to tell:
And for him shall these shards be smithied: and he shall be my son,
To remember what I have forgotten and to do what I left undone.'"

Elf, the Viking

While Hiordis was mourning over Sigmund's lifeless body, her handmaiden
suddenly warned her of the approach of a band of vikings. Retreating
into the thicket once more, the two women exchanged garments, after
which Hiordis bade the maid walk first and personate the queen, and
they went thus to meet the viking Elf (Helfrat or Helferich). Elf
received the women graciously, and their story of the battle so
excited his admiration for Sigmund that he caused the remains of the
slain hero to be reverentially removed to a suitable spot, where they
were interred with all due ceremony. He then offered the queen and
her maid a safe asylum in his hall, and they gladly accompanied him
over the seas.

As he had doubted their relative positions from the first, Elf took
the first opportunity after arriving in his kingdom to ask a seemingly
idle question in order to ascertain the truth. He asked the pretended
queen how she knew the hour had come for rising when the winter days
were short and there was no light to announce the coming of morn,
and she replied that, as she was in the habit of drinking milk ere
she fed the cows, she always awoke thirsty. When the same question
was put to the real Hiordis, she answered, with as little reflection,
that she knew it was morning because at that hour the golden ring
which her father had given her grew cold on her hand.

The Birth of Sigurd

The suspicions of Elf having thus been confirmed, he offered marriage
to the pretended handmaiden, Hiordis, promising to cherish her
infant son, a promise which he nobly kept. When the child was born
Elf himself sprinkled him with water--a ceremony which our pagan
ancestors scrupulously observed--and bestowed upon him the name of
Sigurd. As he grew up he was treated as the king's own son, and his
education was entrusted to Regin, the wisest of men, who knew all
things, his own fate not even excepted, for it had been revealed to
him that he would fall by the hand of a youth.

"Again in the house of the Helper there dwelt a certain man,
Beardless and low of stature, of visage pinched and wan:
So exceeding old was Regin, that no son of man could tell
In what year of the days passed over he came to that land to dwell:
But the youth of king Elf had he fostered,