him:  then he sorrowed over her dead: 
    But no long while he abode there, but into the thicket he went,
    And the wolfish heart of Sigmund knew somewhat his intent: 
    So he came again with a herb-leaf and laid it on his mate,
    And she rose up whole and living and no worser of estate
    Than ever she was aforetime, and the twain went merry away.

    Then swiftly rose up Sigmund from where his fosterling lay,
    And a long while searched the thicket, till that three-leaved herb
      he found,
    And he laid it on Sinfiotli, who rose up hale and sound
    As ever he was in his life-days.  But now in hate they had
    That hapless work of the witch-folk, and the skins that their bodies
      clad. 
    So they turn their faces homeward and a weary way they go,
    Till they come to the hidden river, and the glimmering house they know.

    There now they abide in peace, and wend abroad no more
    Till the last of the nine days perished, and the spell for a space
      was o’er,
    And they might cast their wolf-shapes:  so they stood on their feet
      upright
    Great men again as aforetime, and they came forth into the light
    And looked in each other’s faces, and belike a change was there
    Since they did on the bodies of wolves, and lay in the wood-wolves’
      lair,
    And they looked, and sore they wondered, and they both for speech
      did yearn.

    First then spake out Sinfiotli:  “Sure I had a craft to learn,
    And thou hadst a lesson to teach, that I left the dwelling of kings,
    And came to the wood-wolves’ dwelling; thou hast taught me many things
    But the Gods have taught me more, and at last have abased us both,
    That of nought that lieth before us our hearts and our hands may be
      loth. 
    Come then, how long shall I tarry till I fashion something great? 
    Come, Master, and make me a master that I do the deeds of fate.”

Heavy was Sigmund’s visage but fierce did his eyen glow,
“This is the deed of thy mastery;—­we twain shall slay my foe—­
And how if the foe were thy father?”—­
Then he telleth him Siggeir’s tale: 
And saith:  “Now think upon it; how shall thine heart avail
To bear the curse that cometh if thy life endureth long—­
The man that slew his father and amended wrong with wrong? 
Yet if the Gods have made thee a man unlike all men,
(For thou startest not, nor palest), can I forbear it then,
To use the thing they have fashioned lest the Volsung seed should die
And unavenged King Volsung in his mound by the sea-strand lie?”