etters loaded, to a hostile host. So will ye all, race of
Niflungs! be of power deprived, perjurers as ye are!

17. Ill Gunnar! didst thou remember, when blood ye in your footsteps
both let flow; now hast thou him ill for all that requited, because he
would prove himself foremost.

18. Then was it proved, when the hero had ridden to see me, to woo
me, how the warlike chief whilom held sacred his oath towards the
youthful prince.

19. Laid his sword, with gold adorned, the illustrious king between
us both: outward its edges were with fire wrought, but with venom
drops tempered within."

From this lay, in which the death of Sigurd is related, it appears
that he was slain without doors, while some relate that he was slain
sleeping in his bed: but the Germans say he was slain out in the
forest; and it is told in the "Gudrunarkvida hin Forna," that Sigurd
and the sons of Giuki had ridden to the public assembly (thing) when
he was slain. But it is said by all, without exception, that they
broke faith with him, and attacked him while lying down and
unprepared.

THE FIRST LAY OF GUDRUN.

Gudrun sat over Sigurd dead; she wept not as other women, although
ready to burst with sorrow. Both men and women, came to console her,
but that was not easy. It is said by some that Gudrun had eaten of
Fafnir's heart, and therefore understood the talk of birds. This is
also sung of Gudrun:

1. Of old it was that Gudrun prepared to die, when she sorrowing
over Sigurd sat. No sigh she uttered, nor with her hands beat, nor
wailed, as other women.

2. Jarls came forward of great sagacity, from her sad state of mind
to divert her. Gudrun could not shed a tear, such was her affliction;
ready she was to burst.

3. Sat there noble wives of jarls, adorned with gold, before Gudrun;
each of them told her sorrows, the bitterest she had known.

4. Then said Giaflaug, Giuki's sister: "I know myself to be on earth
most joyless: of five consorts I the loss have suffered; of two
daughters, sisters three, and brothers eight; I alone live."

5. Gudrun could not shed a tear, such was her affliction for her
dead consort, and her soul's anguish for the king's fall.

6. Then said Herborg, Hunaland's queen: "I a more cruel grief have
to recount: my seven sons, in the south land, my spouse the eighth, in
conflict fell.

7. My father and my mother, my brothers four, on the sea the wind
deluded; the waves struck on the ship's timbers.

8. Their