nd 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.

For the first cried out in the desert: "O mighty Sigmund's son,
How long wilt thou sit and tarry now the dear-bought roast is done?"

And the second: "Volsung, arise! for the horns blow up to the hall,
And dight are the purple hangings, and the King to the feasting
should fall."

And the third: "How great is the feast if the eater eat aright
The Heart of the wisdom of old and the after-world's delight!"

And the fourth: "Yea, what of Regin? shall he scatter wrack o'er the
world?
Shall the father be slain by the son, and the brother 'gainst brother
be hurled?"

And the fifth: "He hath taught a stripling the gifts of a God to give:
He hath reared up a King for the slaying, that he alone might live."

And the sixth: "He shall waken mighty as a God that scorneth at truth;
He hath drunk of the blood of the Serpent, and drowned all hope and
ruth."

And the seventh: "Arise, O Sigurd, lest the hour be overlate!
For the sun in the mid-noon shineth, and swift is the hand of Fate:
Arise! lest the world run backward and the blind heart have its will,
And once again be tangled the sundered g