Then he crept to the ash-grey coils where the life of his brother had
      lain. 
    And he drew a glaive from his side and smote the smitten and slain,
    And tore the heart from Fafnir, while the eagles cried o’erhead. 
    And sharp and shrill was their voice o’er the entrails of the dead.

    Then Regin spake to Sigurd:  “Of this slaying wilt thou be free? 
    Then gather thou fire together and roast the heart for me,
    That I may eat it and live, and be thy master and more;
    For therein was might and wisdom, and the grudged and hoarded lore:—­
    —­Or else, depart on thy ways afraid from the Glittering Heath.”

    Then he fell abackward and slept, nor set his sword in the sheath,
    But his hand was red on the hilts and blue were the edges bared,
    Ash-grey was his visage waxen, and with open eyes he stared
    On the height of heaven above him, and a fearful thing he seemed,
    As his soul went wide in the world, and of rule and kingship he
      dreamed.

    But Sigurd took the Heart, and wood on the waste he found,
    The wood that grew and died, as it crept on the niggard ground,
    And grew and died again, and lay like whitened bones;
    And the ernes cried over his head, as he builded his hearth of stones,
    And kindled the fire for cooking, and sat and sang o’er the roast
    The song of his fathers of old, and the Wolflings’ gathering host: 
    So there on the Glittering Heath rose up the little flame,
    And the dry sticks crackled amidst it, and alow the eagles came,
    And seven they were by tale, and they pitched all round about
    The cooking-fire of Sigurd, and sent their song-speech out: 
    But nought he knoweth its wisdom, or the word that they would speak: 
    And hot grew the Heart of Fafnir and sang amid the reek.

    Then Sigurd looketh on Regin, and he deemeth it overlong
    That he dighteth the dear-bought morsel, and the might for the Master
      of wrong,
    So he reacheth his hand to the roast to see if the cooking be o’er;
    But the blood and the fat seethed from it and scalded his finger sore,
    And he set his hand to his mouth to quench the fleshly smart,
    And he tasted the flesh of the Serpent and the blood of Fafnir’s Heart: 
    Then there came a change upon him, for the speech of fowl he knew,
    And wise in the ways of the beast-kind as the Dwarfs of old he grew;
    And he knitted his brows and hearkened, and wrath in his heart arose;
    For he felt beset of evil in a world of many foes. 
    But the hilts of the Wrath he handled, and Regin’s heart he saw,
    And how that the Foe of the Gods the net of death would draw;
    And his bright eyes flashed and sparkled, and his mouth grew set and
      stern
    As he hearkened the voice of the eagles, and their song began to learn.