Take heed now, and consider, if I have kept King
Siggeir in memory, and his slaying of Volsung the king! I let slay both
my children, whom I deemed worthless for the revenging of our father,
and I went into the wood to thee in a witch-wife's shape; and now
behold, Sinfjotli is the son of thee and of me both! and therefore has
he this so great hardihood and fierceness, in that he is the son both of
Volsung's son and Volsung's daughter; and for this, and for naught else,
have I so wrought, that Siggeir might get his bane at last; and all
these things have I done that vengeance might fall on him, and that I
too might not live long; and merrily now will I die with King Siggeir,
though I was naught merry to wed him."

Therewith she kissed Sigmund her brother, and Sinfjotli, and went back
again into the fire, and there she died with King Siggeir and all his
good men.

But the two kinsmen gathered together folk and ships, and Sigmund went
back to his father's land, and drave away thence the king, who had set
himself down there in the room of king Volsung.

So Sigmund became a mighty King and far-famed, wise and high-minded: he
had to wife one named Borghild, and two sons they had between them, one
named Helgi and the other Hamund; and when Helgi was born, Norns came to
him, (3) and spake over him, and said that he should be in time to come
the most renowned of all kings. Even therewith was Sigmund come home
from the wars, and so therewith he gives him the name of Helgi, and
these matters as tokens thereof, Land of Rings, Sun-litten Hill, and
Sharp-shearing Sword, and withal prayed that he might grow of great
fame, and like unto the kin of the Volsungs.

And so it was that he grew up high-minded, and well-beloved, and above
all other men in all prowess; and the story tells that he went to the
wars when he was fifteen winters old. Helgi was lord and ruler over the
army, but Sinfjotli was gotten to be his fellow herein; and so the twain
bare sway thereover.

ENDNOTES:
(1) "Skin-changers" were universally believed in once, in
Iceland no less than elsewhere, as see Ari in several places
of his history, especially the episode of Dufthach and
Storwolf o' Whale. Men possessing the power of becoming
wolves at intervals, in the present case compelled so to
become, wer-wolves or "loupsgarou", find large place in
medieval story, but were equally well-known in classic
times.