saw his fosterer do. 
    Then lo, a fearful wonder, for as very wolves they grew
    In outward shape and semblance, and they howled out wolfish things,
    Like the grey dogs of the forest; though somewhat the hearts of kings
    Abode in their bodies of beasts.  Now sooth is the tale to tell,
    That the men in the fair-wrought raiment were kings’ sons bound by a
      spell
    To wend as wolves of the wild-wood, for each nine days of the ten,
    And to lie all spent for a season when they gat their shapes of men.

    So Sigmund and his fellow rush forth from the golden place;
    And though their kings’ hearts bade them the backward way to trace
    Unto their Dwarf-wrought dwelling, and there abide the change,
    Yet their wolfish habit drave them wide through the wood to range,
    And draw nigh to the dwellings of men and fly upon the prey.

    And lo now, a band of hunters on the uttermost woodland way,
    And they spy those dogs of the forest, and fall on with the spear,
    Nor deemed that any other but woodland beasts they were,
    And that easy would be the battle:  short is the tale to tell;
    For every man of the hunters amid the thicket fell.

    Then onwards fare those were-wolves, and unto the sea they turn,
    And their ravening hearts are heavy, and sore for the prey they yearn: 
    And lo, in the last of the thicket a score of the chaffering men,
    And Sinfiotli was wild for the onset, but Sigmund was wearying then
    For the glimmering gold of his Dwarf-house, and he bade refrain from
      the folk,
    But wrath burned in the eyes of Sinfiotli, and forth from the
      thicket he broke;
    Then rose the axes aloft, and the swords flashed bright in the sun,
    And but little more it needed that the race of the Volsungs was done,
    And the folk of the Gods’ begetting:  but at last they quelled the war,
    And no man again of the sea-folk should ever sit by the oar.

    Now Sinfiotli fay weary and faint, but Sigmund howled over the dead,
    And wrath in his heart there gathered, and a dim thought wearied his
      head
    And his tangled wolfish wit, that might never understand;
    As though some God in his dreaming had wasted the work of his hand,
    And forgotten his craft of creation; then his wrath swelled up amain
    And he turned and fell on Sinfiotli, who had wrought the wrack and
      the bane
    And across the throat he tore him as his very mortal foe
    Till a cold dead corpse by the sea-strand his fosterling lay alow: 
    Then wearier yet grew Sigmund, and the dim wit seemed to pass
    From his heart grown cold and feeble; when lo, amid the grass
    There came two weazles bickering, and one bit his mate by the head,
    Till she lay there dead before

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The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.