of.

He cut the fastenings of the breastplate with his sword, and he gazed
long upon her. Beautiful was her face, but stern; like the face of one
who subdues but may not be subdued. Beautiful and strong were her arms
and her hands. Her mouth was proud, and over her closed eyes there were
strong and beautiful brows.

Her eyes opened, and she turned them and looked full upon Sigurd. "Who
art thou who hast awakened me?" she said.

"I am Sigurd, the son of Sigmund, of the Volsung race," he answered.

"And thou didst ride through the ring of fire to me?"

"That did I."

She knelt on the couch and stretched out her arms to where the light
shone. "Hail, O Day," she cried, "and hail, O beams that are the sons of
Day. O Night, and O daughter of Night, may ye look on us with eyes that
bless. Hail, O AEsir and O Asyniur! Hail, O wide-spreading fields of
Midgard! May ye give us wisdom, and wise speech, and healing power, and
grant that nothing untrue or unbrave may come near us!"

All this she cried with eyes open wide; they were eyes that had in them
all the blue that Sigurd had ever seen: the blue of flowers, the blue of
skies, the blue of battle-blades. She turned those great eyes upon him
and she said, "I am Brynhild, once a Valkyrie but now a mortal maiden,
one who will know death and all the sorrows that mortal women know. But
there are things that I may not know, things that are false and of no
bravery."

She was the bravest and the wisest and the most beautiful maiden in the
world: Sigurd knew that it was so. He laid his sword Gram at her feet,
and he said her name, "Brynhild." He told her how he had slain the
Dragon, and how he had heard the birds tell of her. She rose from the
couch and bound her wondrous hair on her head. In wonder he watched her.
When she moved it was as though she walked above the earth.

They sat together and she told him wonderful and secret things. And she
told him, too, how she was sent by Odin from Asgard to choose the slain
for his hall Valhalla, and to give victory to those whom he willed to
have it. And she told how she had disobeyed the will of All-Father, and
how for that she was made outcast of Asgard. Odin put into her flesh the
thorn of the Tree of Sleep that she might remain in slumber until one
who was the bravest of mortal men should waken her. Whoever would break
the fastenings of the breastplate would take out the Thorn of Sleep.
"Odin granted me this," she said, "that as a