Then the Goth-folk went to slumber when the hall was washed from blood: 
    But a long while wakened Siggeir, for fell and fierce was his mood,
    And all the days of his kingship seemed nothing worth as then
    While fared the son of Volsung as well as the worst of men,
    While yet that son of Signy lay untormented there: 
    Yea the past days of his kingship seemed blossomless and bare
    Since all their might had failed him to quench the Volsung kin.

    So when the first grey dawning a new day did begin,
    King Siggeir bade his bondsmen to dight an earthen mound
    Anigh to the house of the Goth-kings amid the fruit-grown ground: 
    And that house of death was twofold, for ’twas sundered by a stone
    Into two woeful chambers:  alone and not alone
    Those vanquished thralls of battle therein should bide their hour,
    That each might hear the tidings of the other’s baleful bower,
    Yet have no might to help him.  So now the twain they brought
    And weary-dull was Sinfiotli, with eyes that looked at nought. 
    But Sigmund fresh and clear-eyed went to the deadly hall,
    And the song arose within him as he sat within its wall;
    Nor aught durst Siggeir mock him, as he had good will to do,
    But went his ways when the bondmen brought the roofing turfs thereto.

    And that was at eve of the day; and lo now, Signy the white
    Wan-faced and eager-eyed stole through the beginning of night
    To the place where the builders built, and the thralls with
      lingering hands
    Had roofed in the grave of Sigmund and hidden the glory of lands,
    But over the head of Sinfiotli for a space were the rafters bare. 
    Gold then to the thralls she gave, and promised them days full fair
    If they held their peace for ever of the deed that then she did: 
    And nothing they gainsayed it; so she drew forth something hid,
    In wrappings of wheat-straw winded, and into Sinfiotli’s place
    She cast it all down swiftly; then she covereth up her face
    And beneath the winter starlight she wended swift away. 
    But her gift do the thralls deem victual, and the thatch on the hall
      they lay,
    And depart, they too, to their slumber, now dight was the dwelling
      of death.

    Then Sigmund hears Sinfiotli, how he cries through the stone and saith: 
    “Best unto babe is mother, well sayeth the elder’s saw;
    Here hath Signy sent me swine’s-flesh in windings of wheaten straw.”

    And again he held him silent of bitter words or of sweet;
    And quoth Sigmund, “What hath betided? is an adder in the meat?”
    Then loud his fosterling laughed:  “Yea, a worm of bitter tooth,
    The serpent of the Branstock, the sword of thy days of youth! 
    I have felt the hilts aforetime; I have felt how the letters run
    On each side of the trench of blood and the point of that glorious one. 
    O mother, O mother of kings! we shall live and our days shall be sweet! 
    I have loved thee well aforetime, I shall love thee more when we meet.”