us here
and give to us sitting ones victory.
Hail, O Gods,
Hail, O Goddesses,
Hail, O bounteous Earth!
Speech and wisdom
give to us, the excellent twain,
and healing hands during life.

These stages in the progress of the gold from mine to mint furnish their
own commentary. The finished product will pass current with the most
exacting of assayers, as well as gladden the hearts of the poor one
whose hand seldom touches gold.

If the skill of the poet in this case have merited resemblance to that
of the refiner of gold, what name less than alchemy can characterize his
achievement in the rest of this scene? From the first words of
Brynhild's life-story:

I am she that loveth; I was born of the earthly folk;

to the tender words that tell of the coming of another day:

And fresh and all abundant abode the deeds of Day,

there is a succession of beautiful scenes and glorious speeches such as
only a master of magic could have gotten out of the original story. The
Eddaic account of the Valkyr's disobedience to All-Father, pictures a
saucy and self-willed maiden. Sentence has been pronounced upon her, and
thus the story continues: "But I said I would vow a vow against it, and
marry no man that knew fear." The _Voelsunga Saga_ gives exactly the same
account, but the poetic version of Morris saves the maiden for our
respect and admiration. It is not effrontery, but repentance that speaks
in the voice of Brynhild here:

The thoughts of my heart overcame me, and the pride of my wisdom and
speech,
And I scorned the earth-folk's Framer, and the Lord of the world I must
teach.

In the Icelandic version, Odin makes no speech at the dooming, but
Morris puts into his mouth this magnificent address:

And he cried: "Thou hast thought in thy folly that the Gods have
friends and foes,
That they wake, and the world wends onward, that they sleep, and
the world slips back,
That they laugh, and the world's weal waxeth, that they frown and
fashion the wrack:
Thou hast cast up the curse against me; it shall aback on thine head;
Go back to the sons of repentance, with the children of sorrow wed!
For the Gods are great unholpen, and their grief is seldom seen,
And the wrong that they will and must be is soon as it hath not been."

(P. 141.)

Morris has here again exercised the poet's privilege of addi